Badger Reach: Impactful Summer Internships in Milwaukee, Chicago and the Twin Cities
Project Leader: Joel F. Clark, Ph.D., Career and Internship Instructor – Social Sciences, Department of Political Science, College of Letters and Science
Duration: Three years
Impactful internships are structured, academically oriented workplace arrangements that extend and apply student learning to perennial public challenges in the areas of education/social welfare, civic participation/voting, law/human rights and environment/urban design. Impactful internships reinforce the university’s mission related to civic engagement, professional development and the Wisconsin Idea, and establish ongoing relationships among students, community leaders, and UW-Madison alumni, faculty, staff and leadership. This project differs from standard internship programs in its emphasis on making distinct, measurable impacts in three cities that welcome UW students’ assistance – Milwaukee, Chicago and the Twin Cities, and in its focus on building program support from within UW-Madison and without, among communities working to affect positive change. Partners include public and nonprofit sector organizations in each city.
Bringing Clean Water to Tabuga: Engineers Without Borders-UW, Ecuador Project
Project Leaders: Anna Sailor, Student, Mechanical Engineering and Bailey Flanigan, Student, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Duration: Two years
This project partners UW-Madison students with the Madison Area Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders and the Ceiba Foundation to design and implement a system to decontaminate and distribute water to the community of Tabuga, Ecuador, which currently lacks sufficient and clean drinking water. The project will also create an education curriculum on water usage and system maintenance, and work with community leaders to design a metering system.
Building Food Justice Capacity in South Madison
Project Leaders: Dadit Hidayat, Doctoral Student, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Alfonso Morales, Associate Professor, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Department of Urban and Regional Planning, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and College of Letters and Science
Duration: Two years
Partnering with the South Madison Farmer’s Market the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development, this project builds food justice capacity in South Madison by forging a network of entrepreneurship opportunities in the field of urban agriculture for formerly incarcerated citizens while improving healthy food access to the broader South Madison community. The goal will be reached through three objectives: 1) organizing a series of civic engagement activities such as urban agriculture mini-workshops and community dinners with formerly incarcerated individuals; 2) selecting three formerly incarcerated individuals and training them in commercial urban agriculture entrepreneurship; and 3) engaging additional South Madison community groups in area urban agriculture to develop a better understanding of the science of local food and a stronger sense of South Madison’s food justice community.
The Engaged Ensemble
Project Leader: Susan C. Cook, Director, School of Music, College of Letters and Science
Duration: Two years
This project seeks to transform the School of Music’s past outreach program and create a new faculty ensemble mission by moving faculty ensembles into new off-campus residency sites where they can provide in-depth sustained educational experiences for targeted communities and audiences. The ensembles will build a sustained and innovative relationship with an initial partner, the Milwaukee High School of the Arts.
Enhancing Agricultural Knowledge and Human Thriving in Africa: An Integrated One Health and Gender Empowerment Approach
Project Leaders: Christopher W. Olsen, Professor of Public Health and Acting Director of the Global Health Institute, Department of Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine and Mary Crave, Program Development and Evaluation Specialist, UW-Extension
Duration: Two years
The UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and Global Health Institute, in collaboration with the 4W Initiative (For Women and Well-Being in Wisconsin and the World), UW-Extension and the School of Education, propose a program to enhance agricultural education and human thriving in Africa. This project will be undertaken in collaboration with AgriCorps, a non-governmental organization that places American agricultural education volunteers in Africa, and 4-H Ghana, which provides opportunities for youth to develop livelihood and life skills through after-school clubs and home activities in agriculture and leadership development. The project will enrich the curriculum of 4-H Ghana by adding gender empowerment education and a One Health perspective, which refers to the interdependence of health and disease among humans, domestic and free-ranging animals and their shared ecosystems. Specific goals are to: develop school-based agriculture curricula incorporating One Health and gender empowerment, in collaboration with and pre-tested by colleagues from Ghana; train 4-H advisors and mentors and AgriCorps volunteers to deliver the curriculum in culturally appropriate ways; develop assessment tools to evaluate participants’ learning and the pedagogy employed; and contribute to development of long-term strategies to evaluate the well-being of women and agriculture.
Goja Howaite Hi: Ho-Chunk Indigenous Arts and Sciences
Project Leaders: Cheryl Bauer-Armstrong, Earth Partnership Program Manager, Arboretum and Maria Moreno, Earth Partnership Multicultural Outreach Specialist, Arboretum
Duration: Two years
Goja Howaite Hi will convene the expertise of the UW–Madison Arboretum, Nelson Institute, School of Education, School of Human Ecology, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the Ho-Chunk Nation and others to address the needs of K-16 educators to access culturally accurate and authentic resources in STEM disciplines and across the curriculum. Long-term goals include broadening participation and generating enthusiasm among Ho-Chunk youth to find strength in their cultural heritage and become inspired to explore STEM careers that meet future workforce needs in science, technology and natural resources. Schools in Black River Falls, Tomah, Mauston, Baraboo, Wisconsin Dells and Madison will be involved.
An Integrated PATH for Transgender Youth
Project Leaders: Brittany J. Allen, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics-General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health and Jennifer L. Rehm, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics-Endocrinology, School of Medicine and Public Health
Duration: Two years
This project aims to make the evidence-based services and resources at the Pediatric and Adolescent Transgender Health (PATH) clinic at American Family Children’s Hospital available to youth and advocates throughout the state. The project will create a partnership with community advocates, including the Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools, to support the whole transgender child and their family through integration of mental health, legal, educational, and advocacy services. In addition, the project aims to provide education and resources that will empower providers and community members to work towards these goals.
MEDiC and Center for Families Pediatric Clinic
Project Leaders: Madeline Duffy, MPH, Director, Office of Community Services Programs, School of Medicine and Public Health and Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine and Public Health
Duration: Three years
The Center for Families is a nonprofit organization that provides a comprehensive array of social and support services to underserved families on the north side of Madison. MEDiC, a School of Medicine and Public Health organization, provides healthcare to underserved members of the Madison community, while fostering interprofessional educational experiences for UW-Madison students in the Medical, Nursing, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, and Physician Assistant programs. MEDiC and the Center for Families will form a new partnership to better address the wellbeing of children through a poverty-sensitive, pediatric medical clinic. Rooted in evidence-based best practices, this clinic will provide an integrated psychosocial and medical approach to care, leveraging social service referrals within and between organizations and with external community partners.
Menominee Language Texts for Teachers
Project Leader: Monica Macaulay, Professor, Department of Linguistics and Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Culture, College of Letters and Science
Duration: Two years
Menominee is a severely endangered Wisconsin language, with only 5-10 elderly speakers left. The language is taught in all schools on the reservation (preschool through college), but two related problems persist for the teachers: a lack of conversational fluency, and a need for additional training in the grammar of the language. Since there are so few native speakers remaining, teachers and other intermediate/advanced learners are in need of materials that model fluent connected speech. Working closely with speakers, language activists and the Menominee Language and Culture Commission, this project will produce a book containing transliterated and retranslated texts with accompanying glossaries, discussion of key grammatical patterns illustrated by each text, and teaching materials.
Microgrids Partnership for Sustainable Global Development
Project Leader: Giri Venkataramanan, Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Duration: Two years
This project is a partnership among UW-Madison and three organizations in Mysore, India – The National Institute of Engineering, Arivu School and Development through Education – to advance the technology of microgrids for sustainable global development. The project will install a prototype system in Mysore, develop field demonstration of the ‘utility-in-a-box’, deploy a village electric system and establish a vocational education program.
Response to Act 31: Disseminating Resources on American Indians in Wisconsin to Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers in the State
Project Leaders: Aaron Bird Bear, Senior Student Services Coordinator, American Indian Studies Curriculum Services, School of Education and Simone Schweber, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education
Duration: Second year of funding provided for this two-year project
The American Indian Curriculum Services unit in the School of Education will lead a much-needed effort to disseminate teaching tools and resources focusing on Wisconsin’s American Indian tribes and bands to public and private teacher education programs in the state and to practicing teachers in Wisconsin’s 424 school districts. State legislation passed in 1989 known as Act 31 requires that both pre-service and in-service teachers have an understanding of the history, culture and tribal sovereignty of the 11 federally recognized American Indian tribes of Wisconsin and that they be provided with accurate, culturally authentic teaching tools. Unfunded at the time of passage, Act 31 has never been widely implemented and teachers today still lack appropriate resources. Building on results from an information gathering survey about the needs of school administrators and teachers, the team proposes to address this lack of knowledge and teaching tools with 1) a multi-media web resources developed by the School of Education’s Media, Educational Resources and Information Technology unit, and 2) a rigorous dissemination effort about the new resources.
UW-Madison Community Citizenship Education Program
Project Leaders: Laurie S. Z. Greenberg, Program Director, Special Projects, Division of Continuing Studies and Armando Ibarra, Assistant Professor, UW Extension
Duration: Two years
This program will increase the number of Latino Lawful Permanent Residents in Wisconsin who become responsible, civically engaged U.S. citizens. Working with partner institutions in the Madison Latino community, program staff from Continuing Studies and UW-Extension will target immigrants in Dane County who have the legal right to apply for U.S. citizenship but who face significant barriers to citizenship. The program will enable immigrants to overcome the major obstacles to citizenship by offering a bilingual, 8-week U.S. history and civics course in preparation for the citizenship exam; one-on-one legal consultation; and an annual citizenship fair with a one-day workshop to complete a U.S. citizenship application.
Youth Action Council: Growing New Leaders for Community Change
Project Leader: Brian Christens, Associate Professor, Civil Society and Community Studies, School of Human Ecology
Duration: Two years
The Lussier Community Education Center in Madison and the UW-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies are working together to develop the Youth Action Project into a powerful learning community for youth leaders of color. The Youth Action Project will move from pilot to program by means of an evaluation to focus on the most effective parts of the experience, systematize the learning and leadership opportunities offered, and fully integrate the project into the youth programming at the Lussier Center. This will include defining roles for youth in their second through fourth year of the Youth Action Project that support their continued development and engage them in developing younger leaders, accessing professional development opportunities for staff, connecting to established networks of youth organizing groups, developing evidence of effectiveness and building relationships with potential long-term funders. The team will also plan how the Youth Action Project can be grown to develop more youth leaders across the community.