Baldwin Seed Project grant recipients announced

It doesn’t have to take a lot of money or time to carry out a good idea.

That is the idea behind Baldwin Seed Project Grants. Twenty projects have been chosen with all lasting less than a year and funded for $4,000 or less.

“It is exciting — and inspiring — to see the variety in these projects and think about the impact they can make,” says Provost Sarah Mangelsdorf. “All serve as a wonderful reminder of the potential reach of the Wisconsin Idea.”

The Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Seed Project Grants are one type of grant provided through the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. Seed Projects often seek to explore or expand new dimensions of existing translational outreach, community-based, and research and public engagement activities. Seed Projects are animated by innovative ideas and are shaped by the priorities, needs and interests of the communities they serve.

Ira Baldwin, a longtime UW teacher, researcher and administrator, served as dean of the Graduate School and the College of Agriculture and as vice president for academic affairs. Ineva Reilly Baldwin taught and served in the university administration as assistant dean of women and associate dean of the College of Letters & Science. Their endowment is one of the largest gifts ever received by UW–Madison.

The competitive grant program is open to UW–Madison faculty, staff and students. Larger grants will be announced later this spring.

The 20 seed grants are:

Allen Centennial Garden’s Best. Fridays. Ever.

Benjamin Futa and Kaitlin McIntosh, CALS/Horticulture

The Garden’s 2018 Best. Friday. Ever. series (three events) embraces the Wisconsin Idea and celebrates the power of public gardens to tell the stories of our natural and cultural commonwealth — in this case, the stories of UW–Madison and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Assessing the Need and Opportunity for Short Messaging Service (SMS) Based Systems for Economic Empowerment in Haiti

Ornella Hills, Robyn Baragwanath and Dhavan Shah,  L&S/Journalism and Mass Communication

This project explores the opportunity to use a Short Messaging Service-based system to improve economic development among entrepreneurs in one of the largest informal markets in one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean, Haiti. The goal is to expand the utilization of communication technologies that specifically target low income developing nations for improved economic empowerment and well-being.

Athletic Training Students Bringing Concussion Awareness to Communities

Chloe McKay and Andrew Winterstein, School of Education/Kinesiology

This project will develop educational materials to provide information regarding concussions to students on the UW–Madison campus and to the surrounding community.

Being Present: A Toolkit for Parents, Caregivers, and Educators of Young Children

Allison G. Kaplan, L&S/The Information School, and Libby Bestul, School of Human Ecology/UW–Extension

This project will share critical information and exchange ideas with the community of early childhood caregivers regarding ways to help adults be more present and mindful when working and being with children.

Building Partnerships to Promote Positive Mental Health for Children and Youth in Rural Wisconsin

Andy Garbacz, Bradley Carl and Craig Albers, School of Education/Educational Psychology

The purpose of this project is to partner with the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance (WiRSA) and rural schools to identify mental health needs, examine existing rural school-based mental health practices, and develop a scoped and sequenced plan for rural schools to promote positive mental health outcomes for children and youth.

Exploring the Micro-World

Sebastien Ortiz and Christina Hull, SMPH/Biomolecular Chemistry

The overall goal of this project is to show young students the wonder of science by helping them learn about the microscopic world around them. This outreach project will be specifically aimed at exposing underserved communities to the benefits of science through exploration of their local environments using Foldscopes (inexpensive, foldable microscopes).

Facilitating the Vision of the “Badger Re-use Plan”

Paul Zedler and Craig Maier, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

Working with the Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance, this project will assist in the ongoing transition of the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant in Sauk County from a 7,400-acre military site to a multi-use conservation and agriculture landscape managed by three primary landowners: the U.S. Department of Agriculture Dairy Forage Research Center, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Fighting Poverty with New Resources: Transforming Lives through the Odyssey Project Campus Network

Emily Auerbach and Colleen Johnson, Division of Continuing Studies/Liberal Arts and Applied Studies

This grant will be used to explore new ways that campus and community partners can help Odyssey students overcome obstacles through direct outreach and transferring research findings.

Helping Infants and Toddlers Cope with Parental Incarceration

Julie Poehlmann-Tynan and Julia Yeary, School of Human Ecology

With 5 million U.S. children experiencing a co-resident parent leaving for jail or prison, the goal of this project is to take developmentally appropriate material created for infants and toddlers of military parents during deployment, and adapt it for infants and toddlers of incarcerated parents.

Identifying Opportunities to Encourage Access to Campus-generated Information Resources

Carrie Nelson, Libraries

This project seeks to help disseminate university-generated knowledge by identifying and describing not only the available information, but also the existing systems available to help connect the public to these campus-generated resources. This project will allow us to identify opportunities to share more of these resources more effectively and more widely.

Investigating Farm-level Factors and Life History Events that Affect Carcass Quality of Dairy Cows

Guilherme Rosa and Ligia Moreira, CALS/Animal Science

The overall objective of this project is to collect and analyze data from dairy farms in Wisconsin, tracking the life history of their cull cows in order to aid farmers with management and culling decisions to improve the quality of carcass and meat from cull dairy cows.

Listening to Inform: Developing Urban Indigenous Arts and Sciences

Cheryl Bauer-Armstrong and Rachel Byington, L&S/Planning and Landscape Architecture

This project entails hosting a series of dialogues with educators, parents and students in order to develop a strategic plan to develop culturally responsive professional development programs specifically for urban educators and culturally relevant educational programs for youth.

Medical Education and Discovery Course: Increasing Self-efficacy among Underrepresented Students

Michael Kim, Krystle Campbell and Tisha Kawahara, SMPH/Emergency Medicine

This project seeks to address the opportunity gaps for youth in Dane County by offering the Mini Medical Education and Discovery program for precollege students.

The experiences will be designed to empower students to set their career goals high in health care fields and gain confidence in being able to achieve these goals.

Out of the Box: An International Education Subscription Service for Rural Teachers

Nancy Heingartner and Lauren Marino, International Division/Africa Center

Building on a successful pilot project, the Institute for Regional and International Studies Discovery Box Subscription Service will provide curated collections of cultural items such as objects, textiles, books, music and films paired with lesson plans and multimedia materials assembled by University of Wisconsin area-studies experts to Wisconsin high school social science teachers.

Pathways for Underrepresented Youth to Pursue Occupational Therapy: Diverse-OT Outreach across Wisconsin

Catherine Conrad and Monica Daleccio, Education/Kinesiology

Diverse-OT (Occupational Therapy) is a student-developed and student-led organization that introduces underrepresented high school and undergraduate students to the growing health care field of OT, which is focused on improving the quality of life of individuals. With this grant, Diverse-OT will expand its outreach efforts by making presentations and offering hands-on experiences with OT adaptive equipment in Milwaukee and Darlington, Wisconsin.

Registered Student Organization Civic Partnership Program

Megan Miller and Anisa Yudawanti, Morgridge Center for Public Service

This proposal seeks to meet the needs of both UW–Madison students wanting to engage in community-based work through registered student organizations (RSOs) and community partner organizations seeking to build long-term partnerships with these RSOs. The goal is to better connect the RSOs with the Morgridge Center for Public Service to enhance the quality and quantity of community-based work, a key aspect of UW–Madison’s Civic Action Plan.

Responding to Suspected and Sex Trafficked Children and Youth in Northeast Wisconsin

Lara Gerassi, L&S/Social Work

This project will partner with the Youth and Family Services Division of Outagamie County, which is currently creating a regional response protocol for suspected and confirmed trafficked cases for the northeast region of Wisconsin. The project aims to understand the gaps in services, enabling the development of specialized trainings for service providers and strengthening cross collaboration efforts to serve sex trafficked children and youth.

Rhetoric-in-Action: Community-University Partnerships to Address Wisconsin’s Engagement Challenges

Caroline Druschke and Christa Olson, L&S/English

Seed funding will support the creation of the Rhetoric-in-Action Collaborative to strengthen university-community ties between UW–Madison faculty and students in rhetorical studies and three organizations: the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Freedom, Inc.; and the Wisconsin Historical Society. “Rhetoric-in-Action” will invite community partners to educate UW–Madison students and faculty about the challenges of public engagement in their particular issue areas, and will provide the resources necessary to identify areas of potential university intervention and collaboration on tractable aspects of these complex challenges.

Tap Talks at Central Waters Brewery: Bringing UW–Madison to Rural Wisconsin

Moira Harrington and Tim Campbell, VCRGE/Aquatic Sciences Center, and UW–Madison/UW–Extension Environmental Resources Center

With the help of local partners, the Aquatic Sciences Center and UW–Extension will host nine “Tap Talks” at Central Waters Brewing Company in Amherst, Wisconsin. Seed grant funding will be used to pay for travel of UW–Madison researchers to present at the event and to advertise the event in print and online media. The hope is that this model of science communication can extend the reach of UW–Madison work into rural communities and build relationships with the citizens there.

Virtual Language Cafe: Cultivating English Proficiency and Digital Literacies Among Immigrant Women

Julia Garrett and Kate Vieira, L&S/English

This project investigates new strategies for employing online platforms to help sustain the literacy aspirations of immigrant women. Over the course of a 12-week program, two instructors will provide a weekly curriculum that will cultivate both conversational skills and digital literacies specifically among immigrant women (in part to respect cultural preferences about gender and social interaction). Collaborating with Goodman South Madison Library will allow Garrett and Vieira to work with their network of partnerships with other community sites.

Fuller descriptions of the projects can be found on the Baldwin website.