Ohio University is wrapping up two days of celebrating the partnerships that tie its campuses to Appalachian Ohio communities, as the 2026 Engage OHIO: Community and Place-based Engagement Symposium concludes Friday, Nov. 6, at the Ohio University Inn and Conference Center in Athens, according to Ohio University.
The annual fall symposium, organized around the theme “Engage OHIO,” brings together faculty, staff, administrators, students and community members for interactive sessions, panels and workshops on place-based teaching, shared scholarship and community initiatives, according to the university. Friday’s schedule opens with a student poster session, moves through two rounds of concurrent sessions and a lunch program, and closes with mobile field trips to community sites and a reception, according to the symposium program published by Ohio University.
The symposium opened Thursday evening, Nov. 5, with the Community Engagement Awards and Place-Based Teaching and Learning Plenary at the Ridges Auditorium, honoring the recipients of the Ohio University Outstanding Community Partner Awards across the Athens and regional campus communities and the 2026 Community Engaged Faculty and Administrators of the Year, according to Ohio University.
Among this year’s honorees, Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio was named the Athens Partner of the Year, according to Ohio University. The plenary speakers were Joe Brehm and Bryn Sowash, the co-CEOs of Rural Action, the Appalachian Ohio community-development organization, according to the university.
Brehm has been part of Rural Action since 2010, rising from environmental education program director to chief program officer before becoming co-CEO alongside Sowash in late 2025, according to Ohio University. Sowash joined Rural Action in 2021 as its national service program planner and helped expand the Appalachian Ohio Restore Corps from 31 members to 70, according to the university.
Friday’s sessions show what the partnership model looks like in practice. A geography partnership between Ohio University and the Southeast Ohio Foodbank is building interactive, web-based maps of community food assistance sites and donation centers across Southeast Ohio, to help foodbank staff and volunteers understand site capacity and strengthen regional food resilience, according to the symposium program. Another session examines the Nonprofits LEAD NextGen program, a credit-bearing, two-semester course that places students directly on nonprofit boards, developed at Marietta College and being replicated at Ohio University, according to the program.
Other Friday sessions cover school-community partnerships linking teacher candidates with local first-grade classrooms, faculty models for place-based experiential learning, and a session on measuring community impact through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, according to Ohio University. The afternoon mobile field trips include a workshop on social media content creation for community organizations and nonprofits, led by Viktoria Marinova of the university’s School of Media Arts and Studies, according to the program.
The symposium also featured remarks from the Sugar Bush Foundation, with president Hylie Voss and director Erin Rennich on the Friday lunch program, according to Ohio University. Rennich also serves as assistant director of the Impact Enterprise Program in the university’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service, supporting mission-based enterprises and nonprofits across the region, according to the university.
The symposium is built around five themes set out in the university’s call for proposals: place-based pedagogy rooted in community, ethical and reciprocal partnerships, community capacity and resilience for nonprofit and public-sector partners, and related work that centers Appalachian Ohio in teaching and research, according to Ohio University. Sessions were asked to include both a campus and a community partner — a structure meant to keep the conversation a two-way one rather than a campus presentation to the region, according to the university.
That structure matters in Southeast Ohio, where Ohio University is often the largest institution in the room. The Athens campus and the university’s regional campuses enroll students from across Appalachian Ohio, and the partnerships showcased this week — legal aid in Athens, food assistance mapping across the region, nonprofit board training shared with Marietta College — are the channels through which the university’s resources reach communities that sit well beyond the Athens campus, according to the symposium program published by Ohio University.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What is confirmed is the shape of the work: the awards, the speakers and the sessions above all come from Ohio University’s own published program. What the program cannot show is the follow-through — which of the partnerships showcased this week will add students, funding or new sites in the year ahead. Those answers will come partner by partner, in the work the symposium is designed to set up.
What happens next is that work itself. The foodbank mapping partnership continues with the Southeast Ohio Foodbank and HAPCAP, the NextGen board program continues placing students with nonprofits, and the university’s Center for Community Impact will carry the symposium’s connections into the next year of place-based courses and service across Athens and the regional campuses.
Related coverage: Ohio University landed a $510,520 grant this week to expand character education in Appalachian Ohio, a three-year project built on the same place-based partnerships the symposium showcases. In Athens arts, the Athena Cinema will screen an alumna’s Vietnam documentaries for Veterans Day.