Contact: Randy Wallar, 608-262-5781, jrwallar@wisc.edu
MADISON – The Morgridge Center for Public Service will award $297,769 to support academically based service-learning courses and community-based research work at the University of Wisconsin -Madison.
The support comes through a special grant program established by John and Tashia Morgridge in 2009 to institutionalize engaged scholarship at UW-Madison.
The effort matches 50 percent of grants and gifts awarded to UW-Madison campus individuals or entities and community-campus partnerships for new projects that align with the Morgridge Center’s mission and goals. This round of grants is the third of a five-year program.
Faculty and instructional staff in the areas of education, law, environment and health will receive the grants for community- focused work during the next two years.
Sherry Tanumijhardjo, nutritional sciences professor in UW-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, was awarded a $40,000 two-year grant to support more than a dozen international field courses.
In those courses, students will expand their knowledge of global challenges for nutrition, health education, water and sanitation, and environmental sustainability and stewardship.
“This project is emblematic of our colleagues’ dedication to the Wisconsin Idea, a concept that the university should improve people’s lives beyond the classroom and expand the reach of our teaching, research, outreach and public service throughout the world,” says Nancy Mathews, the center’s director.
She adds: “The Morgridge Center supports these projects as part of its role in bridging the campus and community through service and learning.”
In addition to Tanumijhardjo’s health and nutrition project, other projects supported by the Morgridge Match Grant program include:
– Taking Service Learning Online: Building Virtual Community (Law School), $49,548;
– Wisconsin Innocence Project Outreach Project (Law School), $30,000;
– Service Learning in Graduate Education: Community Collaboration for Health Impact Assessments (School of Medicine and Public Health), $15,590;
– Indigenous Arts and Sciences Earth Partnership (UW Arboretum), $17,261;
– Addressing Postpartum Depression in Wisconsin Home Visiting Programs (School of Medicine and Public Health), $31,858;
– Public/Engaged Scholarship and Graduate Education (School of Human Ecology), $4,850;
– Community Environmental Scholars Program: Service Learning Capstone Courses (Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies), $23,672;
– UW Law School’s Dane County Mediation Center, $46,903;
– Science Shop Support for Southwest Madison (College of Agricultural and Life Sciences), $22,525, and;
– Community/University Exchange: Community-Based Research and Service Learning in South Madison (School of Human Ecology), $17,000.
A full list of the grants and the recipients appears at
http://www.morgridge.wisc.edu/faculty/matchingfunds/Spring2012MMprojects.html.
