Campus Y announces 2018 Kenan Biddle Partnership grantees
January 17, 2018 • Erin Reitz • No Comments
The Campus Y has announced the 2018 recipients of the Kenan Biddle Partnership grants program. Funded by the Kenan Charitable Trust and the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, the Kenan Biddle Partnership will award a total of $55,000 to seven teams comprised of UNC and Duke students.
The Kenan Biddle Partnership was started in 2009 to foster greater collaboration between students at the neighboring universities. Each team is required to have at least one student member currently enrolled at UNC and Duke. Although applicants must frame their projects as one-year partnerships at minimum, they are encouraged to pitch initiatives that can be sustained and embedded into the campus infrastructures for longer-term impact.
A select steering committee of 17 students, faculty, and staff from both universities was established this year to promote the Partnership to a diverse cross-section of departments, centers and institutes across both campuses.
“Representatives from public policy, global affairs, social innovation and the arts have generously given their time to our steering committee,” said Richard Harrill, executive director of the Campus Y. “They have been instrumental to identifying top-flight student talent on our campuses. We couldn’t have been happier with the results this past fall. The quality of the proposals we received was outstanding.”
This year’s winners proposed innovative projects that range in focus from artistic expression to socioeconomic development. The fully-funded teams include:
• The Bridge, led by co-founder Chandler Phillips (Duke ’18). This online platform and community amplifies the creative talents of Black and Latina women.
• MoyoMedical Technologies, led by Denali Dahl (UNC BME PhD ’20). This start-up is developing a preeclampsia detection strip for women in low-resource settings to self-screen for preeclampsia, the second leading cause of maternal mortalities.
• Carolina Swim Clinic, led by Alex Mebane (UNC ’18). This student-led organization provides free swim lessons to those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to swim lessons due to financial, cultural, or lingual barriers.
• Advance Access and Delivery, led by Raha Khademi (Duke MIDP ’18). This team is dedicating its resources to the well-being and health of refugee communities in the Piedmont by simultaneously assessing, broadening, and improving services available to refugees.
Three additional projects were allotted partial funding to explore and develop their ideas further. These include:
• The Art of Health, led by Sujal Manohar (Duke ’20). This interactive community mural installation will be created and displayed at UNC and Duke Children’s Hospitals.
• Leaders for Political Dialogue, led by Linda Low (Duke MIDP ’18). This immersive forum organized by students at Duke, UNC, NCSU, and NCCU aims to decrease polarization across campuses through facilitated dialogue and community engagement skills training.
• ChickenBus, led by Eric Insler (UNC MBA ’18). This student-developed app, still in its early stages, plans to improve access to transportation in lesser-developed countries.
The Kenan Biddle Partnership is administered through the Campus Y, UNC’s hub for social justice and innovation, and has funding for an additional three years. Harrill hopes that as recognition for the Partnership grows, more students will consider innovative ways in which their ideas could be enhanced or scaled through partnering with peers from other institutions.
“Fundamentally, the Partnership incentivizes our students’ civic behavior. It propels them to think about their ability to generate positive social impact in the communities beyond the borders of our campuses.”
Learn more at kenanbiddlepartnership.com.