UNCG Engaged Impact

In 2021, after becoming one of 4 regional winners of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities‘ 2021 W. K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Awards, UNCG was named the APLU’s national winner of the C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award.

UNCG received the recognitions for its multipronged approach to increasing access to culturally responsive scholarship and community engagement. Through initiatives such as the Immigrant Health ACCESS Project (IHAP), part of the UNCG Center for New North Carolinians (CNNC), UNCG has helped create multi-directional pathways of health care access to marginalized communities.

“We applaud the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for its comprehensive approach to community engagement,” said APLU President Peter McPherson. “Partnering with the communities they serve to address shared challenges is at the heart of the public university mission. UNCG’s work to improve health care access to marginalized communities is a powerful example of the role public universities play in this space.”

The awards recognizes programs that demonstrate how colleges and universities have redesigned their learning, discovery, and engagement missions to deepen their partnerships to achieve broader impacts in their communities. Other regional finalists for the award were the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Minnesota, and Virginia Tech. The national award included a sculpture and $20,000 prize.

In 2024, UNCG was re-certified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a community-engaged institution. UNCG was among a select group of 119 universities and colleges nationwide to be recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for renewal of its 2008 Community Engagement Elective Classification. UNCG received the classification in both categories: curricular engagement and outreach and partnerships. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching defines community engagement as collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.

• Engagement Scholarship Consortium – 2022 Distinguished Engaged Scholar Award Dr. Terri Shelton, Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement, has received the Engagement Scholarship Consortium’s 2022 Distinguished Engaged Scholar Award. The highly competitive awards program recognizes exemplary contributions to community-engaged scholarship at public and private higher education institutions. UNCG has strategically invested in and supported the development of community-engaged scholarship throughout VC Shelton’s tenure as vice chancellor. In 2010, the university became one of the first to explicitly recognize community-engaged work within promotion and tenure guidelines. UNCG also developed and launched the Collaboratory®, a database to track institutional community-engagement activities, networks, and impacts – the tool has now been licensed and used by over 50 other universities and colleges. Shelton, a clinical psychologist and UNCG’s Carol Jenkins Mattocks Distinguished Professor, has served as a principal investigator or co-investigator on projects representing over $42 million in external funding.
• NC Campus Engagement – 2022 Faculty Engaged Scholarship Award Awarded to Dr. Marianne LeGreco. Launched in 2020, the Engaged Scholarship Prize was developed by NCCE in partnership with Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, to grow and promote the scholarship of engagement in North Carolina. Learn More
• NC Campus Engagement – 2022 Graduate Student Engaged Scholarship Award Awarded to Jessica Clifford. Launched in 2020, the Engaged Scholarship Prize was developed by NCCE in partnership with Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, to grow and promote the scholarship of engagement in North Carolina. Learn More
• Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship – 2021 Inductee Dr. Emily Janke, director of UNCG’s Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, has been elected to membership in the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship. Janke, who is also a peace and conflict studies faculty member, is one of 38 scholars in the United States and Canada formally inducted as an academy scholar this year. As the director of UNCG’s Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, Dr. Janke facilitates and elevates community-university partnerships and leads initiatives to integrate community-engaged scholarship into higher education culture and processes.
• International Association for Research on SL & CE – 2021 Public Scholarship Award The International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement has recognized Dr. Marianne LeGreco with its 2021 Public Scholarship Award. The associate professor of communications studies was honored for her work grounded in community-engaged approaches to building communication infrastructure around food. The Public Scholarship Award is for exemplary interdisciplinary research that has a demonstrable ameliorative impact on pressing public issues with a special focus on the knowledge needs of policymakers and practitioners. The award recognizes research that generates non-traditional scholarly products, presented in a manner that is widely accessible to targeted audiences or the general public. Learn More
• Campus Compact – 2020 Civically Engaged Faculty Award Diya Abdo, Director of the Center for New North Carolinians, received the Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award in March 2020. Honorees are recognized for exemplary engaged scholarship, including leadership in advancing students’ civic learning, conducting community-based research, fostering reciprocal community partnerships, building institutional commitments to service-learning and civic engagement, and other means of enhancing higher education’s contributions to the public good.
• Campus Compact – 2020 Award for the Scholarship of Engagement Dr. Michael Hemphill, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, received the 2020 Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement from Campus Compact. The award recognizes early career faculty who practice exemplary engaged scholarship through teaching and research. The awards are presented in partnership with Brown University’s Swearer Center. Recipients are selected on the basis of their collaboration with communities, institutional impact, and high-quality academic work. Hemphill’s scholarship focuses on teaching personal and social responsibility through sport, physical activity, and physical education guided by the principles of restorative justice. He is the co-author of the Restorative Youth Sports model, which was informed by restorative practitioners in New Zealand. His efforts focus on interdisciplinary approaches to community engagement that respond to community-identified needs by using sports and physical activity as a way to invite youth to build developmental relationships, foster personal and social skills, and develop a critical consciousness that helps them examine issues of systemic social injustice.
• International Association for Research on SL & CE – 2019 Community Impact and Outcomes Award Sharon Morrison, Sudha Shreeniwas, Andrew Young and the Montagnard Dega Association/Montagnard American Organization received the inaugural Community Impact and Outcomes Award given by the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. This award recognizes service-learning and research carried out in partnership with communities to address the priorities of community stakeholders, which are guided by principles of reciprocity, mutual respect, shared authority, and co-creation, and which have produced measurable and sustained impact. These scholars work to advance understanding, action and community transformation through the  Montagnard/Southeast Asian Community Disparities Research Network, and beyond.
• Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities – 2018 Scholar-Administrator Award Emily Janke, Director of the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, received the Barbara A. Holland Scholar-Administrator Award from the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities in October 2018. The award honors a bold, mid-career scholar-administrator whose leadership and intellectual voice illuminates the transformative power of urban and metropolitan higher education.
• International Association for Research on SL & CE – 2012 Early Career Research Award Emily Janke, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement at UNCG, received the Early Career Research Award from the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) in November 2012. The Award is given in recognition of outstanding early career contributions to scholarship on service-learning and community engagement.

• NC Campus Compact – 2020 Publicly Active Graduate Education Fellowship Lori Kniffin, former Assistant Director for the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, received the Civic Engagement Professional of the Year award from North Carolina Campus Compact in February 2020. The award recognizes a staff person at a member campus who has worked to institutionalize service, fostered a vision of service, supported faculty and students, and formed innovative campus-community partnerships.
• Imagining America – 2018 Publicly Active Graduate Education Fellowship The PAGE Fellows program by Imagining America is distinctive in that its agenda is set, almost exclusively, by graduate students. PAGE Fellows participate in a yearlong working group for collaborative art-making, teaching, writing, storytelling, and co-creating knowledge within and for community. The program offers ongoing professional mentorship and emotional support to fellows, especially toward navigating unjust institutional barriers. 2018 – Santos Flores, MS in Peace and Conflict Studies, Kinesiology doctoral candidate
• NC Campus Connect – 2015 Service-Learning Award Travis L. Hicks, Associate Professor of Interior Architecture, received the Robert L. Sigmon Service-Learning Award from North Carolina Campus Compact in February 2015 at the Pathways to Achieving Civic Engagement (PACE) Conference. Named for the service-learning pioneer and North Carolina native, the Sigmon Service-Learning Award recognizes a faculty member for service-learning experience and impact on the community, institution, and students.
• Gulf Summit – 2013 Outstanding Faculty Contributions to Service-Learning Spoma Jovanovic, Ph.D., Professor of Communication Studies, received the Outstanding Faculty Contributions to Service-Learning Instruction in Higher Education Award from the Gulf South Summit Conference on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement through Higher Education. The award is given to a member of the teaching faculty who has demonstrated excellence incorporating service-learning pedagogy in the college/university classroom, and shows evidence of benefits to students, evidence of collaboration with community partners and/or service beneficiaries in course design, and demonstration of sustained commitment by incorporating service-learning consistently for at least three academic terms.
• National Council on Public History – 2013 Graduate Student Project Award Eight second-year students in UNCG’s masters program in history and museum studies won the National Council on Public History’s 2013 Graduate Student Project Award for their work on “Past the Pipes: Stories of the Terra Cotta Community,” One such national award is given annually. The designation recognizes the students’ work in building community partnerships, recording oral interviews, designing and facilitating public programs, gathering images and artifacts, creating media pieces and installing the exhibition.
• American Democracy Project – 2012 Award for Emerging Leaders in Civic Engagement Emily Janke, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, received the John Saltmarsh Award for Emerging Leaders in Civic Engagement in June 2012 at the American Democracy Project/The Democracy Commitment’s Annual Conference. The Saltmarsh Award is given in recognition of exemplary early-career leaders who are advancing the wider civic engagement movement through higher education to build a broader public culture of democracy.
• NC Campus Compact – 2012 Service Learning Award Spoma Jovanovic, Professor of Communication Studies, received award at the 10th Annual Civic Engagement Institute. Named for the service-learning pioneer and North Carolina native, the Sigmon Service-Learning Award recognizes a faculty member for service-learning experience and impact on the community, institution, and students.
• NC Campus Compact – 2012 Engaged Leader Award UNCG’s former Chancellor Linda P. Brady received the inaugural Lambert Award from North Carolina Campus Compact in February 2012 at the 10th annual Civic Engagement Institute. The Lambert Award will be presented annually to a North Carolina college president or chancellor committed to creating and sustaining engagement that deeply impacts the community and campus.
• NC Campus Compact – 2012 Community Impact Student Award UNCG Senior Frannie Williams (’13) received the Community Impact Student Award from North Carolina Campus Compact in November 2012 at the Citizenship, Service, Networking, and Partnerships (CSNAP) Student Conference. The Award recognizes one student per Campus Compact member institution who exhibits outstanding leadership and innovative approaches in their civic engagement efforts.
• Imagining America – 2011 Publicly Active Graduate Education Fellowship The PAGE Fellows program by Imagining America is distinctive in that its agenda is set, almost exclusively, by graduate students. PAGE Fellows participate in a yearlong working group for collaborative art-making, teaching, writing, storytelling, and co-creating knowledge within and for community. The program offers ongoing professional mentorship and emotional support to fellows, especially toward navigating unjust institutional barriers. 2011 – Kristin Medlin, MPA in Public Administration, MS in Educational Research and Methodology