Outreach
The University is actively engaged in
developing economic, cultural, and educational opportunities in
southern Indiana. Many faculty and staff extend their expertise to
activities throughout the region. The University enjoys a mutually
beneficial relationship with the historic town of New Harmony,
Indiana, a community with a rich intellectual and cultural
inheritance, providing laboratory learning experiences for the town
and the University. New Harmony was the site of two utopian
community experiments in the early 1800s, and today is a
destination for tourists and arts patrons. The University offers
professional theatre in the summer months at The New Harmony
Theatre, operates the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, and
offers tourism and education programs about the community.
The University welcomes appropriate partnerships for providing
services to its constituency and cooperates with public and private
universities, regional hospitals, and a local library consortium.
The University participates with area business, industry, and
social and governmental agencies for applied and partnership
initiatives related to the problems and concerns of economic and
workforce development, entrepreneurship and innovation, tourism and
recreation, health‑care delivery, gerontology, energy development,
and environmental-quality analysis. Community groups often use
academic resources and campus facilities.
While service to the region has always been a core value of the
institution, an expanded focus on outreach and engagement is
shaping new awareness and expectations of the University's role in
the region. Expectations from government, business, and community
leaders that USI will provide leadership to economic and workforce
development initiatives is reflected in recent institutional
emphasis on applied research, scholarly engagement, service
learning, faculty and student consulting, and regional
partnerships. Faculty, staff, and student expertise is extended to
activities throughout the region. The University's commitment to
regional development is demonstrated in the successful relationship
with the historic town of New Harmony and the heritage tourism
program of the 26-county Historic Southern Indiana Alliance.
Workforce development issues are addressed through targeted
degree credit programs, noncredit and contractual programs for a
variety of industries, on-site training, and partnerships with
regional economic development organizations. University
partnerships with the Evansville certified technology park and
incubator, Innovation Point, Southwest Indiana WIRED (Workforce
Innovation in Regional Economic Development), and various STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) -related
education projects demonstrate USI's active engagement philosophy.
For the short term, the primary areas of outreach focus are
economic development, workforce and regional development, and
expanded involvement with P-12 education. USI was named a Carnegie
Commission "Engaged University" in 2008.