Veridian Credit Union Community Engagement Award

2008 Winners

Christine Bauman:

Associate professor of accounting in the College of Business Administration

Bauman coordinates UNI's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which offers free tax assistance to low- and moderate-income taxpayers while providing an experiential learning opportunity for UNI accounting students. VITA was established by the Internal Revenue Services to help those who may find it difficult to pay for tax preparation services. Bauman trains volunteer students, maintains IRS quality control requirements, lines up the tax-preparation software, publicizes the program and finalizes other details prior to UNI's VITA site opening to the public. UNI's VITA site is one of the few with the expertise to prepare tax returns for international students who are not U.S. citizens but are required to file a tax return because of wages earned in the U.S. Approximately 60 UNI students get practical and applicable experience each spring electronically preparing federal and state tax returns, many of which involve refundable tax credits such as the earned income tax credit and child tax credit. They assist nearly 500 taxpayers during each filing season.

Susan Roberts-Dobie:

Assistant professor of health promotion in the College of Education

The Northeast Iowa Food Bank has benefited from more than 350 of Roberts-Dobie's students, and those students have in turn benefited from being exposed to the needs of fellow community members through their work with the local food bank. Students in Robert-Dobie's classes have contributed more than 2,000 hours of service to the Northeast Iowa Food Bank, raised more than $5,000 in the last two years for the food bank and also presented nutrition education to people throughout the Cedar Valley. Roberts-Dobie hopes that her students, after volunteering at the Northeast Iowa Food Bank, will become long-term supporters of food banks and food pantries wherever they may live.

Laura Jackson:

Professor of biology in the College of Natural Sciences.

Jackson has been protecting and preserving biological diversity on public and private lands since coming to UNI in 1993. In addition to her roles as vice chair of the Advisory Board for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and member and past chair of the State Preserves Advisory Board, Jackson has been instrumental in developing the Professional Science Master's program in ecosystem management at UNI. Graduate students in this program work in teams to conduct a project defined by clients outside the university. They attend board meetings, make presentations and act as a staff member of the client while taking classes toward their degree -- getting both classroom and professional experience before entering the profession full time.

Jim O'Loughlin:

Assistant professor of English language and literature in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts

O'Loughlin has been involved with both the Cedar Falls and Waterloo public libraries for several years and promotes literacy through the All Iowa Reads program. O'Loughlin encourages his literature students to attend book discussions at the libraries, and his professional writing students write grants on behalf of the public libraries. Books and Brunch, one of the programs enabled by a student-written grant, taught parents effective methods of reading to their children. In 2007, O'Loughlin coordinated an internship for a UNI graduate student to conduct creative writing workshops for teenagers, and each class filled to capacity.

Ramanathan "Sugu" Sugumaran:

Associate professor of geography in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Sugumaran's GeoInformatics Training, Research, Education and Extension (GeoTREE) Center is an invaluable technological resource to public agencies, including federal, state, local and tribal governments, and to UNI graduate and undergraduate students. The GeoTREE Center offers free workshops to train public agency professionals in geospatial related technologies such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), satellite remote sensing and Global Positioning Systems (GPS). These workshops allow agencies to acquire highly valued technical skills to make their services more valuable to the taxpayers and communities being served. The GeoTREE Center also uses geospatial technologies to conduct research in water and air quality, West Nile virus mapping, heat-loss detection and monitoring the loss of farmland.