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November 10, 2008
Grants fuse scholars and community

By JENNIFER SOONG

Community partnership mini grants awarded by the Office of University-Community Partnerships support a sweeping range of activities around the Emory campus and metro Atlanta.

Take the juniors and seniors in Ellen Spears’ “Service Learning in Environmental Studies” course. They interviewed 120 City of Atlanta workers last spring about their commuting habits and helped the city to design and develop sustainable alternatives.

“Emory students have been helping the city learn things that will have a real impact on the carbon footprint,” says environmental studies lecturer Spears. “The mini grants provide invaluable practical support for engaged learning by Emory students.”

These kinds of opportunities can really open doors for students, she says. For example, two students from Spears’ class received paid summer internships with the City of Atlanta.

In another grant-funded activity, students from the class created lesson plans about botany and sustainability targeted at third-graders at the Drew Charter School in southeast Atlanta.

“We want to connect Emory teaching and scholarship with meeting community needs,” says Sam Marie Engle, senior associate director of OUCP.

The funding program has grown both in the number of grants awarded and the number of departments and academic units participating. For example, Emory School of Law students worked with at-risk youth organizations to inform youth of their rights within the juvenile justice system.

“We’ve been really pleased with how diverse the grant proposals are,” says Engle. “From monitoring wildlife in a fragile wetlands preserve to screening NASCAR fans at Atlanta Motor Speedway for cancer, Emory faculty really are creative and thoughtful about how they apply their teaching and research expertise to help our community.”

The OUCP typically awards $25,000 in grants each semester, and that number will likely increase in the future. The maximum grant amount has increased to $3,000 for teaching mini grants and $5,500 for research mini grants.

A recent $1 million gift from The Coca-Cola Foundation to the OUCP’s Sustainable Partnerships for Atlanta Neighborhoods project means that it can fund more mini grants to support faculty who want to incorporate teaching and research activities related to sustainability, environmental stewardship and equitable development.

Mini grant funds may be used to cover reasonable costs associated with the project, such as transportation costs, printed materials, project supplies and specialized training. Mini grants can also be used to provide supplementary funding for projects that already have grant funding assistance, if used to pay for things that a grant specifically cannot cover.

To apply, visit http://oucp.emory.edu. The deadline for spring and summer 2009 grants is Dec. 2.