Patricia A. Keener has been awarded the 2002 Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement. The award recognizes early-career faculty who practice exemplary engaged scholarship through teaching and research. Recipients are selected on the basis of their collaboration with communities, institutional impact, and high-quality academic work.
Patricia A. Keener, M.D., Director for the Social and Community Contexts of Health Care Competency, Associate Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Assistant Dean for Medical Service-Learning at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Keener’s various titles speak to the many areas that she has impacted over the past thirty years. The thousands of students, peers, community organizations and individuals that have been touched by the efforts that she has led or been involved with establishing, such as: the Indianapolis Campaign for Healthy Babies, the First Medical Director of the Wishard Memorial Hospital Community Health Centers, the Hispanic/Latino Health Access Initiative, the Hispanic Pediatric Clinic and Immunization Outreach, Safe Sitter, Inc., Laptop Kids and the Office of Medical Service-Learning. Dr. Keener created Safe Sitter, Inc in 1980 as a national community-based resource for child-care/parenting education that is available at over 800 sites with over 4,000 trained instructors. The fact that over 300,000 young adolescents have successfully completed the training is evidence of the impact of this program. Each of the programs cited above have similar stories to tell of the dramatic and long-lasting impacts that have occurred due to Dr. Keener putting her professional service to work in her community. As noted by her nominator “her career could serve as a template for connecting the medical school to the university at large, for connecting the university to the local community and in the process forging a vital connection between herself and the community.”
Honorable Mentions:
Richard Cherwitz, Ph.D., Associate Dean of the Graduate College and Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Cherwitz is being recognized for the innovative program entitled the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Program. This program involves faculty and graduate students from across the campus in developing innovative, collaborative and sustainable ways for universities to work with their communities to solve complex problems. Each year hundreds of students and faculty are involved in their community and are putting the knowledge that is created to work to benefit the larger society.
Robert A. Findlay, Ph.D., FAIA, Professor of Architecture at Iowa State University. Dr. Findlay is being recognized for his thirty years of local to international work related to design education and disaster management for sustainable community design. He has engaged his students with a focus on the social purposes and impacts of designed environments. His use of an innovative methodology that enables egalitarian exchanges between community participants, design practitioners and students has transformed his courses and those of his peers.
Sherril B. Gelmon, Dr.P.H., F.A.C.H.E., Professor of Public Health, Division of Public Administration, Mark O. Hatfield School of Government and School of Community Health, College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University . Dr. Gelmon is being recognized for her sustained commitment to teaching, scholarship, community development, consultation and volunteer activity that blends her professional service with service to the institution, the students and the community. Her efforts to put her disciplinary expertise to work have resulted in addressing many important social concerns such as community health improvement, breast cancer, rural access to health care for the elderly, homeless youth and community collaboration.
Joann Keyton, Ph.D., Faculty Ombudsperson in Academic Affairs and Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis. Dr. Keyton is being recognized for her committed effort to put her professional service into action by providing analytical abilities and facilitated training workshops for nonprofit leaders and practitioners throughout the region. She has utilized her research to benefit the community for both area governmental and nonprofit organizations. Her students have been intricately involved with designing and conducting research projects that have identified ways in which the organizations could improve delivery of their service activities and determine the effectiveness of training programs.
Ram L. Chugh, Ph.D., Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, Director of the Merwin Rural Services Institute and Special Assistant to the President for Public Service at the State University of New York at Potsdam. Dr. Chugh is being recognized for his long-standing efforts to integrate his research, students, and expertise with the regional social and economic development in upstate New York. His research has focused on the rural economy and the real-world problems that are faced by the people who live and work in his region. The institution and SUNY system have been impacted by his ability to put things into practice through developing strategic partnerships that sustain the emerging products or services.