The Office of Engagement Initiatives has awarded nearly $840,000 to 21 teams of faculty and community partners that are integrating community engagement into majors and minors across the university.

The 2018–19 Engaged Curriculum Grant teams include more community partners and Cornell departments than ever before – 77 and 48, respectively. Fourteen projects include partners from New York state communities – from Rochester to Ithaca to New York City – while seven projects include international partners.

“Infusing community engagement into the curriculum is a key way for all Cornell students to engage with local and global communities,” said Katherine McComas, vice provost for engagement and land-grant affairs. “We’re especially excited that a quarter of this year’s projects provide opportunities for first- and second-year students. Many current community-engaged learning courses are open to upperclassmen and graduate students, so it’s wonderful to support increased opportunities for all students to engage with communities.”

Applications for Engaged Curriculum Grants and other Engaged Cornell funding for faculty, staff and students are now open.

Funded projects for 2018–19:

• Applied Mathematics in Action: Transforming the applied math curriculum to prepare students for diverse career paths solving real-world problems.
• Biomedical Engineering for Rural Health Care: Developing a student exchange program with a college in Tanzania to spur the design of accurate, reliable and robust medical equipment that works in multiple contexts.
• Community-Engaged Learning in Emerging Economies: Partnering with entrepreneurs, nongovernmental organizations, universities and rural communities in developing countries to tackle challenges in business, agriculture and natural resource management.
• Dyson Performance Learning Lab: Working with Tompkins County partners to cultivating socially responsible business leaders prepared to solve global development challenges.
• Engaged Learning for International Migration: Conducting research projects in the field and developing strategies that will help improve conditions for immigrant farmworkers (renewal).
• Engaged Performance: Creating opportunities for engagement, cultural outreach and community building through music (renewal).
• Engineering Puerto Rico’s Infrastructure: Using community-engaged engineering to design for resilience during Puerto Rico’s reconstruction.
• Equitable eEngagement: Developing a strategy for high-quality online university-community engagement.
• Food Systems for Global Health: Exploring challenges and providing solutions to food system issues that touch every part of the globe (renewal).
• Global and Public Health Sciences Major: Reaching underserved communities with health prevention and treatment information through a major that promotes cultural sensitivity and community engagement (renewal).
• Learning Through Advocacy: Mobilizing students to combat the consequences of unemployment in the community through legal advocacy.
• Interdisciplinary Tax Services for Low-Income Immigrants: Training accounting and law students to assist low-income immigrant taxpayers in their taxation and legal needs (renewal).
• Minor and Internship Program in Health, Hospitality and Design: Creating a sustainable and healthy future through a minor and internship program that promotes design innovation, research and community engagement (renewal).
• Minor in Applied Science Communication and Public Engagement: Preparing students to be socially engaged scientists and expanding the pool of experienced science communicators working with local organizations.
• Peace Building in Conflict Regions: Engaging with reconciliation and development efforts in Israel and the Palestinian territories and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Policy and the Science of Climate Change: Bringing students to United Nations negotiations on climate change policy.
• Promoting Engineering Communication and Materials Science and Engineering: Educating high school students about materials science and engineering through a nationally distributed learning module and a community outreach course (renewal).
• Remaking the City: Introducing information science students to the technological challenges faced by community organizations in New York City.
• Seed to Supper: Working with central New York addressing hunger and food security issues directly through student-supported community gardening advocacy (renewal).
• Taking America’s Pulse: Teaching students advanced survey methods and analysis through a national opinion poll.
• Theater and Climate Change: Bringing local stories to the stage to illustrate the cultural impact of climate change on Finger Lakes communities (renewal).

Ashlee McGandy is content strategist in the Office of Engagement Initiatives.

This article also appeared in the Cornell Chronicle.