Penn State receives $1.8 million grant to support community-University engagement

University Park, Pa. -- A new Penn State initiative is promoting University-wide institutional change that will transform the way the University partners with communities to solve some of their most pressing challenges. The initiative will help integrate community engagement into the mainstream of faculty scholarly activities at Penn State, expanding the academic and outreach resources available to improve the quality of life of Pennsylvanians.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Mich., has awarded Penn State $1.8 million, over three years, to create the FOCUS for Engagement: Forming Outreach Community University Systems for Engagement model. Penn State is one of four universities nationwide receiving funding for community-university engagement models, including the University of California, Santa Cruz; the University of Texas at El Paso; and the University of Minnesota. This new initiative builds upon efforts over the last eight years to strengthen Penn State's capacity to respond to societal needs and contribute solutions at local, state and national levels.

"The FOCUS project will build a model for embedding engagement into the entire university through outreach, connecting faculty with communities," said Wayne D. Smutz, senior director of University Continuing Education and FOCUS co-project director. "The Kellogg Foundation's funding of these initiatives is significant, because the projects have the potential to dramatically change the way universities interact with their communities."

FOCUS co-project director Karen L. Bierman, distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children, Youth and Families Consortium, added, "Our goal is to engage more research faculty in the collaborative process of working with communities. We have begun building the relationships with Outreach faculty and staff and research faculty and staff that will enable us to increase the integration of faculty research with outreach activities."

The Kellogg Foundation's focus on engagement began six years ago with the release of a report by the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities encouraging higher education institutions to collaborate with communities to make life better for people.

Penn State President Graham B. Spanier chaired the commission. "The FOCUS model addresses the philosophy of engagement the commission outlined in 1999, where universities would create partnerships with communities that are two-way streets defined by mutual respect for what each partner brings to the table," he said.

The Penn State project to be conducted using the new outreach engagement model will help communities with school readiness issues. This spring, FOCUS teams will select several communities to participate in the pilot program.

"The University will design, implement and evaluate school readiness programs tailored to each community's needs," Bierman said. "We will then be able to use the sustained relationships and strong networks we have built to develop future partnerships addressing other societal issues."

According to Smutz, "A key goal of FOCUS is to maximize the capacity of communities to sustain these programs over time. Planning for sustainability is part of the FOCUS model and will include helping communities build skills to sustain their programs."

Sustaining institutional change within the University is a vital component of the project. Statewide FOCUS meetings will be held for University and community participants, and faculty will have opportunities to make presentations about their activities at the national Outreach Scholarship Conference, sponsored annually by Penn State and other universities.

"This new interdisciplinary engagement model has tremendous potential to have an impact in other areas of education, as well as in the health and workforce and economic development areas," said Craig D. Weidemann, vice president for Penn State Outreach.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 "to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations." Its programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions and healthy communities.

To achieve the greatest impact, the foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These include health, food systems and rural development, youth and education, and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these areas, attention is given to exploring learning opportunities in leadership, information and community technology, capitalizing on diversity, and social and economic community development. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.