ECU national finalist, one of four regional winners of W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Award
GREENVILLE, N.C. (8/22/2024) — East Carolina University is one of four national universities recognized for extraordinary community engagement initiatives and named a regional winner of the 2024 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award given by the Engagement Scholarship Consortium.
As a regional winner, ECU is a finalist for the C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award, which will be presented in November by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). The other finalists are the University of Minnesota, Oregon State University and West Virginia University.
ECU was chosen for its efforts to address high suicide rates and significant unmet mental health needs stemming from economic stressors, geographical isolation, family dynamics and other health challenges facing rural North Carolina residents.
In 2006, ECU launched a partnership with Contentnea Health, based in Snow Hill, to increase access to critical primary health care and behavioral health services for underserved populations.
The partnership has supported more than 126,000 integrated behavioral health care encounters with patients through primary care clinics, dental clinics, on farms and in school settings since its inception over 18 years ago. The effort provides behavioral health services on average to 7,000 people each year.
“ECU’s commitment to rural health for our communities is central to our DNA. It’s who we are as an institution, and we lift up that commitment through our mission,” said ECU Chancellor Philip Rogers.
ECU and its external partners have worked to deliver integrated behavioral health services within primary care visits for rural, underrepresented, and underinsured or uninsured patients and families in eastern North Carolina. The university partnership provides ECU doctoral and master’s students with foundational clinical and research training on standards of care that frame their careers.
“The ECU-Contentnea Health partnership shows how university-community engagement acts as a bridge to connect knowledge and innovation, transform lives, foster collaboration and cultivate brighter futures for all,” said Dr. Sharon Paynter, chief innovation and engagement officer and interim chief research officer at ECU.
Since 2007, the APLU and the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, have honored the engagement scholarship and partnerships of four-year public universities. The award recognizes programs that demonstrate how colleges and universities have redesigned their learning, discovery and engagement missions to deepen partnerships and achieve broader impacts in their communities. The national award is named for C. Peter Magrath, APLU president from 1992 to 2005.
The Magrath Award includes a sculpture and a $20,000 prize. The three other regional winners will each receive a $5,000 prize to further their work. Award winners will be announced at APLU’s annual meeting in November.
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