Magrath Community Engagement Award Spotlight: Purdue University

In recognition of their extraordinary community outreach initiatives, four APLU member institutions have been selected as regional recipients of the 2019 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award. As regional winners, Colorado State University, Cornell University, University of Louisville, and Purdue University will represent and compete for the national C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award, which will be announced during the APLU Annual Meeting November 10-12 in San Diego, California. In this post, APLU spotlights Purdue University.

Purdue University’s Joint Transportation Research Program facilitates collaboration between the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), higher education institutions, and industry to implement innovations improving the planning, design, construction, operation, management, and economic efficiency of transportation infrastructure. The program convenes senior leaders from the university and the Department of Transportation as well as Purdue faculty and INDOT division directors, engineers, and communications personnel.

In all, 270 INDOT division directors have partnered with more than 400 Purdue personnel over the last five years – providing continuous professional development opportunities during the research process. The joint effort provides university faculty, staff, and student opportunities to work on problems not yet in textbooks and to create new scholarly literature. The effort has also created workshops such as the Purdue Road School, reaching more than 3,000 participants in 2019. Results of JTRP/INDOT research projects, conferences, and engagement activities are published on the Purdue e- Pubs open access web platform and have been downloaded approximately 2.2 million times from over 26,800 institutions across 230 countries.