Magrath Community Engagement Award Spotlight: Oklahoma State University

In recognition of their extraordinary community outreach initiatives, four APLU member institutions have been selected as regional recipients of the 2017 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award. As regional winners, East Carolina University, the University of New Hampshire, Oklahoma State University, and Purdue University will now compete for the national C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award – which will be announced Sunday, November 12 in Washington, DC during the APLU Annual Meeting. In this third part of a four-part series, APLU spotlights Oklahoma State University for its work to address health challenges facing the Chickasaw Nation, a local Native American tribe.

Oklahoma State University’s Solutions-based Health Innovations and Nutrition Excellence (SHINE) was created in 2006 as a collaboration between Oklahoma State University and the Chickasaw Nation, a local Native American tribe. The Chickasaw Nation partnered with OSU to study nutrition and public health issues identified by Chickasaw citizens – combining cultural, historical, and programming knowledge with nutrition and public health expertise.

The collaboration has developed a wide-ranging, nationally recognized model of public health collaboration between a university and a Native American nation. By engaging community members, SHINE was able to identify health issues facing the Chickasaw Nation in need of additional attention. The partnership also produced collaborative research projects aiming to identify health and nutrition disparities, translate and disseminate health research findings, and train a diverse research workforce.

The team developed the Eagle Adventure program for children in the first through third grades. The program embraces the traditions of Native American storytelling to educate participants on practices that prevent Type 2 diabetes through dietary and physical activity. Sixty-seven percent participants’ parents reported their children were more active after school and 49 percent reported their children ate vegetables at dinner and 55 percent reported their child ate fruit for snack more often. Team efforts have been recognized with multiple state and national awards and team members have presented their analyses at several national conferences, webinars, and peer-reviewed journals.

Learn more about the other 2017 C. Peter Magrath Award Winner finalists.