UT-REACH for August 30, 2012

UT-REACH is ordinarily published once a week.

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"I have personally found that a lot of times, that good questions that you get from people outside your own field can really make you examine some of your assumptions…it’s regions that you wouldn’t have explored intellectually because of your sort of academic history."

- Wilkinson, C., Bultitude, K. and Dawson, E. (2010) ‘Oh yes, robots! People like robots; the robot people should do something’: perspectives and prospects in public engagement with robotics. Retrieved from http://www.scoop.it/t/public-engagement-why-bother

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OUTREACH & ENGAGEMENT NEWS:

1. UT Professor, Students, and Local Company Develop Client‐centered Nutrition Counseling Program

2. 2012 Call for Proposals: UTK Outreach and Engagement Funding

3. Fall 2012 Passports are Here

4. Shaping Our Future: How Should Higher Education Help Us Create the Society We Want?

5. 2012 Clinton Global Initiative Meeting Announced: “Designing for Impact”

CONFERENCES, PAPERS, & NOMINATIONS:

6. Call for Poster Presentations: Using Data to Improve Quality in Public Service

7. Journal of Extension: For Outreach Professionals

8. Free event/webinar: Extension’s Public Purposes and Value in Troubled Times

9. National Community Partner Forum: Advancing Health Research Equity & Action

10. Live-stream: 67th Annual National Conference on Citizenship

FUNDING:

11. EPA: Environmental Education Regional Model Grants

12. Duke Foundation Offers Community Grants

NEW READINGS & RESOURCES:

13. How Colleges Can Spark Economic and Community Development

14. What do Practicing Research Scientists Get Out of Doing Public Engagement?

15. Ten Big Questions on Public Engagement on Science and Technology: Observations from a Rocky Boat in the Upstream and Downstream of Engagement

16. Idea File: Deepening Engagement, One Drawing at a Time

17. Free: Arts & Equity Toolkit For Community-Engaged Artists

18. Public Administration Scholarship & the Politics of Coproducing Academic–Practitioner Research

19. Program helps families create their own solutions

QUICK LINKS: ENGAGEMENT FUNDING, SUBMISSION CALLS, CONFERENCES, AND MORE:

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OUTREACH & ENGAGEMENT NEWS:

1. UT Professor, Students, and Local Company Develop Client‐centered Nutrition Counseling Program
When Becka Wilson, the Wellness Coordinator at Radio Systems Corporation contacted UT’s Hollie Raynor last fall for assistance in developing a nutrition component for the company’s worksite wellness program, Raynor agreed. Hollie Raynor, a 2011-12 recipient of a UT Outreach Incentive Grant, used her grant funds to work closely with Wilson and two grad students to develop a new client‐centered nutrition counseling component for the company’s wellness program.

2. 2012 Call for Proposals: UTK Outreach and Engagement Funding

What would YOU do with an Outreach Incentive Grant? The Chancellor provides special project funding for projects, partnerships, or programs that promote the principles of engagement as applied to research, teaching, or outreach. Prospective applicants are encouraged to review previously-funded projects as well as the funding guidelines, all of which can be viewed on UT’s Public Engagement website.

· Application Deadline: October 5, 2012

· More

3. Fall 2012 Passports are Here

The Fall 2012 Ready for the World Passports are ready for distribution. The Passport is a free calendar and guide to many international and intercultural events on campus and in the community. If you would like Passports to distribute to your classes, contact Amy Blakely at [log in to unmask] or 974-5034.

4. Shaping Our Future: How Should Higher Education Help Us Create the Society We Want?

In today’s breathtaking changes the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP) believes that higher education needs an equally fundamental change. ACP is a coalition of colleges, universities and others launched last January at the White House for the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act, which established land grant colleges. The first large-scale ACP campaign is a national conversation using materials developed by National Issues Forums Institute. “Shaping Our Future” will take place in communities and colleges, as citizens discuss the role of higher education in America’s future.

· Issues Guide (text)

· Issues Video (9 min)

5. 2012 Clinton Global Initiative Meeting Announced: “Designing for Impact”

The Clinton Global Initiative meeting in September will bring together more than 1,000 participants, including current and former heads of state, Fortune 500 CEOs, and leaders from the nonprofit sector. “This year, our Annual Meeting will help CGI members design solutions to critical challenges such as empowering girls and women to be full participants in the global economy, encouraging the private sector to create markets for the under-served, and increasing the sustainability of our food supply as global demand doubles within the next 50 years,” said President Clinton. “[Thus far,] We . . . have made more than 2,100 commitments that are impacting nearly 400 million lives in more than 180 countries.”

· More

CONFERENCES, PAPERS, & NOMINATIONS:

6. Call for Poster Presentations: Using Data to Improve Quality in Public Service

The Tennessee Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (TN-ASPA) is accepting proposals for a poster session dedicated to public administrator’s quality improvement efforts. Proposals that address the program theme are especially encouraged. Scholars and students are invited to join us at our 27th ANNUAL TN-ASPA FALL SYMPOSIUM "Using data to improve quality in public service" on Thursday December 13, 2012 at One Century Place Conference Center, Nashville TN.

· Key dates: Proposals due October 31, 2012

· Details

7. Journal of Extension: For Outreach Professsionals

The Journal of Extension (JOE) expands and updates the research and knowledge base for U.S. Extension professionals and other outreach educators to improve their effectiveness. JOE is a refereed journal. Feature, Research in Brief, and Ideas at Work submissions undergo double-blind review, and Commentary and Tools of the Trade submissions are reviewed by the editor, Dr. Laura Hoelscher. The acceptance rate for articles submitted to JOE is currently 27.8%.

· Details, and Latest Online Edition

8. Free event/webinar: Extension’s Public Purposes and Value in Troubled Times

(University of Minnesota) As we celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Morrill Act and look forward to the Cooperative Extension System’s centennial in 2014, universities need to ask some fundamental questions about the land-grant research university's ongoing mission: learning, discovery, and engagement for the common good. Join the conversation with presenters Scott J. Peters, Professor, Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University; Co-Director, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life; and Richard Senese, Senior Associate Dean, University of Minnesota Extension.

· Date: Wed., Sept. 19, 2012, 4- 5:30 p.m. (Central Time)

· For Details and to register

9. National Community Partner Forum: Advancing Health Research Equity & Action

Community leaders from across the country will convene December 5-7, 2012 in Washington DC in the first conference on health disparities research that has been designed by and for leaders of community-based organizations engaged in research.

· Conference Date: December 5-7, 2012

· More

10. Live-stream: 67th Annual National Conference on Citizenship

The 67th Annual National Conference on Citizenship will be held in Philadelphia on Friday, September 14, 2012 from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. The Conference will be held in partnership with the National Constitution Center during their year-long series of events celebrating the 225th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution. A live-stream of the event will be available from 1-5:30 on September 14 at NCoC.net/live. During this time, questions will be taken via Twitter and U-Stream chat from online participants to ask during open discussion times on the stage. A current list of registered attendees is available here.

· Conference date: September 14, 2012

· Details

FUNDING:

11. EPA: Environmental Education Regional Model Grants

The purpose of this Grants Program is to provide money to support environmental education (EE) projects that increase the public's awareness about environmental issues and provide them with the skills to take responsible actions to protect the environment. Note: Environmental information and outreach may be important elements of EE projects, but grantor does not consider these activities by themselves to be environmental education. EE covers the range of steps and activities from awareness to action with an ultimate goal of environmental stewardship.

· Deadline: November 21, 2012

· Details

12. Duke Foundation Offers Community Grants

Applicants must fit within the focus areas and have the appropriate IRS status. Organizations with a 501(c)(3) verification from the IRS or are a part of a governmental entity may apply for a grant. The Duke Energy Foundation areas of focus are Community Vitality, Environment, Education, and Economic Development. Proposals should be submitted between the opening of the on-line giving system (usually in February), and before the on-line system closes (usually in November) of each year.

· Details

NEW READINGS & RESOURCES:

13. How Colleges Can Spark Economic and Community Development

(Huffington Post, August 22) Wagner College President Richard Guarasci considers four conditions of successful civic-campus partnerships. (1) Sustainability: must add value to community without adding undue expense to the campus. (2) Student learning must be a primary goal for all stakeholders. (3) Partners must have clear and measurable goals. (4) Democracy: campus and community goals and needs must be understood as thoroughly intertwined.

· Read more

· Read part one

14. What do Practicing Research Scientists Get Out of Doing Public Engagement?

"The challenge is to make scientists conscious that science is embedded in society, and that dialogue with the wider public is a prerequisite for scientific responsibility. In fact, it is the role of the public to make scientists responsible. Scientists have to learn this... Responsible Research and Innovation must become an integral part of the scientific process... The benefit is more responsible science and less regulation, including fewer control mechanisms"

· More

15. Ten Big Questions on Public Engagement on Science and Technology: Observations from a Rocky Boat in the Upstream and Downstream of Engagement

(International Journal of Deliberative Mechanisms in Science, July 2012) That good public engagement on contentious science and technology applications leads to better product and policy outcomes is fairly easy to get an agreement on. But as to what good engagement in this area actually looks like in practice – that isn’t so clear. This paper offers an overview of observations that raise some question about science and technology engagements that need to be better addressed in both theories and practices.

· Download

16. Idea File: Deepening Engagement, One Drawing at a Time

This spring, The Big Wild launched a collaborative digital art project that invited Canadians to contribute to a new version of a music video, and support the protection of part of the Niagara Escarpment at the same time. When visitors arrived at the website, they were presented with a randomly-selected frame from a video of Sarah Harmer singing her song “I’m a Mountain.” After selecting a frame, they illustrated the still using a set of simple drawing tools. They could trace it, add to it or radically re-envision it. The site aggregated the resulting frames into a new version of the video. Each time someone drew a frame, The Big Wild made a donation to Sarah’s Protecting Escarpment Rural Land (PERL), an organization dedicated to protecting Southern Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment. This story is about how the project measured the results, and what conclusions they drew from the metrics.

· More

17. Free: Arts & Equity Toolkit For Community-Engaged Artists

Designed to provide artists and groups with practical tools to reduce barriers to community participation in the arts, the Arts & Equity Toolkit is a comprehensive document that includes case studies, worksheets, resource links, and quotes from Toronto-based artists and groups. Available for free through the Neighbourhood Arts Network.

· More

18. Public Administration Scholarship & the Politics of Coproducing Academic–Practitioner Research

Developing greater cooperation between researchers and practitioners is a long-standing concern in social science. Research coproduction offers a number of potential gains but it also raises some dilemmas. Benefits include bringing local knowledge to bear on the field, making better informed policy, and putting research to better use. However, coproduction of research also involves managing ambiguous loyalties, reconciling different interests, and negotiating competing goals.

· Read more

19. Program helps families create their own solutions

(Boston Globe, 8/26/12) Five women sit around a conference table. One was recently homeless and her 4-year-old seems out of control; another has a disabled child who requires care she can’t afford; another is feeling defeated by her children’s staggered school schedules. There are 35 groups like this, all over the city. They began convening a couple of years ago, each working toward different goals. They have names like “Limitless,” “Dream Team,” and “Survivors.” They’re drawn together by a little-known outfit called the Family Independence Initiative, which recruits families, urges them to identify their aspirations, and pays them $160 a month to record their progress toward achieving them. The central idea behind the initiative is that poor people have the resourcefulness to solve their own problems.

· Read more

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QUICK LINKS: ENGAGEMENT FUNDING, SUBMISSION CALLS, CONFERENCES, AND MORE:

August 2012:

· Meeting to discuss STEM Outreach Programs for Middle-School Girls. TODAY, Aug 30th, at 12:30pm at NIMBioS, Claxton Bldg., Rm. 105.

· The Role of Higher Education in Local and Regional Social and Economic Development. Early-bird registration deadline August 31, 2012; Conference October 29-31, 2012.

· Call for Papers: 2012 Midwest ECO Conference. Proposal Deadline August 31, 2012.

September 2012:

· STEM Education Outreach “Brown Bag” Planning Meeting. September 7, 2012.

· Cyber-seminar: "Bridging Research and Reality". September 11, 2012.

· G2012 Mexico and Ashoka Changemakers Announce Global Competition for Inclusive Financial Services Solutions. Early deadline (eligible for extra $1000): July 30, 2012; Regular deadline: September 12, 2012.

· HRSA: R40 Maternal and Child Health Research Program (MCHR). Deadline: September 12, 2012.