IISC partnerships often includes these areas. If what you need isn't here, we seek other campus collaborators.
Engineering
Four kinds of engineering projects are common to IISC partnerships: hydrology, structural, transportation, and environmental. Examples of work includes sidewalk and trail design; evaluation and renovation design for existing buildings; floodplain and prairie restoration; and stormwater management and flood mitigation design.
Planning
Graduate students in planning focus on economic development; housing and community development; land use and the environment; and transportation. They have completed parking studies; created policy recommendations to increase access to local foods; and analyzed zoning ordinances.
Public Affairs
Graduate students in public affairs focus on public administration; non-profit effectiveness; and public policy. Their capstone projects are linked to IISC full partnerships and include authoring opioid policy; onboarding materials for newly elected officials; and adoption of zero waste policy.
Law
The Community Empowerment Law Project in the College of Law is dedicated to strengthening communities, creating economic opportunity, and advancing social justice. These second and third-year law students have evaluated policies to ensure legal compliance; created an operations manual for a board of directors to promote purpose and efficiency; and assessed community awareness of an initiative intended to address racial inequities.
Public Art
We tap into the University of Iowa's strong arts programs to create murals and other public art that honors the history, culture, and unique identity of a community. Recent projects have included a solar-powered sculpture in the shape of the Boone River and multiple murals depicting Frank Lloyd Wright's designs, a quilted landscape, and a dam on the Mississippi.
GIS
Students in the Iowa Community Integrated Geography Organization (ICIGO) are dedicated to applying their studies to statewide sustainability challenges. They provide geo-visualizations and spatial analyses for partner communities.
Marketing
The University of Iowa's Marketing Institute provides our partners with branding and marketing campaigns. Their work includes graphic design, research studies, and analysis. Past projects have included a marketing strategy aimed at stemming open enrollment out of a school district; logo and tagline development for a city; and a communications campaign for a nonprofit to build awareness and involvement among stakeholders.
Cinema
Student filmmakers help capture community stories to share with broader audiences. We've created promotional videos intended as a marketing tool, a short documentary about a river to help community members learn about watershed management, and portraits of community members working to make a difference.
Information Science
We've worked with communities digitize archival materials. If you have invaluable papers, one-of-a-kind volumes, or other information that needs to be saved into a digital format, students who work in tje information sciences can be of service.