Art and Social Justice: Creative Youth Development for Resiliency
Project Leader: Alaura Seidl, Lecturer, Art Department
Alongside two local organizations, Briarpatch Youth Services and The ArtWrite Collective, UW-Madison’s Art + Social Justice course will train an interdisciplinary team of students as change agents capable of facilitating resiliency-nourishing arts programming for queer youth, youth of color, and girls who disproportionately experience food and housing insecurity, trauma, and overall threats to their well being.
Assessing User Needs for Improved Access and Visualization to Statewide Historic Natural Resource Data
Project Leaders: David J. Mladenoff, Professor, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology and Howard Veregin, Wisconsin State Cartographer, State Cartographer’s Office
Our goal is for the story and data of a public land survey that spanned more than 30 years in the 19th century to become accessible and used by many to visualize the historic land use conditions. Visualization will encourage understanding and the generation of ideas for the conservation of the Wisconsin landscape. Results from the user assessment will inform recommendations to ensure that enhancements to an existing statewide database create outcomes are useful and cost-effective.
Athletic Training Students for Brain Safety: Developing a State-Wide Network
Project Leaders: Morgan Lange, Athletic Training Student, Department of Kinesiology and Bruin Armwald, Athletic Training Student, Department of Kinesiology
This project expands our local efforts in promoting brain safety to a broader audience in communities across Wisconsin by establishing brain safety organizations on university campuses throughout Wisconsin and providing them with start-up community education toolkits.
Audiology in Rural Wisconsin: Hearing Conservation at the Tomah Tractor Pull (and Beyond)
Project Leader: Melanie Buhr-Lawler, Au.D., Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
The primary objectives of this rural hearing conservation outreach project are: (1) to provide attendants of and participants in the Tomah Tractor Pull with protection from noise-induced hearing loss at the event through the distribution of earplugs and (2) to implement an effective screening and educational program that encourages carry-over of healthy hearing practices into participants’ personal and professional lives. The development of this project will create a model program with resources that can be used at other events in rural Wisconsin, such as motorcycle rallies and music festivals.
The Benefits of Bilingualism and Maintaining the Heritage Languages of Wisconsin
Project Leaders: Cathy Stafford, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Joe Salmons, Professor, Department of German
We aim to collaborate with bilingual German- and Spanish-speaking communities in Wisconsin to change public understanding of the value of bilingualism, and to promote long-term maintenance of the vitality of Wisconsin heritage languages. We will engage in outreach in these communities about the advantages of bilingualism, and about individual, community, and institutional practices that promote the maintenance or loss of bilingualism (and with it, Wisconsin heritage languages).
Building an Engaging and Inclusive Community for Guatemalan Orphans with Disabilities
Project Leaders: Stephen M. Quintana, Professor, Department of Counseling Psychology and Elizabeth Larson, Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology
This project extends a long-standing partnership between UW-Madison and ANINI, an orphanage in Guatemala for residents with significant physical and developmental disabilities. A multidisciplinary team of graduate students and faculty from Counseling Psychology, Educational Psychology, Occupational Therapy, and School of Human Ecology will design and implement anti-bullying and inclusion curricula to support ANINI students’ fuller participation in mainstream classrooms. The grant expands the partnership to include UW-Madison occupational therapy students who will (a) assess the desires of ANINI residents and caregivers for greater engagement in activity, (b) provide low and high tech solutions to support engagement in daily life activities, (c) survey the physical environment, and (d) train staff on the Movement Opportunities Via Education (MOVE) program that enables children with moderate to severe disabilities to sit, stand and walk in order to engage more actively in their environment and to position them better to participate in daily activities.
Creating Dialogue Between Public Policy and Teacher Practice: Refining the “WiPOP” (Wisconsin Policy, Outreach and Practice) Model
Project Leader: Annalee Good, Research Coordinator, Education Outreach and Partnerships
Our project expands the work of Wisconsin Policy, Outreach and Practice (WiPOP), a group of graduate students in the School of Education dedicated to increasing teacher agency and capacity around teacher-identified policy issues. We will create capacity-building sessions for K-12 teachers in two contexts: (1) schools in Dane County that have already partnered with UW-Madison through the Partner School Network and (2) teachers from across the state attending state-wide professional conferences. This exploratory work will allow us to refine a model that we hope to replicate across the state.
EHS Black Music Ensemble
Project Leader: Wilder Deitz, Student, Department of French and Italian
This project is a two-day workshop on communication, both musical and interpersonal, for participants in the Madison East High School Black Music Ensemble, a group that provides a space for student musicians of all races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds to learn advanced musical technique, perform, and connect with university and community musicians. The project will bring Webster, a Quebecois hip-hop artist, to lead workshops on black history and music.
Engaging Latino Residents of South Madison in the Conversation around Food Security
Project Leader: Hester Simons, MPH, Department of Population Health Sciences
In Wisconsin, the ratio of food insecure households increased from 1 in 12 to 1 in 9 in the last decade, and evidence suggests that Latinos are more vulnerable to food insecurity episodes when compared with other populations in the United States. The goals of this pilot program are to: (1) explore outreach and education strategies specifically designed to increase food procurement strategies, such as SNAP, WIC, and community gardens, with the aim of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption and (2) expand Centro Hispano’s general support services to include trainings and referrals related to food access. Staff from the Population Health Institute will partner with Centro Hispano of Dane County to conduct educational workshops and listening sessions with Latino residents of South Madison.
Healthy Farm-to-School Meals: Empowering Lunch Ladies as Change-Agents
Project Leader: Jennifer Gaddis, Assistant Professor, Civil Society and Community Studies, School of Human Ecology
This project aims to encourage lunch ladies in Wisconsin and across the country to make healthy, farm-to-school meals the norm in their local cafeterias. We will create an easily accessible online library of video testimonials from lunch ladies who are already leading school food reform efforts, thereby recognizing their efforts, increasing the viewers’ sense of personal- and collective-efficacy, and building a community of practice where novices can learn from those who have gained valuable experience.
Improving Wellness Knowledge and Practices in Persons with Disabilities
Project Leader: Blaise Morrison, Project Assistant/PhD Student, Rehabilitation Psychology
This project involves a collaboration between Disability Pride Madison and the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education to provide wellness education and interventions to people with disabilities at the 2015 Disability Pride Festival, with the overall goal of improving well-being and increasing wellness knowledge and practices in the disability population.
Latino Workers Study
Project Leaders: Carolina Sarmineto, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Society and Community Studies, School of Human Ecology and Armando Ibarra, Assistant Professor, School for Workers
The purpose of this research is twofold: 1) to help expose the current working conditions of Latino workers, including labor protections, wages, compensation, advancement, and the right to advocate for better working conditions in Dane County and 2) to raise the voice of vulnerable workers who are often missed in standard research. This project is a collaboration among the Department of Civil Society and Community Studies, the School for Workers, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Workers’ Rights Center, as well as students, congregations, labor unions, government agencies, and other community organizations. A fact-finding delegation of community leaders will review the findings and provide an analysis of the challenges that remain and the steps necessary to address them.
Oshkosh Correctional Institution Inmates Bring Dog Training to the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine
Project Leader: Taddy Fick, Student, School of Veterinary Medicine
This project expands the collaboration between PawsForward and the School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM). PawsForward is a group of inmates that trains seeing-eye dogs in basic obedience at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. PawsForward inmate trainers and SVM students currently participate in a learning exchange at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution: inmate dog trainers teach vet students about dog training and behavior, and veterinary students teach inmate trainers about dog health. This expansion will create inmate trainer-led instructional videos that can be accessed online through the SVM Learning Library. The project will make knowledge of dog training and behavior available to the SVM while providing PawsForward inmate trainers with experience in curriculum creation, video execution, public speaking and teaching.
Pergola Watering System
Project Leader: Erin Wendt, Student, College of Engineering and Caitlin Evers, Student, College of Engineering
This is a joint project between two students organizations, Engineers Without Borders (EWB): Domestic Group UW-Madison Chapter, which specializes in engineering green infrastructure within Wisconsin, and Edible Landscapes, which develops landscape arrangements made of edible plants to teach the community about sustainable living. EWB has developed a design for a pergola-bench system that will collect water for distribution to surrounding plants at local Madison schools, starting with Memorial High School’s Engineering Club. The project will provide workshops for K-12 students to learn about being environmentally sustainable and water conscious.
Playing with Dostoevsky: Theatre and Drama in Wisconsin Prisons
Project Leader: Manon van de Water, Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature
For the past several years, UW-Madison graduate students have offered classes to read, write and discuss literature with the inmates of the Oakhill Correctional Institution. This project expands upon the existing “Dostoevsky Behind Bars” project and adds a theatre component. There exists compelling research on work with theatre in prisons that leads to meaningful discussions and contemplations by the prisoners themselves, as well as those students working with the inmates.
Rural Youth Community Identity and Out-Migration in South Wood County
Project Leader: Kristi Anderson, Graduate Student Researcher, School of Human Ecology
In 2000, the south Wood County area was devastated by economic hardships brought about by the sale of a Fortune 500 paper company. While the immediate result was a 40% loss in total employment, the enduring impact was the loss of community identity and a staggering shift in migration choices of area youth. This project is phase one of a broader, two phase research initiative designed to explore how the dramatic shift in identity, catalyzed by the sale of the paper mill, has affected measures of community sentiment and identity of today’s generation of youth, compared to generations of students graduating in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The primary objective of phase one research is to identify an equitable sample baseline from which a mixed method survey design approach to phase two research may build. The Wisconsin Rapids Public School District and Incourage Community Foundation support this project.
UW-Madison African-American Athletes Oral History Project
Project Leaders: Troy Reeves, Head, Oral History Program, Archives and Gregory Bond, University Services Associate 2, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy
This project hopes to document, preserve, and deepen our understanding of the African-American experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by recording oral history interviews with black alumni of the Athletic Department. In the years after World War Two, African-Americans joined UW-Madison sports teams in large numbers for the first time, and it is vital to preserve these too often neglected voices. African-American athletes were frequently among the university’s most visible minority students, and their experiences as high-profile representatives of an overwhelmingly white institution are a valuable and important part of UW-Madison history.
Wisconsin Idea Exchange Asset Inventory Map Project
Project Leaders: Haley Madden, Graduate Student, Morgridge Center for Public Service and Elizabeth Tryon, Assistant Director for Community-Based Learning, Morgridge Center for Public Service
This project enhances the Wisconsin Idea Exchange, an interactive database designed to help community groups and UW-Madison faculty and staff find collaborative community-based learning and research project opportunities, as well as keep track of current partnerships, in the following ways: profile successful projects and partnerships, highlight testimonials from individuals who have had positive experiences with collaborations, increase usability, improve communications and ensure that the database is regularly updated.