2010–2011 WIPPS Fellows
As the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service marked its fourth year of presenting the WIPPS Fellowship program, sponsored by funding from UW- Extension/UW Colleges and the University of Wisconsin Marathon County, two fellows were chosen: Connie Abert, UW-Extension Youth Development Faculty, and Randy Stoecker, Professor in the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin (with a joint appointment in the University of Wisconsin-Extension Center for Community and Economic Development). For their Fellowship projects, Stoecker and Abert helped develop, organize, and execute a Program Innovations Fund grant called “Sustainable Collaborative Service Learning Practices to Meet Community-Identified Needs.” This collaborative project, involving UW Extension agents, UW Colleges faculty, Wisconsin Campus Compact, and the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service, created a process model to address community-identified service learning needs with these goals:
- Promoting strong communities in Wisconsin by engaging and meeting the needs of community partners through collaborative service-learning projects
- Building UWEX/UWC cross-divisional/campus partnerships that bring together differing disciplines and perspectives to capitalize on the skills, knowledge and experience of UWEX agents and UWC faculty
- Maximizing access to students, volunteers, and human and material resources for UWEX and UWC personnel and local communities
- Improving educational achievement for UW System students and increasing the number of baccalaureate holders in Wisconsin
Abert and Stoecker assembled a Professional Development Team Task Force comprised of two UWEX and two UWC personnel to provide service learning best practices training at four regional campus hubs and create local task forces to sustain campus/community service learning projects. The local task forces solicited service learning project proposals for implementation in the fall of 2011 and the spring of 2012.
Abert and Stoecker also helped organize the 4th annual Great Northwoods Service Learning Workshop, where a report-out of the planning/training stage process of the project was shared.
As a faculty member of UW- Extension (based out of Waupaca County), Connie Abert provides training and leadership to rural communities on strategic planning, community capacity building, youth leadership, research based programs and skill development for youth. Her educational efforts have been in areas such as teen court, violence prevention, wellness, ATODA, community service/service learning and youth in governance. In 2007 Connie received the UW Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Civic Engagement.
Randy Stoecker has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, and an M.S. in Counseling from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. He moderates/edits COMM-ORG: The On-Line Conference on Community Organizing (http://comm-org.wisc.edu), and he conducts trainings and speaks frequently on community organizing and development, community-based participatory research/evaluation, and community information technology. He has led numerous participatory action research projects, community technology projects, and empowerment evaluation processes with community development corporations, community-based leadership education programs, community organizing groups, and other non-profits in North America and Australia. Randy has written extensively on community organizing and development and higher education engagement with community, including the books Defending Community (Temple University Press, 1994), Research Methods for Community Change (Sage Publications, 2005), the co-authored book Community-Based Research in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass, 2003) and the co-edited book The Unheard Voices: Community Organizations and Service Learning (Temple University Press, 2009). More information on Dr.Stoecker can be found at: http://comm-org.wisc.edu/stoeckerfolio/stoeckerefolio.htm