In recognition of extraordinary community outreach, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities has named UNC Greensboro the winner of the 2021 C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award.
“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.”
UNCG is recognized 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.
IHAP reaches over 700 uninsured immigrant and refugee adults in Greensboro each year. CNNC is transforming refugee and immigrant services as it also transforms understanding and scholarship about the issues facing these communities. CNNC students, faculty, and community research fellows have contributed 25 peer-reviewed publications and over 20 practitioner-oriented publications and reports.
“This is an exciting opportunity for the CNNC’s work to be nationally recognized and potentially replicated by other institutions of higher education,” said CNNC Director Dr. Diya Abdo. “Refugee and immigrant communities around the country can benefit a great deal from these resources.”
In June, the UNCG was named one of four regional winners of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award. Those regional winners, named in collaboration with the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, automatically become finalists for the national Magrath Award. Each of the three other W.K. Kellogg Award winners received $5,000 to support their community engagement efforts.
Photography by Grant Evan Gilliard, University Communications
