Wayne State University College of Engineering director of community engagement wins award from the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities
The Wayne State University College of Engineering's director of community engagement, Jasmine Roberson, was recently recognized for her pitch to the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU), which focused on efforts to create and sustain deep collaboration with surrounding communities to achieve transformative change. The pitch competition was held at the USU's 10th Annual Summer Meeting at Cleveland State University in June.
Roberson's pitch centered on the need to go beyond community service and instead aims to create mutually beneficial partnerships with communities.
"The primary benefit of this approach is that it gives the community a voice," says Roberson. "Instead of universities wasting resources guessing what the community wants, we involve members of the community every step of the way so they can tell us what they need."
Specific to Roberson's proposal were key initiatives that allow Wayne State to utilize engineering techniques that improve the efficacy and efficiency of community efforts. For example, in the proposed Saturday Challenges program, 100 Detroit students, grades K-12 and their families are invited to campus to learn skills that will help them improve the effectiveness of volunteer programs, create sustainable housing in urban settings and support local tech startups that showcase the innovation in Detroit.
The curriculum is designed to allow students to recognize their own potential to affect change in their communities. During the program, students learn how to design better phone apps that can manage volunteer days, work with 3-D printing and Google Sketch in order to develop more sustainable housing, and conceptualize their own mock tech startup.
Roberson has deep roots in the Wayne State and Detroit communities. She and her sister were enrolled in the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program as students, and the experience had a meaningful impact on them. Her sister went on to become an engineer and now works for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Roberson went on to attend Wayne State and accepted a job in the College of Engineering as director of the newly created Community Outreach Office.
"Programs that promote STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics)-related education in our community open doors to students that they previously thought were not open to them," explains Roberson. "It is a privilege to be a part of this form of education. I like to tell people that my sister got the inspiration to become an engineer and I got the inspiration to engineer student's futures at Wayne State."
"We are extremely proud of Jasmine. Her role at the College of Engineering is an important one as we seek to engage our surrounding community and inspire more young students to discover the field of engineering," says Farshad Fotouhi, dean of the College of Engineering.
Roberson received a cash award from USU that she is gifting back into community outreach at Wayne State by offering a partial scholarship to a student for an upcoming on-campus workshop.
About the Urban Serving Universities Coalition
The USU is a network of public urban research universities that represents every region of our country, created by university presidents to leverage the intellectual capital and economic power of urban universities in service to their urban regions. They permanently partner with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities to harness the power of urban universities to help rebuild U.S. cities, improve urban life and make our country more competitive and prosperous.
Members of the USU work closely with city, state and national leaders to promote evidence-based, transformative investment in urban areas to revitalize neighborhoods and increase community and economic development develop the local and state workforce, advance student performance along the cradle-to-career continuum, and reduce health disparities to improve community health.
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Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution of higher education offering 380 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 28,000 students. For more information about engineering at Wayne State University, visit engineering.wayne.edu.