Campus Compact is pleased to announce the recipient of this year’s Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement. The award recognizes early career faculty who practice exemplary engaged scholarship through teaching and research. The awards are presented in partnership with Brown University’s Swearer Center. Recipients are selected on the basis of their collaboration with communities, institutional impact, and high-quality academic work.

The recipient of the Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement is Michael Hemphill, assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Hemphill’s scholarship focuses on teaching personal and social responsibility through sport, physical activity, and physical education guided by the principles of restorative justice. He is the co-author of the Restorative Youth Sports model, which was informed by restorative practitioners in New Zealand. His efforts focus on interdisciplinary approaches to community engagement that respond to community-identified needs by using sports and physical activity as a way to invite youth to build developmental relationships, foster personal and social skills, and develop a critical consciousness that helps them examine issues of systemic social injustice.

“We have been absolutely blown away by Dr. Hemphill’s unflinching support of at-risk students through his practice of personal and social responsibility through sport, physical activity, and physical education,” says Jimmi Williams, executive director of Community in Schools of Greater Greensboro. “He has made himself a highly respected community partner through his steadfastness and his unwavering will to make the resources and opportunities available to our students who otherwise would most likely not have a clue about how physical education can play a role in improving their overall mental, physical and emotional well-being.”

In addition, the following faculty have been recognized as Lynton Award finalists: Joshua Streeter, assistant professor of theatre at James Madison University; Laura Trull, assistant professor of social work at James Madison University; and Ayana Alan-Handy, assistant professor of urban education at Drexel University.

The Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement is presented as part of Campus Compact’s Impact Awards, which recognize the outstanding work of individuals and institutions in pursuit of the public purposes of higher education. Read more about the other awards and this year’s recipients at compact.org/2020-impact-award-recipients.

All award winners will be recognized at a virtual Awards Celebration in the spring of 2021.