Final engagement conference panel focuses on service, societal needs

Lydia Gingerich
Fri, 26 Jan 2018 19:49:36 +0000
Campus, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, Community Engagement Conference, ohio state, Ohio State college of Food, Ohio state FAES, OSU College of Food, OSU FAES

Ohio State hosted its first community engagement conference at the Ohio Union Jan. 24 and 25. Credit: Jack Westerheide | Photo Editor

In the final panel discussion of the Community Engagement Conference held at the Ohio Union Thursday, three speakers encouraged attendees to get as many people as possible engaged in service to improve societal needs.

Stacy Rastauskas, the vice president of Ohio State’s Office of Governmental Affairs, moderated the panel of health and agriculture professionals including Thomas Ryan, Cathan Kress and Greg Moody.

The conversation began with each panelist giving a brief introduction to a community partnership. The examples were then used to discuss which elements are necessary in bringing beneficial change to society.

Kress, dean of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, discussed the importance of noticing needs that have not been assigned to an individual. In her former role as vice president for Extension and Outreach at Iowa State University, she said she observed that no one was responsible for what happened medically to children in foster care. With the help of many workers ?and supporters, she said she was able to establish a clinic that catered to children in the foster system.

Moody — director of the Office of Health Transformation, which Gov. John Kasich created in 2011 to improve the state’s medical services — said getting everyone involved is vital to ensure communities utilize money and talent more efficiently.

“We already have the resources we need to address our most pressing problems. Those resources may be dormant, or hoarded, or scattered but they’re there,” he said. “And we have the power within us to activate them in abundance.”

To illustrate that power, Moody told the story of his daughter creating a garden behind her high school to grow food for the local pantry.

“That spark of community engagement is in all of us, and I’m grateful that you’re all here sharing the best ideas about how to release that potential out into the world,” he said.

When asked by Rastauskas about the government’s role in the process, Ryan, director of Ohio State’s Heart and Vascular Center, said children in public school systems need to be educated about health.

“Don’t wait until people are 40 or 50 and they are finally starting to consider the possibility that they might have a health problem. What if you started in the middle school? … I think that’s where a partnership with government could really have an impact,” Ryan said.

All three panelists agreed the process of building a healthier community will never end, but everyone who wants to help must be committed to lifelong service.

“In order to support and be part of a civic society, there’s a requirement that we will always be doing this work,” Kress said.