CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Outstanding individual and group outreach efforts were recognized with the 2021 Campus Awards for Excellence in Public Engagement. The awards spotlight individuals at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who have consistently applied their knowledge and expertise to issues for the public good.
Christopher Ackerman-Avila, a graduate student in urban planning, was honored with the Campus Excellence in Public Engagement Award for Graduate/Professional Students.
Ackerman-Avila is using his urban planning education to benefit others. Dedicated to building coalitions that benefit community advancement, he worked as a community organizer to address concerns of residents in San Diego and Champaign. Leading fundraisers, analyzing research and planning events, Ackerman-Avila’s ability to facilitate conversations with residents and local leaders reflects his passion for people and social change.
Additionally, his leadership served as the foundation of his service during his time as student body vice president. Ackerman-Avila’s innovation and dialogue helped lead the organization during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a forward-thinking mindset, he advocated for students while fostering connections with university faculty members, staff and administration.
Esther Ngumbi, a professor of entomology, was honored with the Emerging Award for Excellence in Public Engagement.
Ngumbi uses her public engagement platform to advocate for sustainability and diversify the global community of scientists. Her efforts include activities geared toward inspiring and mobilizing people to take action not only in their own local communities, but around the world.
While Ngumbi has been involved at the highest level of global discussions relating to sustainability, climate change and food security, she also advocates for the importance of science communication. Her outreach and impact includes written commentary that focuses on soil and food security, climate change, youth engagement and diversity and inclusion. Additionally, her essays have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Time magazine, The Conversation, Science for Development, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American and Project Syndicate.
Kathryn Oberdeck, a professor of history, was honored with the Distinguished Award for Campus Excellence in Public Engagement.
Oberdeck has long modeled community-centered approaches to teaching and research by facilitating collaborative local history projects. She co-directed a Humanities Research Institute Research Cluster that brought together interdisciplinary faculty members, archivists, students and local public history practitioners to explore potential collaborations, producing student-led hidden history tours of campus and community activism.
With help from this cluster, Oberdeck initiated a public history network including faculty members, archivists and local museums, and a public history curriculum for the University of Illinois. For this program, she has fostered student internships with community institutions and developed a history harvest course that has engaged students with local communities – including LGBTQIA+ activists, the 5th and Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign and the Independent Media Center – to produce digitally accessible archives and exhibits from documents held by community members. She continues to seek ways to deepen university collaboration with local communities.
Endalyn Taylor, formerly a professor of dance, was honored with the Emerging Award for Campus Excellence in Public Engagement. She currently serves as dean of the School of Dance at University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Public engagement and a dedication to community building have always been integrated with Taylor’s work as an educator, choreographer and performer. During her time at Illinois, she worked to build an extensive coalition of artists, teachers, social justice activists and local community leaders while providing transformative arts-based experiences for students, faculty members, staff and the surrounding area.
As the first Dean's Fellow for Black Arts Research in the College of Fine and Applied Arts, Taylor created platforms to acknowledge inequities while educating and addressing concerns within communities. Her efforts serve as a vessel of civic dialogue and communal sharing, while generating pride, cultural awareness and lifelong advocacy of the arts.
The Hip Hop Xpress Double Dutch Boom Bus was awarded the Team Award for the Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement.
The Hip Hop Xpress is a mobile classroom and sound studio venue that serves as a platform for innovation, entrepreneurship and culture. Through immersive learning, the team equips youth participants with new skills while empowering them to see the basis of those skills in knowledge that they already have. Overall, the project models a form of community-partnered learning and research to benefit the lives of many.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the team has forged new ways to cultivate youth interest. From online programming to in-person opportunities, the project has worked to build connections through education. The team has continued to broaden its reach across the Champaign-Urbana area while catalyzing similar local efforts in communities across the country.
Smile Politely was honored with the Community Award for Campus Excellence in Public Engagement.
Founded in 2007, Smile Politely is an online culture magazine that seeks to fill the gap between traditional news media and alternative publications in the area. The magazine works to provide the community with a variety of locally focused topics including arts, culture, food and drink, and music. One of its most impactful areas of engagement efforts is PYGMALION, an annual cultural event that spotlights art, technology and live music within the Champaign-Urbana area and the university community.
Overall, Smile Politely gives writers, businesses, makers and creators an opportunity to find new audiences and patrons while allowing readers to gain a sense of the community in which they live. Since its founding, Smile Politely has published over 25,000 articles by hundreds of writers in the Champaign-Urbana community. Currently, Smile Politely houses four section editors with plans to expand in 2021.