True to its namesake, the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice greatly values activities that bring together our campus and communities to advance common causes. Our University-Community Partnership Awards embody that ideal, which is also reflected in our supporting experiential learning for University of Arizona (UA) undergraduate students.
Between 2014 and 2019, the Haury Program invested as much as $40,000 in programs that give undergraduates opportunities to directly engage with local communities, giving students real-world education while offering our surrounding communities the benefit of their enthusiasm, energy, and growing knowledge.
Early on, the Haury Program directly supported the UA's Compost Cats program, Biosphere 2 Outreach Scholars program, and Community and School Garden Program.
The Haury Program also funded two UArizona organizations that vet and fund student initiatives:
The UA Green Fund, through which anyone in the UA community can apply for grants for projects related to sustainability. The Haury Program donates funds specifically earmarked for projects that provide socially just solutions to environmental problems. Awards are decided entirely by a committee of ten graduate and undergraduate students.
The UA Office of Student Engagement works to give every UA undergraduate "the opportunity to begin to make a mark in the world, taking action to apply knowledge and skills to real challenges." These opportunities arrive in the form of internships, research experiences, fieldwork, service learning projects, and more. Haury Program funding is directed to opportunities with social justice or environmental component, particularly those that engage off-campus communities.
In 2021, the Haury Program awarded a grant for student report to a project called Diana Liverman Scholars, led by dr. Kevin Bonine at the UA Arizona Institute for Resilience (AIR). Liverman Scholars work at the nexus of interdisciplinary collaboration, environmental storytelling, and transformative connection to place and community. The Haury Program grant allows the program leads to continue this instrumental work, supports meeting the program's goals of building and sustaining partnerships with two community organizations per year, strengthening their capacity and reach, and offering experimental environmental justice education to UA undergraduates.