Albert Nylander, director of the McLean Institute

Director’s Welcome

Welcome to the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement at the University of Mississippi.

The McLean Institute’s bold mission of fighting poverty through education in Mississippi encourages not only the study of systemic and societal problems but also collaboration to address future challenges. The institute builds bridges between theory and practice and forms effective local partnerships to make a difference in the social and economic conditions in the areas in which we live, learn and serve.

This publication highlights the McLean Institute’s programs that directly connect the university and its resources to communities in Mississippi. These programs are directed at the structural concerns facing many of our communities, including lack of early childhood education, health education, and the summer learning gap experienced by many lower-income students. The guiding principles of these programs are to advance knowledge and interventions that will have the greatest effect throughout the state.

Many initiatives that begin at the McLean Institute are taken to new heights by our students. Our focus areas include advancing education, promoting entrepreneurship, and improving quality of life through community and economic development.

The enclosed articles highlight the McLean Institute’s programs and how they have benefited faculty, students and communities. In a state with almost 20 percent of its residents living below the poverty threshold — one of the highest in the nation — there are so many ways that public service and community engagement can make a difference.

Our programs, including Catalyzing Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CEED), LOU Saves, M Partner and the North Mississippi VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) Project, work individually and together to fulfill our mission of fighting poverty through education.

Community engagement presents a holistic approach to empowering students and community members to become potential agents of change for the betterment of society. The vision for all of the institute’s programs is to provide opportunities to learn concepts and to gain the tools necessary to challenge the persistent factors inhibiting social and economic progress in communities around Mississippi.

I hope you find this publication useful and informative. Increasing community engagement and service-learning opportunities for faculty, staff and students is an important goal for the university. We are fortunate to have such tremendous resources at the university and an institutional commitment to having an impact on quality of life in our state.

We understand that alleviating poverty requires broad-based collaboration, and we are committed to taking an asset-based approach to partnering with communities across the state. Alongside these partners, the McLean Institute is investing in people and communities for long-term change. And naturally we desire for those outcomes to be something better than when started. These community and economic development challenges will take all of us working together to address them. The future is bright for the institute, and we’ll continue to seek other partners who are interested in making a difference in Mississippi by fighting poverty through education.

Sincerely,

Albert Nylander Director of the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement and Professor of Sociology