Overview of USI's Signature Initiative - Living Wisely

The University of Southern Indiana's beginning and trajectory embody key characteristics of an engaged university. These include responsiveness to community needs and aspirations, accessibility of expertise and resources to external constituencies, and a commitment to creating and sustaining community partnerships. The idea of a Signature Initiative arose and evolved during the process of developing USI’s 2016-2020 strategic plan.

The Signature Initiative - Living Wisely involves an intentional and integrated deployment of critical elements to support multi- disciplinary collaboration where faculty and student efforts, in partnership with community partners, can explore, discover, implement, and assess solutions that impact the health, education, economic security, and other determinants of well-being in communities.

The goals of the Signature Initiative - Living Wisely are:

• To foster multi-disciplinary scholarly work that impacts faculty, the University, and communities by leveraging faculty expertise and existing partnerships to address complex challenges facing communities.
• To provide a vehicle for USI faculty and community partners to create meaningful relationships that have positive impacts.
• To enhance USI’s contributions to new collaborative multi-disciplinary methods of inquiry that seek to address current and emerging complex societal challenges.