Copy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Tim Hindes
tim.hindes@universityeda.org
216.200.UEDA (8332)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
 

University Economic Development Association membership selects 2019 best practices in university-based economic development


Finalists in Awards of Excellence Program Exemplify the Top Higher Education-Led Initiatives in Regional Economic Transformation

 
Reno-Tahoe, Nevada  – October 7, 2019 – The University Economic Development Association (UEDA) announced category leaders of its annual Awards of Excellence program during their Annual Summit in Reno-Tahoe, Nevada.

Leading initiatives from across North America competed in a six-month process, including application, peer review, live presentations, and, ultimately, selection by attendees of the UEDA Annual Summit as category leaders. The Awards of Excellence Program recognizes organizations who are transforming their campuses into engines of economic prosperity through leading edge initiatives in six categories: 1) Innovation; 2) Innovation + Talent; 3) Talent 4) Talent + Place; 5) Place; and 6) Place + Innovation.

“Talent, innovation, and place are the foundational elements of economic engagement. Higher education institutions–as economic engines–must embody these elements to help their regions prosper.” said Tim Hindes, UEDA Executive Director. "Our 2019 finalists epitomize the foundational elements and have demonstrated their commitment to economic prosperity within their respective regions.”

Throughout the Awards of Excellence process, nominations are judged on the sustainability, replicability, originality, and impact of the program or initiative. Those receiving the top marks in these criteria advance through the process, culminating in recognition as the category leader by peers in attendance at the Annual Summit.
 
The 2019 Awards of Excellence category leaders are:
 
Innovation Category
Category Leader: Hau’ula Community Resilience Model Village

The Hau’ula Community Resilience Model Village is a modular, scalable model that employs waste conversion in a unique process to produce high income commercial carbon, soil amendments for agriculture and food production, fuel, atmospherically harvested water and carbon credits. It is designed for island communities and integrated in their current economic development picture especially in the event of disaster. 

 
Innovation + Talent Category
Category Leader: SURE™ – Stimulating Urban Renewal through Entrepreneurship

SURE™  provides an educational platform which facilitates a value-added partnership between UH students, experts from industry, and entrepreneurs from under-resourced communities. The students and entrepreneurs form synergistic partnerships, as each student engages in one-on-one consulting to help their entrepreneurs develop a business plan and pitch. Through this process, the SURE™ Program works to serve Houston area entrepreneurs from under-resourced communities. To date, nearly 200 businesses have been launched through SURE™, and over 1,000 people have been trained in financial literacy, business basics, and entrepreneurship

Talent Category
Category Leader: Inspire Idaho 

Inspire Idaho is a collaborative effort to eliminate barriers to free, future-ready skills development. This University of Idaho program supports new pathways to prosperity for hard-working Idaho adults by facilitating mobile application coding skills development. InspireID utilizes a self-driven curriculum developed by Apple, Inc. The InspireID lending library provides learners with a loaned MacBook throughout the approximately 180-hour app development training.

Learners who complete the program are positioned for industry certification, high paying and remote employment, and entrepreneurial activity around the newly developed app. Remarkably, over 900 Idahoans across the state have registered with their commitment to complete the curriculum. Thus far InspireID has placed 250 learners and 185 loaned laptops in 13 teams across the state. 

 
Talent + Place Category
Category Leader: M3: Harnessing the Power of Education for Talent Development

Metropolitan Milwaukee’s three largest public educators—Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM)—have partnered to be key change agents to education through collaboration, coordination and partnership, increasing the retention, graduation, and career success of students and providing a prepared workforce and citizenry for the Wisconsin economy.

MPS graduation rates rose from 58.2% to 62.2%. The number of MPS students enrolling in college within one year after high school is on upward trajectory, and completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) jumped from 60.8% to a 74.6% completion rate.

 
Place Category
Category Leader: Indiana University Rural Arts Program

Despite a growing number of examples of rural communities that are redefining their future by embracing the arts, there still exists a need to build a model for arts-based community and economic development that can be replicated nationally. The Center for Rural Engagement (CRE) at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) is developing such a model in three rural Indiana communities, by co-creating a series of arts- and culture-building initiatives with steering committees of volunteers and community leaders in each town. By leveraging IU Bloomington’s celebrated programs in the arts and humanities, the CRE is creating vitality in the downtowns and schools of the rural communities that it serves, promoting community self-reflection and identity, creating authentic placemaking opportunities, and cultivating a new set of partners on campus who have infrequently participated in community development efforts in the past.

 
Place + Innovation Category
Category Leader: The UT Dallas Intellectual Transit-Oriented Transformational Incubator (DITTI)

The University of Texas at Dallas’ Office of Facilities & Economic Development initiated an innovative approach to enhance the academic, economic and community-building aspects of the university through the creation of “Northside,” located adjacent to the UT Dallas campus and a soon-to-come Dallas-Area Rapid Transit rail line within the city of Richardson, Texas. By instituting a public-private partnership (P3) and building an adjacent UT Design, UT Dallas was able to bring a number of new and established businesses to campus, improve transit opportunities for the UT Dallas community and the greater metroplex, and improve the academic offerings available to students, thus attracting a wider number of students from around the world.

 
Judges’ Award Winners:
This year's Awards of Excellence featured exceptional initiatives from across the country, which led to the awarding two Judges' Awards, reflecting the tremendous quality of the 2019 finalists.

The 2019 Judges' Awards winners are:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: NCGrowth

NCGrowth is a university center at UNC Chapel Hill that helps businesses and communities create good jobs and equitable opportunities through applied research and technical assistance. With a passionate staff and a dynamic pool of graduate student analysts, we partner with businesses, communities, governments and other organizations to tackle outcome-based economic development and entrepreneurship projects. Since 2012 NCGrowth has helped to create hundreds of jobs and worked with over 150 business and community clients.

The University of Georgia
The University of Georgia was recognized with a Judges' Award for overall excellence by having three Awards finalists in various categories This continues the strong tradition of UGA in these awards, having won in each of the past three years (2017 - 2019) and numerous finalists over that span.



In addition to the Awards of Excellence recognition, UEDA members elected a full slate to its Board of Directors, including incoming President Julia Potter, who is the Director of Educational Partnerships Development & Special University Projects at CSUN. Ms. Potter is joined by two first-time board members for 2019, including Juli Golemi from Georgia Tech and Jim Woodell of Jim Woodell & Company and The Collaborative for Insight & Impact.

Elected to continue serving on the Board is G. Jason Jolley from Ohio University and returning to the Board after several years is Mary Frances Postupack from East Stroudsburg University. The Executive Committee serving with President Potter include President-Elect John Provo from Virginia Tech University; Vice President Rebecca Robinson of Kansas State University. Returning to serve as Treasurer after a brief hiatus is Genna Hurd from the University of Kansas; Michael Ebinger from Washington State University continues to serve as Secretary; and Meridith Jaeger from Northeast Wisconsin Technical College assumes the role of Past President.

 

How the Awards Process Works
University project teams applied for the UEDA Awards of Excellence Program. Projects were reviewed and scored by an executive award committee and three or four project finalists were selected for each category. Project finalists presented their projects to attendees of the UEDA Annual Summit, where the audience of peers voted for projects that best exemplified the criteria for their category. Throughout the process, projects were judged on scalability, sustainability, impact originality, and the ability to be replicated. Awards were presented at the awards banquet at the 2019 Annual Summit held in Reno-Tahoe, Nevada. The 2019 Annual Summit was generously sponsored by Elsevier, California State University Northridge, University of Nevada, Reno, The Lemelson Foundation, and many others. The 2020 UEDA Summit will be held in Savannah, Georgia in September. https://awards.universityeda.org/
 
About UEDA
Established in 1976, UEDA is North America’s membership organization that brings together public and private higher education; private sector; public agencies; and community economic development stakeholders in economic development. UEDA’s members work to expand economic opportunity and prosperity in our communities and regions by leveraging education / talent development; research and technology development; and community-building and place-making strategies. UEDA’s mission is to serve its members by advancing knowledge and practice in economic engagement by institutions of higher education.https://www.universityeda.org

 
 
###
 
Copyright © 2019 University Economic Development Association, All rights reserved.