Awards

Partnerships of Distinction Honorees

The Senior Vice Chancellor for Engagement’s Partnerships of Distinction Award, conferred annually at the Community Engaged Scholarship Forum, recognizes outstanding partnerships that are exemplars of community engagement. Honorees demonstrate reciprocity, mutual benefit and significant community impact.

Congratulations to the 2021 Partnerships of Distinction Awardees.

The Pittsburgh Data Jam The Pittsburgh Data Jam is an academic competition for high school students in the Pittsburgh region, which focuses on teaching about the use of big data to answer a research question. Operating in many local Allegheny County high schools, the program is set up in such a way that students work in teams of five to seven students to formulate a research question, find publicly available data sets, analyze their data, make data visualizations and present their findings to a panel of judges. Students learn skills pertaining to the scientific method, data analysis and how to give scientific presentations. In this regard, high school students are benefiting from this education in data analytics, and the Pittsburgh business community is benefiting as more young people become interested in data analytics to provide a future workforce. Development of the Data Jam and core curricula to train Data Jam mentors, as well as its current work to develop a curriculum that ties the Data Jam concept to math, computer science, statistics and science courses in high school, are critical steps needed to make education in data science much more broadly available throughout the United States and worldwide.

PARTNERSHIP CONTACT: Judy Cameron, Director of Pitt Science Outreach

Justice Scholars Institute

The Justice Scholars Institute is a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh and Westinghouse Academy. In collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s College in High School (CHS) program, Justice Scholars provides a rigorous college preparation program for students in the ninth through 12th grades. The program implements a culture of college expectations for high school students who may otherwise have little opportunity for college exposure opportunities. A primary program component is the opportunity for the students to earn college credit through University of Pittsburgh courses. In addition to the courses, the institute offers college preparation support, opportunities for community engagement, and various resources that make a successful college transition more tenable.

PARTNERSHIP CONTACTS: Esohe Osia, Assistant Professor of Practice, and Greg Latshaw, Director of Marketing and Communications, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh Pitt Pharmacy: SilverScripts SilverScripts is a longitudinal Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience for first- and second-year student pharmacists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. SilverScripts provides an early immersion experience for student pharmacists to practice pharmaceutical care with older adults at community centers serving local Pittsburgh seniors. To achieve its mission to help seniors better manage their medications, the program partners with over 20 local senior community centers. At SilverScripts, student pharmacists offer comprehensive medication reviews, blood pressure assessments and safe medication disposal to help nearly 250 seniors better manage their medications. Student pharmacists are precepted on-site by more than 25 participating PittPharmacy faculty, staff, residents and fellows assisted by more than 10 practice-ready student pharmacists. In the fall academic term, student pharmacists expand upon their relationships established in the spring term to work collaboratively with students from other healthcare disciplines at the University of Pittsburgh including audiology, dental medicine, nursing, nutrition and dietetics, occupational therapy and social work.

PARTNERSHIP CONTACT: Lucas Berenbrok, Assistant Professor, Pharmacy and Therapeutics, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh

Food Ecosystems Honors Scholar Community Pitt Honors Scholar Communities are collaborations between faculty and students to confront some of the most critical challenges that touch our lives. The Food Ecosystems Scholar Community examines the global food system through the lenses of agriculture, engineering, environmental science, data, economics, public health, law, policy, humanities, urban planning and community development in partnership with Food21. The mission of Food21 is to enable our region to become a resilient, self-sustaining, and inclusive food economy. Together Pitt Honors and Food21 will explore issues such as food insecurity; resilience across the food ecosystem; expanding jobs and economic opportunity in the food economy; sustainability through the applications of clean and cost-effective use of energy; equity and inclusive participation in the food economy; and environmental responsibility of food production and processing. These efforts will use data analytics to better understand our food ecosystem and apply this knowledge to create meaningful

economic, social, environmental and policy change related to food. By developing a diverse network of faculty performing research related to issues critical to food ecosystems, a myriad of undergraduate research opportunities become available to students that can provide critical insights for the larger region. PARTNERSHIP CONTACT: Everett Herman, Director of Student and Faculty Engagement, Pitt Honors College

Hemispheric Conversations Urban Art Project Hemispheric Conversations Urban Art Project (HCUAP) partners University of Pittsburgh staff, faculty and students with arts and education organizations in the Pittsburgh area and artists and scholars from national and international institutions. Founded in 2016, the program creates shared opportunities for youth and adult arts education; public conversations about art, activism and social justice; mentorship and networking opportunities for underrepresented artists; and site-specific murals across the city. HCUAP offers threepronged and synthetic programming: youth workshops, mural production and public conversations to use dialogue about the arts as a prism for addressing larger community needs. Its model is to work with established local organizations that work in the area of afterschool arts programming, artist development and education contributing a focus on urban art and public space by generating curricula, mentoring teaching artists, producing murals and creating larger conversations about just urban governance. Primary activities are organizing youth street art workshops, public conversations and artist residencies that culminate in murals and gallery shows. All programming is free.

PARTNERSHIP CONTACT: Caitlin Bruce, Assistant Professor of Communication, Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh

2021 Tracy Soska and John Wilds Outreach and Engagement Leadership Award

The Tracy Soska and John Wilds Outreach and Engagement Leadership Award was established in 2020 to honor a faculty member or staff engagement professional who serves the University of Pittsburgh through their outstanding dedication to University-community connections. Through their contributions, the awardee strengthens our institution’s knowledge, understanding, practice and reflection on the opportunities of community-based collaboration.

2021 Awardee The 2021 Soska Wilds Outreach and Engagement Leadership awardee is David Sanchez.

David Sanchez is an Assistant Professor in the Swanson School of Engineering’s Civil and Environmental Engineering department, the Assistant Director for the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and the Program Director for the Master’s in Sustainable Engineering, the Undergraduate Certificate in Sustainability and the John C. Mascaro Faculty Fellows program.

Focused on cocreating long-term partnerships that synergize community vision with Pitt’s core competencies of research and education, David has built up Pitt Hydroponics in Homewood, founded Constellation Energy Inventor labs for K-12 students, and recreated the Mascaro Center’s Teach the Teacher sustainability program for science educators in the region.

As a teacher he designed and created the Sustainability capstone course which has annually partnered with community stakeholders to address sustainability challenges at all scales. Past projects have included evaluating composting stations in Wilkinsburg, building infrastructure resilience in Homewood, enabling community solar in Pennsylvania, improving energy efficiency in McCandless Township and improving water quality in our rivers.

2021 CESF Collaboration Champion Awardee

The CESF Collaboration Champion Award is presented by the Community Engaged Scholarship Forum to recognize a member of the University of Pittsburgh community or a community partner who has made significant contributions to the University of Pittsburgh’s culture of collaboration, further sustaining and supporting the institution’s commitment to strengthening communities through teamed work.

2021 Awardee The 2021 CESF Collaboration Champion awardee is Yvette Moore, a skilled professional and practitioner in diversity, equity and inclusion within higher education with 19 years of experience.

Yvette has worked directly with undergraduate scholars in engineering and the arts and sciences. She is currently the director of the Pitt EXCEL program, an undergraduate diversity program within the Swanson School Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. Through her career, Yvette has held several roles in higher education at various universities and has worked with diversity, equity and inclusion-based programs in the Pittsburgh metropolitan community. She has earned various diversity awards at Shippensburg University and the University of Pittsburgh for her community engagement among the undergraduate scholars, staff, faculty and community stakeholders.

Yvette received her Bachelor of Science in secondary education sociology/history from Shippensburg University, Master of Science in gerontology from Shippensburg University, and she is completing her doctorate in higher education management at the University of Pittsburgh. Her doctoral work focuses on understanding the importance of staff of color, the work they do, and the racial microaggressions, racial campus climate, and racial battle fatigue experienced among staff of color working to protect their undergraduate scholars in engineering.

What Yvette is most proud of and what she credits is her faith in God and being able to walk in her gift. Yvette has been blessed to influence the lives of so many that would not have had such opportunities without experiencing her programs. As a servant leader Yvette believes “mediocrity is not an option.”

14 University of Pittsburgh Community Engaged Scholarship Forum Post-event Report The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution. Published in cooperation with the Office of University Communications and Marketing. 113075-0421