DEARBORN, Mich. -

The growing trend of service learning on college campuses got a recent boost via the support of the Ford Motor Company Fund, which is awarding $225,000 in Ford College Community Challenge grants to nine colleges and universities nationwide.

The Ford College Community Challenge, or Ford C3, is a national challenge grant competition that recognizes schools which utilize their resources to address an urgent community need related to the grant's theme of Building Sustainable Communities. 

To earn a Ford C3 grant, colleges are required to create proposals that feature significant student input, involvement and leadership from beginning to end, officials said.  

Campus Compact, the only national higher education association dedicated to campus-based civic engagement, partnered with Ford Fund on this year's grant program, and hosted a recent conference for academic leaders and students on past Ford C3 case studies.

About 62 percent of campus Compact’s 1,200 member campuses require service-learning as part of the core curriculum, up from 51 percent in 2010, officials said.

“The Ford C3 winners, many of which are at Campus Compact member schools, are impressive examples of community engagement and service learning,” said Maureen Curley, president of Campus Compact. “We are proud to be working with the Ford Fund, which has shown tremendous leadership in supporting innovative campus community partnerships.”

The 2013 Ford C3 winners are:

  • Arizona State University, for development of a mobile application to facilitate delivery of perishable foods from food service businesses to families in Phoenix
  • Brown University, to work with a village in India on rainwater collection systems to provide a sustainable supply of potable water
  • College for Creative Studies, to support student design and pilots of creative, replicable solutions for challenges associated with urban farming in Detroit 
  • Essex County College, for a rainwater harvesting system to reduce usage of city water at a model urban hydroponic food project in Newark, N.J.
  • Michigan State University, for students in the College of Engineering to develop a teaching module, software libraries and cloud support to enable high school students in the Lansing area to create programs that gather information about local energy usage
  • University of Michigan, for designing and installing a net-zero water consumption system for the nation's oldest net-zero house, a demonstration project in Ann Arbor
  • University of Texas at Arlington, for creating videos for differing educational levels and language translations for use in combating diabetes among diverse populations in Arlington
  • Virginia Commonwealth University and University of Richmond, to support design of a web and phone-based application that combines existing transportation options with new technology for accessing services in Richmond
  • Wayne State University, to expand urban farming, nutrition education, fresh produce sales to under-served groups and support for local growers in the Detroit area

“The Ford College Community Challenge is designed to leverage the talents and creativity of students to drive meaningful change in their communities,” said Mike Schmidt, director of education programs, Ford Motor Company Fund. “We applaud these universities and colleges that are making student-led, community engagement a priority.”