APLU Names University of Georgia 2022 C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award Winner

Denver, Colorado – In recognition of extraordinary community outreach, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) today named the University of Georgia (UGA) the winner of the 2022 C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award during a ceremony at the group’s annual meeting in Denver.

“Congratulations to the University of Georgia on being named the 2022 C. Peter Magrath Award winner,” said APLU President Mark Becker. “Working with communities across Georgia, UGA’s Archway Partnership has helped tackle a broad array of important locally identified issues, from economic development to preventative healthcare to broadening access to mental healthcare.”

UGA won the award for its Archway Partnership program. The program is a public service and outreach unit through which faculty members are based in communities to help stakeholders address locally identified critical issues. The faculty member, called an Archway Professional (AP), facilitates meetings where community members agree on and prioritize their needs.

The AP then reaches out to UGA schools and colleges for expertise the communities need. Often UGA faculty and students work with select communities to address their challenges. Eight communities are active at any one time over a period of years. These partnerships have led to the involvement of over 200 university faculty in Archway communities since the program began in 2005 and over $20 million in community and research grants since 2009, including a USDA grant of nearly $1 million to improve management of chronic health conditions in rural Georgia through telemedicine. The partnership has helped tackle community challenges such as high rates of diabetes and hypertension, increasing access to mental health care, and small business development in rural areas.

In September, UGA was named one of four regional winners of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award. Those regional winners, named in collaboration with the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, automatically become finalists for the national Magrath Award. The other regional winners of the 2022 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award were University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of Vermont, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Each of the three other W.K. Kellogg Award winners received $5,000 to support their community engagement efforts.