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Sandmann’s program evaluation course engages students in the community-based evaluation process by involving them in stakeholder meetings, evaluation design, data collection, and reporting.

Lorilee R. Sandmann, a professor in the College of Education’s department of lifelong education, administration, and policy, has received a 2012 Scholarship of Engagement Award from the Office of the UGA Vice President for Public Service and Outreach.

The award recognizes a tenured faculty member for significant contributions to advancing public service and outreach at UGA through the scholarship of engagement and by providing service-learning opportunities for students.

Sandmann has advanced UGA’s public service and outreach mission by engaging her students with course-based scholarship of engagement opportunities in the areas of capacity building, technical assistance, training, public health, and disaster management.

Sandmann’s program evaluation course engages students in the community-based evaluation process by involving them in stakeholder meetings, evaluation design, data collection, and reporting. Sandmann led her students in assessing a three-year capacity-building and technical assistance program for the United Way of Northeast Georgia, during which students assessed the needs and capacities of the agencies, designed a training workshop, and conducted follow up consultations with individuals and agencies.

In 2009, her evaluation class became the first online course taught in UGA’s College of Public Health and one of the first online program evaluation courses in the country to prepare students for field exercises.

Sandmann has involved students from the Colleges of Education, Pharmacy, Arts and Sciences, and Public Health in an evaluation of touchscreen information kiosks as a tool for making culturally and linguistically appropriate health information available to adults. The evaluation outcomes were instrumental in the redesign and redeployment of the kiosks.

She has also partnered with 26 Atlanta-area hospitals and UGA’s Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense to evaluate hospital response to mass casualties that could be generated from a multiple site release of hazardous chemical agents. Sandmann’s students interacted with hospital personnel to produce an analysis of their ongoing readiness and their ability to improve their readiness.

Sandmann is recognized as a national leader in the scholarship of engagement. Her current research projects focus on leadership and organizational change in higher education’s institutionalization of community engagement, as well as faculty roles and rewards related to engaged scholarship. Based on her research, she and her students have published widely on the scholarship of engagement; her latest book is Institutionalizing Community Engagement in Higher Education: The First Wave of Carnegie Classified Institutions. Further, Sandmann was instrumental in developing and leading Virginia Tech’s international Engagement Academy for University Leaders. She is also a lead faculty member for Michigan State University’s Emerging and Engaged Scholars Program.

Sandmann chairs UGA’s Adult Education Program, is Associate Faculty/Fellow at Virginia Tech’s Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement, and is on the National Advisory Panel for Community Engagement of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

The award recipient will receive a $5,000 faculty development grant to sustain or enhance outreach and engagement project(s) or to develop new ones. The recipient will be recognized at the 2012 Public Service and Outreach Annual Meeting, during Honors Week, and at the Faculty Recognition Banquet.