Impact Area

Focused on fostering meaningful connections with our local communities, the Office of Community Partnerships (OCP) at the Brown School aims to cultivate, support, and sustain partnerships that bring about transformative social change for local communities and the region. The Brown School has identified priority geographic areas in the most critical need, making a measurable impact through social and economic justice.

The ASSURE fellowship at WashU Medicine provides college students from the St. Louis metro area an opportunity to engage in basic, clinical, and/or translational research projects. Candidates without prior research experience are particularly encouraged to apply.

Through its partnerships with local schools and its work to bridge research and practice, the Institute for School Partnership (ISP) at WashU is closing the education gap for tens of thousands of students in under-resourced schools. ISP has helped boost math and science learning, raise standardized test scores, increase teachers’ confidence in teaching STEM, and improve students’ self-confidence and development of career goals.

The mission of PECaD is to ensure that all cancer patients and communities benefit from the clinical and scientific advances at Siteman Cancer Center. The program strives to reduce the cancer burden and related disparities, while engaging communities to promote health equity across Siteman’s catchment and beyond.

Advancing Secondary Science Education through Tetrahymena (ASSET) is an NIH SEPA funded science education outreach program at Washington University in St. Louis. ASSET has developed a variety of modular science education materials designed to stimulate hands-on, inquiry-based learning of fundamental biological concepts for all grade levels. Among the aims outlined in the grant for the program is reaching populations traditionally underrepresented in science in the St. Louis area.

Developed by experts at the Brown School of Social Work, this website facilitates access to curated multi-year Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) EHDI data–with data analysis to support research and benchmarking at the state and national levels–for Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) professionals.

“Architecture for Non-Architects” is designed for WashU undergraduates who are not enrolled in a traditional architecture studio. The course introduces students to the processes architects use to think about, view, and produce the built environment.

The Healthy Kids Express– Diabetes Program brings a team of diabetes experts including those from Children’s Hospital and Washington University Physicians to underserved area schools.

The Science Media Fellowship program at WashU Medicine’s McDonnell Genome Institute supports local high school students interested in science, journalism, public policy, and more. Additionally, the program shares with students how stories told about science influence public perception and public policy.

Washington University Libraries created exhibits in conjunction with a series of related events focusing on the history of slavery and the stories of enslaved individuals in St. Louis. The Slavery in St. Louis exhibition and the Archives of Resistance Event Series highlight primary source documents from the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections at University Libraries. A related display of Black Numismatics will be on display in the exhibition Coins Across Time: Ancient to American Numismatics. The exhibit and events arise from the WashU & Saver Project’s efforts to examine and address WashU’s historical entanglements with slavery, which include foundational research with contextualization of relevant collections in the library archives.