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Cougar Initiative to Engage

Community Engagement

  • Adaptive Athletics Multi-Sport Event 

    Adaptive Athletics Multi-Sport Event 

    Student assisting a participant in the Adaptive Athletics Multi-Sport Event

  • Adaptive Athletics National Competition

    Adaptive Athletics National Competition

    Students, alongside program leader Dr. Michael Cottingham, that participated in the Adaptive Athletics National Competition

  • Community Literacy Engagement

    Community Literacy Engagement

    Research-based family literacy activities around a diverse selection of children’s books

  • Community Nutrition Service Learning with the Houston Food Bank

    Community Nutrition Service Learning with the Houston Food Bank

    Through a partnership with the Houston Food Bank, undergraduate ACEND track nutrition students to assist with special projects

  • Cougar Cognitive Health Initiative (CHAIN)

    Cougar Cognitive Health Initiative (CHAIN)

    Cougar Cognitive Health Initiative (CHAIN) students collaborate with healthcare professionals to provide cognitive health evaluations at health fairs within Houston's Vietnamese immigrant and refugee community.

  • Cultural Loop Project 

    Cultural Loop Project 

    The proposed Cultural Loop

  • The program prepares students to be more competent graduate school applicants and culturally competent clinicians

    ExCITEd About Language Diversity

    The program prepares students to be more competent graduate school applicants and culturally competent clinicians

  • Incubator of Racial Equity in STEM Education (IRESE)

    Incubator of Racial Equity in STEM Education (IRESE)

    Creating STEM Role Models Among Arab Refugees in Houston

  • Sephardic Latinx Oral History

    Sephardic Latinx Oral History

    UH Students presenting at the Houston Holocaust Museum

  • St. Elmo Brady STEM Academy (SEBA)

    St. Elmo Brady STEM Academy (SEBA)

    SEBA empowers youth to explore STEM fields, fostering critical thinking and cooperative learning through hands-on experiments, visits to labs and museums, and mentorship from role models

  • UH Stem Outreach Squad (UHSOS)

    UH Stem Outreach Squad (UHSOS)

    UH students serving as mentors to youth within the Houston community

  • Women Empowerment Booster @Computer Science

    Women Empowerment Booster @Computer Science

    College-age women majoring in computer science together with middle-school girls learning about coding through digital storytelling

Through service learning activities, students help improve the quality of life in the local community, including the Third Ward. CITE grant-funded co-curricular service learning projects provide services related to such fields as art, education, health and science and support diverse community populations, including the Deaf Community, the elderly, and refugees.

This list is a sample of CITE projects that contain Community Engagement. Additional Community Engagement projects can be found on the other project pages.
The Adaptive Athletics Multi-Sport Event, designed by Dr. Michael Cottingham, is a program intended for students to oversee weekly wheelchair tennis practices and assist the Houston Parks and Recreational programs for the visually impaired and multi-disability sports program. 
Adaptive Athletics National Competition, established by Dr. Michael Cottingham, is a program created for students to organize athletics events, such as wheelchair tennis, and gain experience working with athletes with disabilities. 
This academic service learning initiative led by Dr. Anne Katz (Education) enables teacher education candidates to create research-based family literacy activities around a diverse selection of children’s books. Each project will include a detailed parent or caregiver letter, which provides an overview of the family literacy activity; materials and props; step-by-step procedures; prompting questions; ideas for differentiation to meet the needs of varied learning styles; and real-world extensions.
Through a partnership with the Houston Food Bank, led by Kirstin Vollrath (CLASS), undergraduate ACEND track nutrition students to assist with special projects. Projects include producing short videos, developing recipes, and creating nutrition educational materials.
Led by Dr. Christina Miyawaki, Cougar Cognitive Health Initiative (CHAIN) collaborates with trained healthcare professionals and students from surrounding universities to organize and carry out a cognitive health booth at various Vietnamese health fairs throughout the year. They will train in 2023 up to 40 students in mental/cognitive (brain) health assessment skills and assess health fair attendees' mental/cognitive health in real-world settings.
Sixto Wagan and  Rick Lowe of the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts will increase the undergraduate involvement in the Third Ward Initiative: Arts through this community engagement project. A select group of undergraduate fellows will expand and implement ideas generated around  The Loop , a project led by Lowe with the collaboration of students in Fall 2018’s Art 4397: Community Engaged Art to activate and celebrate the culture and history of the Third Ward. In its second year, this project will have an enhanced co-curricular component, more interdisciplinary content, a spring independent study, and funds for an additional student.
The purpose of this proposal is to increase undergraduates’ knowledge and skills through the school-based research project Soccer Starts at Home (SSAH) led by Dr. Olushola Ogunrinde . The Community Health Lab was formed as a shared space between Community Health and Sport and Fitness Administration faculty to create an interdisciplinary approach to promoting health through sport. With the integral help of undergraduates, SSAH has served three (3) schools, 300+ students, trained four (4) PE coaches, and engaged 50+ parents.
This grant to Dr. Monique T Mills prepares students in Communication Sciences and Disorders with the requisite theoretical and conceptual background to (1) understand widely held views about language and its variation and (2) to administer clinical assessments of language variation to elementary students visiting the Children's Museum Houston. Students will receive direct real-world experience in assessing language skills of children in Houston, preparing them for success in their careers as speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and SLP assistants. Critically, the program will prepare students to be more competent graduate school applicants and culturally competent clinicians.
This grant to Samina Salim will establish a student-led STEM service program: Incubator of Racial Equity in STEM Education (IRESE). University of Houston has a significant Arab undergraduate student population pursuing STEM majors, who may serve as STEM role models for Arab refugee children residing in the Houston area. Twelve UH undergraduate students of Arab descent will offer a combination of on-line and in-person STEM tutoring, mentoring and enrichment activities to Arab refugee children, in a culturally competent manner. Thus, this community service project by promoting engagement in a real-world setting will offer a unique teaching and mentoring experience to UH students.
The Sephardic Latinx Oral History Project, taught by Associate Professor, Dr. Mark Goldberg, is a Latina/o Jewish history course that allows students the opportunity to participate in an oral history project by interviewing members of Houston’s Sephardic Latinx community. Students learn how to recover and document history in a public-facing manner that engages with local communities.
Students participating in this project enroll in an intensive five-week summer course taught by grant recipients  Dr. Ruxandra Boul  (CLASS),  Dr. German Cubas  (CLASS) and  Dr. Pablo Pinto (Hobby School). The purpose of this class is to connect undergraduate students with nonprofit organizations from the Houston area in order to help them meet their social goals.  After an introductory week, students divide into teams and, under the direct supervision of faculty, will work closely with the leadership of the NGO’s to develop a social enterprise idea, conduct quantitative research or create a venture plan.
SEBA led by Dr. Jerrod Henderson and Ricky Greer seeks to empower youth to become the next generation of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Students discover STEM fields through hands-on experiments and inquiry-based learning to improve critical thinking and cooperative learning skills. Throughout the school year, students meet to explore new topics, learn about STEM inventors, and visit labs or museums. SEBA emphasizes building relationships with role models, including the student’s family, UH students, and community volunteers. SEBA also partners with teachers to align program curricula with Next Generation Science Standards, especially engineering design-related ones. SEBA is geared toward underserved youth, but organizers do not turn any students away.

UH STEM Outreach Squad, managed by Dr. Heather Domjan, and Dr. Lionnel Ronduen, is a program designed for pre-service education majors and NSM majors interested in education to serve as mentors for in-person and hybrid Saturday programs for grades 3-12.

Women Empowerment Booster at Computer Science (WEB@CS) brings college-age women majoring in computer science together with middle-school girls to learn about coding through digital storytelling.