Each year, we complete 30-40 projects with communities across the state of Iowa. IISC works with many UI college and departments, including the Colleges of Engineering, Business, Nursing, Liberal Arts & Sciences, and the Graduate College. We add to our projects throughout the academic year. These are our projects for this year, to date. Many more will be added next semester.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

IISC gives six awards to acknowledge outstanding contributions by UI faculty, students, and Iowa communities.

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.