A research team that included two faculty members from the Department of Landscape Architecture has been named the winner of this year's Texas Tech University President's Emerging Engaged Scholarship Award. The honor will be presented during a keynote luncheon of the 2020 Regional Engaged Scholarship Symposium later this year at the McKenzie Merket Alumni Center.

Officials noted that the award recognizes the team's exemplary and sustained commitment to engagement with community partners and the resulting positive impacts that the work is having on communities and the university. The award carries a monetary prize of $1,000.

The project, titled Promoting Child Development, Inclusion, and Health through Natural Learning, includes Kristi Gaines, an associate professor with the Department of Design and Malinda Colwell, an associate professor with the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, along with Associate Professor Charles Klein and Assistant Professor Muntazar Monsur with the Department of Landscape Architecture.

Officials with Tech's University Outreach and Engagement note that the Coalition for Natural Learning (CNL) is a collaboration between Texas Tech faculty, Texas state agencies, departments, organizations, and childcare centers. It was created as a more formalized recognition of the ongoing multidisciplinary efforts between Gaines, Malinda Colwell, Klein and Monsur.

The CNL engages with its partners through research, teaching, service, outreach and engagement, working towards the common goal of creating environments that promote natural learning for children and their caregivers. In addition, environments are designed for people of different abilities (instead of disabilities), with the goal to create equitable spaces.

The work of the coalition is providing state agencies, community leaders, administrators, educators, students and parents resources for utilizing natural environments to promote the socio-emotional, physical, and cognitive development of children. The team views their work as a springboard to a much broader approach to natural learning paradigms in which a multidisciplinary team can work to improve educational and life-style opportunities using natural systems and approaches.

Established in 2015, Texas Tech's Office of University Outreach and Engagement provides innovative, collaborative, and strategic leadership and support for the university's strategic priority of engagement with communities across the region, state, nation, and the world. Officials note at engagement crosses three missions – research, teaching, and service – and ties to the work of faculty, staff and students.

CONTACT: William Brown, Dean, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-2808 or william.f.brown@ttu.edu

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