Honors, awards and successes in Community Engagement
The IUPUI Office of Community Engagement celebrates its staff members, Amy Conrad Warner, Teresa Bennett, Khaula Murtadha, Nicole Oglesby, Vernon Williams, Kristin Norris in partnership with Anne Weiss, and Cierra Venable for their recent recognitions and awards, which contribute to their work in community engagement and their professional development.
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities named Amy Conrad Warner, Vice Chancellor for the Office of Community Engagement, and David Gard, assistant vice president for economic engagement at IU, to the inaugural executive committee of the Commission on Economic and Community Engagement.
The SOURCE River West Entrepreneurship Center was awarded a $200,000 grant from JPMorgan Chase Foundation, which will allow it to expand beyond the River West neighborhood to all of the Great Places 2020 neighborhoods, including Maple Crossing, Twin Aire, King Commons and Englewood Village. Teresa Bennett, Assistant Vice Chancellor for the Office of Community Engagement, serves as interim director at SOURCE.
Dr. Khaula Murtadha, Associate Vice Chancellor for Community Engagement in the Office of Community Engagement, was recognized with the IUPUI 50th Anniversary Chancellor’s Medallion for her service to the city of Indianapolis, to the School of Education at IUPUI, to the IUPUI campus community, and to the field of education more broadly, to which she has contributed outstanding research and award-winning leadership.
A manuscript titled “Building Capacity as Anchor Institutions: Infrastructure, Structure, and Strategy,” authored by Kristin Norris, Director of Assessment at IUPUI Office of Community Engagement, and Anne Weiss, Assistant Director of Assessment in the Office of Community Engagement and Indiana Campus Compact, was published in Metropolitan Universities Journal in February 2019.
Nicole Oglesby, Director of Strategic Neighborhood Alliances for P-20 Education in the Office of Community Engagement, has been selected to receive an Outstanding IUPUI Woman Leader in the veteran staff category at the IUPUI Office For Women 2019 Women’s History Month Leadership Awards. For over five years, Nicole led a $2.5 million federally funded program, the Martindale Brightwood Alliance for Educational Success (MBAES), a university-assisted community school initiative (IUPUI-IPS) serving elementary and middle schools within the Indianapolis Public School District. She also provides support and leadership to the IU Indiana Kids program that provides tutoring, mentoring, and college career preparation to middle and high school students statewide.
Vernon Williams, Communications & Community Engagement Strategist for the Office of Community Engagement, wrote and produced a new play ‘Price of Progress’ that explores Indiana Avenue and the growth of the IUPUI campus. The tickets to the two showings of the play sold out a month before showtime. A third day was added only to be sold out once again.
Cierra Venable, Communications Intern in the Office of Community Engagement, was the recipient of the Amos C. Brown, III Award at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Dinner at IUPUI. The Black Student Union with the Black Faculty and Staff Council at IUPUI presented awards to outstanding faculty, students and a community organization at the dinner.