SERVING IOWA

The Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities (IISC) is a campus-wide community engagement initiative that empowers students, faculty, staff, and community partners to co-create mutually beneficial partnerships in pursuit of vibrant, sustainable, and equitable futures. 

The program offers essential, energizing, and applicable learning experiences to graduate and upper-level undergraduate students, while simultaneously providing valuable services and substantial outcomes to communities. 

Each year, we undertake full partnerships with 1-2 Iowa communities. We listen to our partners' needs and match these with the capacities of the university faculty and departments. Together, we co-develop a list of diverse projects that tap the assets of both the community and our students. Our goal is always to bring high-quality work to our partners, while providing learning opportunities for the next generation of community leaders.

IISC By the Numbers

60+

Iowa communities we've worked with

410

Community projects completed since 2009

200+

UI students working in Iowa communities each year

black map of Iowa with yellow stars

Discover Our Recent Partnerships

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Dubuque StoryMap
Bondurant storymap
Bondurant StoryMap
Manchester storymap
Manchester Storymap

Voices of IISC

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Through my experience with IISC, I learned how to effectively engage with diverse communities, address complex challenges, and balance the needs of stakeholders while ensuring the success of these projects. The hands-on experience in real-world settings provided by IISC was invaluable in building my confidence and expertise in the field and led to me getting the job I wanted.

Emani Brinkman (MS Urban Planning, '23), Associate Planner, City of West Des Moines

Woman in gray suit with a blue and purple scarf around her neck smiles at the camera.

The Community Empowerment Law Project (CELP) is staffed by law students working under faculty supervision. Collaboration with IISC and their community partners enables CELP students to better understand the issues, culture, and strengths of rural and small town Iowa; to participate in interdisciplinary work with students from across the university; and to do meaningful work and have an impact beyond Johnson County.

Daria Fisher Page, College of Law

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Working with IISC has been so fulfilling. It was a journey--from brainstorming ideas and working with community partners on the application through the finishing touches of the last project (a permanent art installation)! I’m excited to think about the body of work we have inherited and how Dubuque can put it to continued development and good use. This work helped me better understand many things about my community as well as inspire me to continue the work IISC has started.

Gina Bell, Director, Sustainable Dubuque

Dubuque Housing team group photo

Full Partnerships

What We Offer

Each year, IISC works with 1-2 Iowa communities on full partnerships that include a minimum of 10 major projects. This work is completed by graduate students and upper-level undergraduates, usually as part of a capstone class, and with guidance from a faculty member and a community project lead.

IISC has worked with 25 different UI departments and disciplines, including School of Library & Information Science, English, and Cinematic Arts. Our most frequent campus partners include:

  • Civil & Environmental Engineering
  • Community Engaged Law Project, College of Law
  • Geographical & Sustainable Sciences
  • Journalism & Mass Communication
  • Marketing Institute, Tippie College of Business
  • Public Affairs
  • Urban Planning
  • Visual arts
  • World Languages, Literature, & Culture

For a list of past and potential projects by disciplinary area, visit the Project Types page.

Has IISC worked in your community yet? 

In addition to the full partnerships that IISC has completed with the Iowa communities listed to the left, we have also collaborated on stand alone projects with more than 50 additional communities. To learn more about our past work across the state, visit the Projects page of this website.

Meet Some of Our Network

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EPIC-N

IISC is a founding member of the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities-Network (EPIC-N). This global nonprofit and its members unite the human capital of universities with local governments and communities to improve the quality of life and social wealth for all involved. Travis Kraus, director of IISC, currently serves on the organization's board.

Civil and Environmental Engineering Senior Design

Senior Design is a cornerstone of IISC partnerships. Each year IISC staff identify and develop 10 to 15 unique, real-world challenges for these soon-to-be engineers. Recent projects that CEE students developed for our partners and which have since been actualized include a redesign of Shelly Park in Manchester; and a pocket neighborhood in Maquoketa.


 

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Office of Community Engagement & Outreach

IISC has a strong relationship with the University of Iowa Office of Community Engagement, which works to facilitate the development of mutually beneficial partnerships between faculty, staff, and students at the University of Iowa with community partners across the state, nation, and world.  

Visual Arts

A hallmark of every IISC partnership is a public art project. There are many murals dotting Iowa that were created by a UI student working with IISC, including in Mason City, Clinton, Bondurant, and Waterloo. We've also designed and installed a decorative arch for a park and created a solar sculpture. The 2023-24 partnership with Dubuque culminated with installation of a sculpture created from salvaged playground equipment. See the video above about this ambitious project.

News

headshot of Lilli Scott

5 Questions with Lilli Scott

Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Lilli Scott talks food systems with us. The MPA student is part of a team working with Iowa Valley Resource Conservation & Development to analyze a possible CSA voucher program that would be in partnership with the University of Iowa.
map of West Burlington and Burlington, Iowa

Communities of West Burlington and Burlington Partner with IISC

Tuesday, August 27, 2024
The cities of West Burlington and Burlington have been selected as partners by the University of Iowa’s Initiative for Sustainable Communities (IISC) program. During the 2024-25 academic year, IISC will bring more than 100 faculty and students to collaborate with city officials on projects that include engineering designs and policy recommendations.
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Pathfinders RC&D Selected as 2024-25 IISC Partner

Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Pathfinders Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) has been selected as a partner by the University of Iowa’s Initiative for Sustainable Communities (IISC) program. The nonprofit applied with an emphasis on engaging local youth in areas of job growth. “Working in conjunction with the South Central Iowa Workforce Development Board, Pathfinders is thinking creatively and strategically about how to keep young people in Iowa’s small towns and rural areas,” said Travis Kraus, director of IISC.
Professor Jun Wang

University of Iowa receives $6M to study extreme weather in agriculture

Wednesday, August 7, 2024
The University of Iowa has received a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to complete a four-year study — which includes placing about 500 sensors across four states — looking at extreme weather in agriculture communities. Jun Wang, chair of the UI Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and a James E. Ashton professor in the College of Engineering, said the project will place the UI-invented weather sensors in fields and neighborhoods across Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas and Kansas. The small sensors will gather soil and air temperatures and humidity levels to help better predict extreme weather in rural communities.
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"Community" at Heart of IISC Team's Work

Friday, July 12, 2024
We, the staff of IISC--Travis Kraus, director, and Jennifer New, public engagement specialist--are passionate about community. Travis serves on multiple boards related to planning and community engagement and both are active in local nonprofits. Our work in the community informs IISC projects and partnerships.
drawing of houses on a blue background.

Dubuque Pursuing Sustainability, Development Initiatives Resulting from UI Study

Thursday, July 11, 2024
Dubuque city officials say they are seeking ways to implement recommendations made in a recently completed affordable housing action plan. The plan was created over the course of the 2023-24 school year by four University of Iowa graduate students who recommended various strategies the city can employ to move toward goals of sustainability, alleviating residents’ housing-cost burden and maximizing land for various types of housing.
welding

Sculpture Installation Caps Yearlong Partnership Between Dubuque and the University of Iowa

Monday, June 17, 2024
Jamie Weinfurter, a recent MFA graduate of the UI's School of Art and Art History, will install her new sculpture that she made for and with the students of Dubuque's Audubon Elementary School.
young woman dressed in black listens as an older man with a microphone talks and looks at her

IISC Recognizes Outstanding Faculty, Students, and Community Partners

Monday, May 6, 2024
IISC gives six awards to acknowledge outstanding contributions by UI faculty, students, and Iowa communities.
Park rendering

Bondurant's Future Looks Green

Monday, April 29, 2024
A community parks and recreation master plan is “a document that provides an inclusive framework for orderly and consistent planning; acquisition; development; and administration of the parks and recreation resources, programs, and facilities of the agency that sponsors the master plan.” (Source: American Association for Leisure and Recreation.) Because Bondurant is a rapidly growing community, it looked to IISC to create a plan that includes policies and frameworks for aligning parks and recreation services to accommodate its youthful and and growing population. The student team embraced the opportunity to support health initiatives and preserve and expand spaces for pollinators and other sustainability projects.
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Connecting Marshallese Students to Dubuque’s Schools

Monday, April 29, 2024
Students in the Community Empowerment Law Project spent Spring 2024 working with a wide array of partners in Dubuque to analyze the high degree of absenteeism among K-12 Marshallese students.
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