National Award for Provosts Established to Honor Civic Engagement Leadership

INDIANAPOLIS – What is believed to be the first national award for university provosts has been created to honor the extraordinary civic engagement leadership of William Plater, who is stepping down as executive vice chancellor and dean of the faculties at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI).

Plater’s work to link IUPUI to Indianapolis to make the city one of the best in which to live and work has long been recognized locally. Now, with the William M. Plater Award for Leadership in Civic Engagement, his accomplishments will be honored nationally too.

The Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and IUPUI created the national award that will be given annually to a chief academic officer of an AASCU institution who demonstrates exceptional civic engagement leadership.

The recipient of the award receives an engraved crystal and $1,000. Fittingly, the first person to receive the award was Plater.

In presenting the award to Plater, George L. Mehaffy, AASCU Vice President for Academic Leadership and Change, said, “Our institutions are inextricably linked to their communities and regions, and Bill was one of the first to recognize that truth. Furthermore, he understood that linking to the community was not just about inter-relationships and economic development…universities must sustain the spirit of community, the civic vitality of a community…and our graduates must be willing to become active, engaged members, not only of their community, but our democracy.”

Among Plater’s accomplishments cited by Mehaffy were:

• Started the Office of Service Learning, which he grew into the Center for Service and Learning, one of the nation’s leading centers (e.g., according to U.S. News and World Report, Eighty-one Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement, edited by Princeton Review, AAHE, NSEE, AASCU, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching).
• Established one of the largest community-service scholarship programs in the nation and naming it after a community leader: the Sam H. Jones Scholarship program.
• Created the Task Force on Service—which provided an examination of professional service as an area of faculty work and scholarship (few campuses have done this), and laid the foundations for IUPUI’s participation in the Kellogg Peer Review of Professional Service project and the publication, Service @ Indiana University: Defining, Documenting, and Evaluating.
• Organized the Task Force on Civic Engagement—which provided the conceptual foundation for defining and assessing civic engagement for the NCA self-study on civic engagement and was the precursor for the Council on Civic Engagement.
• Created the Office of Neighborhood Resources—which developed into a focused partnership with WESCO during a 10-year period, established a Community Outreach Partnership Center with WESCO, and became the Office of Neighborhood Partnerships.
• Hosted Indiana Campus Compact on the IUPUI campus, which resulted in joint programs that have produced resources (e.g., books, faculty development materials), programs (e.g. ICC Faculty Fellows program), research (e.g., on retention, community impact), and conferences on service learning and civic engagement.
• Developed innovative academic appointments that have included recognizing community collaborators as Community Scholars and Community Associates, and faculty as Public Scholars. Also, recognition through the Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Civic Engagement for a community partner and for a member of the faculty.
• Used Federal Work Study( FWS) funds to support community-based student work in nonprofits and community service. IUPUI commits more than 35% of FWS to America Reads, America Counts and other community placements.
• Tailored the use of Commitment to Excellence funds to increase infrastructure in academic units to support civic engagement.

In future years, the William M. Plater Award will be given to other deserving provosts, Mehaffy said. “IUPUI and AASCU are proud to be partners in this effort to honor you this year, and to honor you (Plater) each year in the years to come as this William M. Plater Award for Leadership in Civic Engagement is given to others.”

Plater will become the founding director of the Workshop on International Community Development, a newly focused initiative at IUPUI to combine and coordinate efforts in international community development.