Thousands of hours of collaboration occurs each year between faculty, staff and students at the University of Iowa and community partners across the state. These partnerships result in projects, research, performances, events, and workshops that help build a brighter future for our university and our state. The impact of community engagement at Iowa can be experienced in the stories below.

Transforming Your Learning Experience

A city billboard outside Maquoketa

Undergraduate Marketing Institute at the University of Iowa partners students with local communities

Students with the Undergraduate Marketing Institute work with with community partners in Boone Forks, Webster City, Keokuk, Washington, Dubuque, and Sioux City.  

Student Michael shares presentation at research fair

Tippie students RISE when their education involves experiential learning

Tippie RISE, launched in the fall of 2016, helps students acquire job-related skills to advance their career preparation, expand their global view, and build their professional network.
Student nurses pose for photograph

College of Nursing provides community engagement for students while addressing public health needs in Iowa

College of Nursing helps fill shortage of nurses while students get valuable experience.
Yanet Velazquez

Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities (IISC) helps set student's career path

Yanet Velasquez clarified her career path, along with a desire to work in the Hispanic community, in Community Development course.
Megan Schott

Native Iowan sees state and potential with fresh eyes

Megan Schott's perspective shifted and opened her professional pathway to new possibilities when she saw a fresh side of Iowa’s cultural landscape.

Empowering Your Teaching Experience

Carolyn Colvin speaks to a crowd

Iowa professor brings citizenship and more to immigrants in West Liberty, Iowa

In the early 1990s, Carolyn Colvin lived in San Diego and taught at San Diego State University. One evening, after a long, traffic-dense drive home, she turned on the NBC Nightly News to see Tom Brokaw standing in the middle of a street in West Liberty
Picture of ICTS location on campus

Institute for Clinical and Translational Sciences moving medical research to practice across Iowa

Dr. Heather Reisinger introduces her colleagues to implementation science and studies how researchers rapidly put their findings into practice.

 

Iowa Manning Sculpture

Experienced engagement scholar inspired by new collaboration

After decades of teaching service learning courses, the Engaged Faculty Institute inspires Professor Frank Durham to begin organizing a working group.
Faculty Institute, Iowa City

The power of engaged faculty

Area colleges and universities gather annually co guide and inform best practices for pedagogical development.

Making a Difference in Your Communities

Students research a project together in a public library

Iowa Center for Research by Undergraduates makes a difference in Iowa through student research

Robert Kirby, director of the Iowa Center for Research by Undergraduates (ICRU), and his team support around 120 research fellow projects per year. Kirby considers his department to be at the intersection of community-based engagement and research.  

Photo of BLN community forum event

Communities harness resources and expertise through Business Leadership Network

College of Public Health's Business Leadership Network (BLN) launches new program to connect with small- to mid-sized Iowa communities.
Craig Syrop with students

Community engaged research transforms healthcare delivery and provider education

Dr. Craig Syrop, MD, MHCDS, research intersects with medical student Jared Peterson to find links between gestational diabetes and food insecurity.
A painted mural on a silo in Clinton, Iowa

Turning scholarship into action: Public art residency advances public art in Iowa

Research presented during the Grant Wood Symposium: Art in Public manifests a Public Art Residency for UI students and murals and sculptures across Iowa.