September 10, 2025
MSU Scholars Receive Award, Grant for Community Engagement Efforts
Contact: Emily Springer, Communication Manager, Communication and Information Technology, University Outreach and Engagement, sprin116@msu.edu
EAST LANSING, MI— Two MSU researchers were among scholars from universities across the country who recently received awards and grants from the Engagement Scholarship Consortium (ESC), a network of higher education institutions committed to advancing community-engaged scholarship.
Destiny Kanning: Excellence in Student Community Engagement Award
ESC announced the recipients of its 2025 Excellence Awards, conferring the Excellence in Student Community Engagement Award on Destiny Kanning, a graduate research assistant in the College of Nursing, for “Rethinking Patient Education in the Overutilization of Pediatric Emergency Medicine.”
Kanning’s research explores the effectiveness of targeted educational interventions—specifically, multilingual brochures, structured reeducation workshops, and a culturally tailored healthcare navigation system—in reducing non-emergent pediatric emergency department visits.
She will be recognized at ESC’s Awards and Recognition Ceremony during its annual conference in October.
“ESC is honored to recognize the critical work that scholars engage in with community partners,” said ESC President Laurie A. Van Egeren, vice provost for public engagement at the University of Minnesota. “These awardees are model university-community partnerships that highlight the importance of research, teaching, and practice situated in the real world that makes meaningful impacts for society.”
Jorhie Beadle: Research/Creative Activities Grant
In addition to the awards, ESC also provides grants to support collaborative community-engaged research. Jorhie Beadle, interim program director in the College of Natural Science’s Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment (RISE), received a 2025 Engaged Scholarship Research/Creative Activities Grant for “Understanding Indigenous Food Sovereignty in Michigan,” a collaborative project with co-author Stephen Stresow, a graduate research assistant in MSU’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
With this one-year grant, Beadle, Stresow, and their team will address concerns raised by Michigan’s Tribal leaders during the Native American Institute’s listening tour in 2023. The grant will help fund a two-day Indigenous Food Sovereignty Summit in April, as well as post-conference evaluations to identify ways MSU can better support Tribal producers of food in farming, ranching, and forestry.
Beadle was among 16 scholars nationwide to receive an ESC’s Engaged Scholarship Research/Creative Activities Grant. Launched in 2019, the program supports collaborative projects among faculty from more than one discipline and/or more than one university.
To learn more about ESC, visit its website.
