May 14, 2020 | Issue 7
A Message from the Vice Provost
As we enter our ninth week sheltering in place, I imagine I’m not the only one experiencing the feelings that come with such uncertainty – sadness, fear, anxiety. 

Unemployment is at its highest level since the Great Depression, people are getting restless in quarantine, and there is no clear end in sight. Nothing will be the same after the coronavirus is a common sentiment, yet there is mounting concern that many of the systemic inequities exacerbated by this pandemic will remain in place. But how we think about what’s next is important because our point of view has consequences – if we get lost in despair, our behavior doesn’t change, yet optimism can feel like complacency. 

Perhaps the key is to concentrate on the process rather than the outcome, the journey rather than the destination: what can we do right now to get through each day? When the future is so unclear, the best we can do is focus on the next right thing.

While many actions can feel insignificant, small progress is still progress. For us, offering communication technology micro-grants to help community partners stay connected is the next right thing to do. 

What is the next right thing you can do? What is the next right thing you can do for your community?

Michael Rios
Vice Provost of Public Scholarship and Engagement
Announcements from PSE

As part of the Public Impact Research Initiative, Public Scholarship and Engagement recently awarded grants to support the development of new research collaborations and to deepen, sustain, or evaluate existing collaborative research. Learn more about the projects.

In an effort to increase equitable access to technology, Public Scholarship and Engagement is offering Communication Technology Micro-Grants of up to $250 for UC Davis faculty working with non-university partners in order to maintain engagement, stay connected and continue collaborating as best as possible under the current circumstances. Apply for a micro-grant.

Our Public Scholarship Faculty Fellows Program is now open to individuals interested in translating their engaged research and practices into academic publications. We encourage current UC Davis Academic Senate and full-time, non-represented Academic Federation members of all ranks from any UC Davis location to apply. We also encourage individuals who meet these criteria, and who have participated in other PSE programs to apply. Submit an application.
Virtual Events

Do we need physical spaces for creative placemaking? Can we manage to create a sense of community while being geographically separated due to COVID-19? Join this digital discussion on virtual communities with the man who first coined the terminology in the 1980s, Howard Rheingold.

May 22, 2020 | 12:30 - 1 p.m.

The California Environmental Protection Agency is hosting a free virtual conference to share best practices for meaningful community engagement during the shelter-in-place order. Community organizations, agencies, and environmental justice advocates are encouraged to RSVP.

June 2-4, 2020 | 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

This interactive event will highlight field research from Africa and South Asia showing evidence of Resilience+ and its place in a policy framework to guide donors, practitioners and policy makers interested in increasing development impacts and expanding the resilience of vulnerable populations around the world.

June 3, 2020 | 7 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.

The deadline to apply for the 2021-2022 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program competition is September 15, 2020. In preparation, the Institute of International Education is hosting a virtual Fulbright Scholar workshop session for interested individuals to learn more about the process and start their applications.

June 9, 2020 | 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Funding Opportunities

Mosaic has launched an open RFP to make $1 million of rapid response grants available to individual nonprofit grassroots organizations, and networks of them, focused primarily on environmental protection and/or environmental justice. Grants can fund tools and technology, training, and related resources needed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Deadline: May 22, 2020

Global Affairs is seeking innovative and fun proposals connecting students, staff, faculty and community members to Food for Thought: Feeding Ourselves, Feeding the Planet . Given challenges related to COVID-19, proposals exploring the impact on farmworkers, the emergence of much more threatening social inequalities, alteration of food supply chain, exposure of people who have to choose between work and health, the impact on seasonal workers/migration, and others are encouraged.

Deadline: May 31, 2020

The Tribal Government Challenge Planning Grant Program, funded by the California Energy Commission and administered by the California Strategic Growth Council, will help tribes conduct planning to identify solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve clean energy access, and advance climate adaptation and resiliency on tribal lands and in tribal communities. The applicant must be a California Native American Tribe.

Deadline: June 2, 2020

Danone Institute North America is soliciting proposals for its second annual “One Planet. One Health” Initiative, which offers academic-based teams the opportunity to design, implement and evaluate actionable community-based projects that drive the sustainability of local food systems. The goal of this grant program is to foster transdisciplinary, community-based work to promote sustainable food systems globally.

Deadline: June 22, 2020
In Case You Missed It
Keith David Watenpaugh (Director, Human Rights Studies) joined Karima Bennoune (Professor of Law and UN Special Rapporteur, Cultural Rights) and Joanna Regulska (Vice Provost and Associate Chancellor of Global Affairs and Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies) for Davis Humanities Institute's virtual conversation series on COVID-19.
The Academic Senate and Academic Federation have chosen their award recipients for 2020, members honored for their teaching, research and public service.
Aggie Square is all about accelerating collaboration among faculty across our Davis and Sacramento campuses.
The COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders and other limitations could offer researchers the chance to use technology to decrease the digital divide and disparities in academic research, suggests a University of California, Davis, professor in a new commentary.
Nataraj and his colleagues are among several teams across the country at universities such as Georgia Tech, UC Davis and the University of Minnesota that are scrambling to design low-cost ventilators for the coronavirus pandemic.
UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science leaders have assembled a list of projects families can do while at home, or just outside their homes while practicing social distancing.
About Public Scholarship and Engagement
Public Scholarship and Engagement is fostering a culture of engagement at UC Davis that increases the university’s impact through mutually-beneficial relationships that have local, regional, statewide, and global reach. We envision UC Davis research, teaching and learning that serves society and makes a positive difference in the world.

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