Ohio University will hold its Engage OHIO 2026 symposium on Thursday and Friday, Nov. 5-6, at the Ohio University Inn and Conference Center in Athens, according to the university. The symposium — formally, the Engage OHIO: Community and Place-based Engagement Symposium — brings together faculty, staff, students, community partners and regional leaders to explore how universities and communities can work together, the university said, in reporting summarized by South Ohio News from the university’s OHIO Today announcement.
The symposium opens Thursday, Nov. 5, with the Community Engagement Awards and the Place-Based Teaching and Learning Plenary at the Ridges Auditorium, featuring plenary speakers Joe Brehm and Bryn Sowash of Rural Action, according to the university. Rural Action is the Athens-based nonprofit known across Southeast Ohio for its work on sustainable development in Appalachian communities.
Among the 2026 Community Engagement Award recipients is Sarah Simmons, communications and external relations manager at Ohio University Southern, who will receive a Community Engaged Administrator Award, the university said. The Southern Wayne Advocacy Council was named OHIO Partner of the Year, and Dr. Pamela Kaylor, professor of instruction in communication studies at Ohio University Lancaster, will receive the Community Engaged Faculty Award, according to the university.
On Friday, Nov. 6, the program begins with a student poster session and continues with concurrent sessions on community-engaged teaching and learning and nonprofit capacity building, according to the university. The afternoon will include mobile experiences at campus and community sites demonstrating partnerships in action, the university said.
“Engage OHIO is an opportunity to bring everyone into the same room to build the relationships that can grow into partnerships, and learn from the collaborations that are already working,” Courtney Lefebvre, interim executive director of Ohio University’s Center for Community Impact and a member of the symposium planning committee, said in the university’s OHIO Today announcement.
Registration is open, with full program details available on the Center for Teaching, Learning and Assessment’s website, according to the university. What happens next is the symposium itself on Nov. 5-6 — two days in which Southeast Ohio’s largest university measures its community work in public, and invites the region’s nonprofits and local leaders to help set what comes next.
