Student, actor, director, teacher, and singer Tempestt Farrar confidently stepped up to the podium Wednesday, May 9, at the 2017-18 Annual Year-End Celebration for the Office of Outreach & Engagement to accept her award for Student Excellence and Service. She looked upward and sang out the first verse of Greatest Love of All. “This is how I feel,” she told an audience of faculty, staff, students, and community partners at the Levitt Center for University Advancement. Farrar described the growth and accomplishments she experienced through her work as a graduate assistant for Arts Share and the Office of Outreach & Engagement at the University of Iowa, as well as the growth she helped nurture in the individuals and students with whom she worked over the past year.

The event honored the work facilitated and supported by the Office of Outreach & Engagement over the past year, including roughly 40,000 hours of work completed by UI students and faculty in community engagement projects. Many were interdisciplinary, featuring students from multiple departments across campus, such as the College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Public Health, Graduate College (Urban & Regional Planning), and the College of Business. Faculty, staff, and students from these areas and more worked in communities touching all four corners of the state, collaborating with community members, groups, and organizations on projects and events that might not otherwise be completed without university involvement.

“The Office of Outreach & Engagement partnered faculty and students in academic courses with community partners to complete real projects that made a difference in our state. This structure not only brings faculty and students to Iowa’s communities, but it also transforms how we teach and learn on campus,” said Linda Snetselaar, associate provost for Outreach & Engagement.