Hands-On Help
PHOTO COURTESY IISC
A UI partnership will help rural high school students learn about careers in health care.
Partners in Iowa’s Growth
The UI's Initiative for Sustainable Communities provides students with learning opportunities that benefit towns across the state.
As a University of Iowa urban and regional planning student, Emani Brinkman put the skills she learned in the classroom to use by creating a master plan for a piece of undeveloped land in Clinton, Iowa.
Not only did she and her classmates help the town, but they also received useful hands-on experience to prepare for their futures. Brinkman (23MS) now works as an associate planner for the City of West Des Moines and credits the learning opportunity for helping to jumpstart her career.
Every year through the UI’s Initiative for Sustainable Communities, hundreds of students across disciplines have a chance like Brinkman to provide valuable services to Iowans throughout the state. Since 2009, the IISC has connected UI classrooms with community partners to complete dozens of projects annually, ranging from painting a mural in Mason City to restoring a historic building in Manning. Here are four examples of recent IISC projects that have enhanced student learning while enriching life in Iowa.
PHOTO: BONDURANT HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Rural History Preservation
Bondurant, 2023–24
Bondurant is a city deeply rooted in farming and agricultural traditions, yet the community’s identity is being reshaped by rapid growth. An unused grain silo downtown heralds to its past, while a new Amazon warehouse across the road from old clapboard farmhouses signals toward its future. Working with the newly formed Bondurant Historical Society, UI graduate students in the humanities have created an online history of Iowa’s second-fastest growing city.
UI students wrote about the history of Bondurant, Iowa, including the founder’s home (pictured), for a digital project with the Bondurant Historical Society.Health Care Career Exploration
Appanoose, Keokuk, Lucas, Monroe, Poweshiek, Tama, and Wayne Counties, 2024–25
To address the need for more health care professionals in rural Iowa, UI College of Nursing graduate students have partnered with the Fairfield-based nonprofit Pathfinders Resource Conservation & Development to help high school students in seven counties to learn about nursing and other careers in medicine.
Prairie Restoration
West Burlington, 2024–25
UI earth and environmental science students worked with West Burlington this past semester to develop a new prairie garden. The southeast Iowa town plans to use the garden as a demonstration site that will inspire local businesses and residents to plant their own small prairies, providing a welcome habitat for songbirds, pollinators, and other wildlife.
Pocket Neighborhood Development
Maquoketa, 2017–18
In conjunction with the East Central Intergovernmental Association, UI civil and environmental engineering students worked on a senior capstone project to design a new residential development in Maquoketa that provided much-needed affordable housing for the area. In fall 2022, a ribbon-cutting celebrated the opening of Bear River Cottages, a pocket neighborhood of 10 modestly priced homes that were immediately occupied.
Students Keep Community Journalism Alive in Rural Iowa
The Daily Iowan buys two small-town newspapers, preserving local news and providing UI students on-the-job training with veteran journalists.
Since 1869, the Solon Economist and Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun have informed readers on the news and issues that affect small-town Iowa, whether through reporting on city hall and high school sports or sharing stories about people in the community. But like many newspapers covering small communities and rural life across the country, the two weeklies have struggled with rising operating costs and a loss of ad revenue.
According to a recent local news study conducted by Medill, Northwestern University’s journalism school, the nation is on pace to lose one-third of its newspapers by the end of this year when compared with 2005. The Solon Economist and Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun were in danger of becoming part of that statistic until a unique partnership with the University of Iowa presented a lifeline.
Earlier this year, the UI’s independent, student-run newspaper, The Daily Iowan, acquired the two nearby papers in what might be the only such news-academic partnership that exists. What appealed to Jason Brummond (08BA, 08BBA, 14MBA), The Daily Iowan’s publisher, and Melissa Tully, head of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, was the opportunity to boost production capabilities at two local newspapers that were under constant threat of folding, while also adding to the school’s growing catalog of experiential learning opportunities.