The Washington Center honors Purdue with prestigious Civic Engagement Award

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University was among five colleges and universities chosen this year from a hundred nominations to share in the 2016 Higher Education Civic Engagement Awards presented by The Washington Center. Recipients were chosen based upon their leadership and innovation in civic engagement.

Purdue University will be presented with the award during The Washington Center’s annual awards luncheon on Sept. 26 in Washington, D.C., at the National Press Club. Steve Abel, Purdue’s associate provost for engagement, will accept the award on the university’s behalf.

“Civic engagement is embodied in the mission of land-grant universities,” Abel said. “Purdue University is honored by the Washington Center’s recognition of its excellence in the area of engagement, which is woven deeply into the university’s culture and spans each of our colleges and schools, involving nearly 75 percent of our student body.”

As a land-grant university, Purdue has long made service and engagement hallmarks of its approach to scholarship, Abel said. This commitment is illustrated in the Star Behavioral Health Providers program created by Purdue’s Military Family Research Institute (MFRI) in partnership with the National Guard and the Center for Deployment Psychology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. This program builds the cultural competence needed by community-based health providers to work with military and veteran populations, and it creates a mechanism for military-connected clients to locate these skilled providers. MFRI has also created learning opportunities for more than 220 graduate and undergraduate students, from 23 majors across seven schools at Purdue.

The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars established this award to celebrate institutions in higher education where the commitment to leadership extends into civic roles in the communities beyond their own campuses. The award aims to highlight, in particular, institutions that are forging transformational partnerships beyond campus to define and address issues of public concern, whether at the local, regional or international level.

“It is very impressive to see the unique and innovative ways this year’s winners have worked with their partners to promote the greater good,” said Chris Norton, president of The Washington Center. “These are important models of civic leadership for their students to learn from and for all of us to emulate.”

A committee of leaders in the field of civic engagement selected award recipients. Serving on this committee were: Mary Marcy, president, Dominican University of California, chair; Bobby Hackett, president, Bonner Foundation; Heather Smith, board member, Rock the Vote; and Nancy Thomas, director, Institute for Democracy and Higher Education, Tufts University.

The other academic institutions receiving the 2016 Higher Education Civic Engagement Award include Buffalo State, SUNY, Marquette University, the University of North Carolina, Charlotte and the University of San Diego.

About The Washington Center

The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars is an independent, nonprofit organization that serves hundreds of colleges and universities in the United States and other countries by providing selected students challenging opportunities to work and learn in Washington, D.C., for academic credit. The largest program of its kind, The Washington Center has more than 50,000 alumni who have become leaders in numerous professions and nations around the world. It was established in 1975. 

Source: Steve Abel, 765-494-2744, abels@purdue.edu