Community Engagement
Are you an honors college student who would like to join your peers in supporting the local community of Greater Lafayette? There are many entry points for you:
Heads Up Tutoring and Life Skills Program
Heads Up is an afterschool program offering academic support and social development for K-12 youth living in public housing complexes in east-Lafayette. Heads Up serves youth in the clubhouse where they live, eliminating the transportation barrier for youth. The Homework Club partners with EDCI 350 in fall and spring semesters. Through its programs, Heads Up offers preservice teachers a site to complete their service-learning hours, Purdue students an opportunity to fulfill a community-identified need, and Heads Up youth more individualized support. There is room to create a scholarly project through this program. Sign up to volunteer with Heads Up at bit.ly/huvolunteers
Contact Dr. Temitope Adeoye Olenloa (adeoye@purdue.edu) for further information.
What can you do?
- Inquire about how to apply for a paid Reading Leader or Math Leader position open to Purdue work study students (email Dr. Temi)
- Volunteer to help youth with homework and practice their academic skills after school through the Heads Up Homework Club during the academic year
- Mentor pre-/teenagers year-round in the Heads Up Teen Mentoring program
- Facilitate engaging educational and health activities in the Heads Up Sunny Days program from June-July while sharing a nutritious meal with youth and community partners
- Engage in longitudinal, community-based, mixed methods research that evaluates youth needs, learning, and development
HIFI Lab
HIFI is a community for nature-based learning, sound exploration, and real-world problem-solving for creative thinkers. Its aim is to cultivate a vibrant undergraduate interdisciplinary community of JMHC undergraduate students interested in the science, technology and culture of conservation and sound.
We engage in community-based approaches to conservation at regional levels through programs such as service-learning partnerships, ecological-based research, wildlife ambassadors, community celebrations, interactive displays and field ecology workdays. We will use sonic biodiversity as a novel approach to help understand impacts of noise and climate change on natural habitats, agroecological systems and wildlife dispersal.
Contact Dr. Kristen Bellisario (kbellisa@purdue.edu) for further information.
What can you do?
- Applied research and exhibit work with a partner organization (current and previous partners include Niches Land Trust, Midwest Acoustic Society, Wolf Park, City of West Lafayette Parks and Recreation, Tippecanoe County Parks and Recreation, Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources Research Properties, Purdue Biology and Ecology Research Properties, Indiana State Museum, and Birck Nanotechnology Center)
- Conservation-based field workdays (transportation not included)
- Serve on the committee that builds awareness about wildlife conservation
- Volunteer to present or engage with youth in school or camp settings
HonorServes, committee of students for community engagement
HonorServes is a JMHC student committee with the goal to build community between Honors College students through service to the people of Greater Lafayette. It partners with three community organizations:
- Food Finders
- YWCA Domestic Violence Intervention and Prevention Program
- NICHES Land Trust
Contact Jessi-Alex Brandon (brandoja@purdue.edu) for further information.
What can you do?
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Join the general membership to get involved in any weekly activities that benefit our community partners'. Use this link to show your desire to participate.
- Lead your JMHC peers in any of the organized HonorServes functions that support our community partners.
- Work directly with our community partners to identify their needs and develop ways to fulfil them through HonorServes.
- Develop the discourse around community engagement with your peers by choosing guest speakers to talk about how research, action, policy and advocacy intersect.
Silver House Engagement for Earth Day
How can community-based approaches be used to involve local populations in conservation projects to help reverse biodiversity loss ("reverse the red")?
Community-based approaches are integral to conservation at a local level through programs such as wildlife ambassadors, community celebrations, interactive displays, and field ecology workdays. We also use sonic biodiversity in ecological-based research to help understand impacts of noise and climate change on natural habitats, agroecological systems, and wildlife dispersal.
Join our mission to “reverse the red.” Your tasks are simple — bring passion, enthusiasm, and your skills to this interdisciplinary team. In one day, you can save a tree. In four months, you can discover the diversity of life in Indiana and help inform policy.
Contact Dr. Kristen Bellisario (kbelissa@purdue.edu) for further information.
What can you do?
- Improve data workflow.
- Design a database system.
- Use AI to find patterns in ecology.
- Label samples captured in the field.
- Film the process and tell a story.
- Design an interactive exhibit.
- Use field equipment.
- Study wildlife animals.
- Go on a field trip.
- Develop and engage in an ecology-based hackathon.
- Have fun.
JMHC students in any House may participate.
SOAR Through Leadership
SOAR cultivates the next generation of leaders by creating spaces where youth can build confidence, character, and a sense of agency. Our purpose is to make leadership development accessible, relational, and rooted in growth—for both the students we serve and the university mentors who walk alongside them. We are committed to designing innovative, game-based programs that are grounded in research, responsive to change, and reflective of the real needs of youth. In doing so, we aim to foster a sustainable culture of leadership that extends beyond individual programs and into the lives and futures of everyone involved.
Contact Dr. Adam Watkins ( aewatkin@purdue.edu ) for further information.
What can you do?
- Facilitate fun leadership learning programs for local youth to help them foster leadership identities, strengthen emotional regulation, and practice collaborative decision making.
- Design innovative leadership activities for youth using game-based learning practices while cultivating your own collaboration, creative thinking, and systems thinking skills.
- Hone research skills and understanding of needs-based curriculum design while developing the foundations for a youth leadership development program.
- Help build an enthusiastic and tight-night community that embraces the power of play and believes that everyone has leadership potential.
- Build your community leadership skills while learning how to work effectively with community partners.
TREKS - The Transformative Scholarship Research Generator
The Transformative Scholarship Research Generator exists to enhance students’ skill development and educational outcomes in the areas of qualitative and quantitative research and data science, engagement, and scholarship—to develop engaged citizens prepared to address societal issues wherever they are. The research generator will facilitate scholars’ development and educational outcomes via classroom learning, experiential learning and fieldwork within local, regional, national, and international communities and industries, and through scholarship venues such as domestic and international conferences, the publishing process, and through applying for national and international scholarships. The research generator works in partnership with the Office of Engagement to make undergraduate engagement an integral part of the undergraduate experience in the John Martinson Honors College and at Purdue.
Contact Dr. Jason Ware (jaware@purdue.edu) for further information.
What can you do?
- Map neighborhood assets, compile demographic information, research community context, and assess livability for various Northend neighborhoods in Lafayette.
- Interview homeowners about how Habitat for Humanity has influenced their well-being.
- Create mini films that tell the story of Habitat for Humanity’s impact on partner families – for recruiting new families and fundraising efforts.
- Investigate correlations that exist between homelessness, health, and healthcare access.
- Determine where evictions are happening in Lafayette since the State of Indiana moratorium of evictions expired in August 2020.
- Explore and measure the impact that Grow Local urban sharing gardens have on the communities they serve.
- Automate community indicator data to provide the City of Lafayette with a data dashboard from which it can gauge the performance of key community development initiatives focused on neighborhoods, housing, and homelessness.
- Launch FIRST LEGO League teams within informal learning spaces, such as after-school programs hosted by community and neighborhood centers, to engage underrepresented minority youth in STEM activities.
- Serve at one of four local middle or high schools as a Students in Action (SIA) coach, and mentor youth as they identify important local challenges and issues. SIA coaches mentor and support youth as they design, develop, implement, and measure the impact of programs to address the challenges and issues they identify.
- Collect oral histories from Northend residents as part of the “Greatriarchs” program to recognize and celebrate elders and to incorporate them into community well-being initiatives.
- Build a digital mapping platform as part of a “community consultancy for quality-of-life" project that includes local residents in planning for and evaluating quality-of-life initiatives related to the built environment in Lafayette’s Northend – in conjunction with the Quality of Life Foundation, which is a London based charity.
Urban Matters Lab
Students in the Urban Matters Lab have the opportunity to work on a variety of research projects related to the urban built environment for undergraduate research experiences (UREs) and/or for Honors Scholarly Project credit in the John Martinson Honors College. The lab has a number of current and past projects that can be viewed on the lab website--each involving community partners with specific needs related to historic urban environments, thus providing students with a great opportunity to get involved with hands-on research opportunities and collaborations with real community partners. Projects in the lab involve primary and secondary research through archival resources ranging from local (Purdue Archives, Tippecanoe County Historical Association (TCHA), WL Public Library, and Tippecanoe Public Library), regional (Indiana Historical Society), national (National Archives, Library of Congress) and others to understand the history of specific urban areas and create historical narratives for sites within those areas. In addition, students record oral histories, transcribe them, analyze them, create historical narratives based on the stories they collect, and supplement that information with primary sources to create a more rounded historical narrative about heritage sites in the area. These UREs allow students to develop a wide range of qualitative research skills, enhance their resumes, and develop critical skills in communication, presentation, professionalism, and develop a good work ethic.
Contact Dr. Ashima Krishna ( krish191@purdue.edu) with inquiries.