Vice provost awarded for ‘transformative’ leadership

Bryan Magaña BS ’06, MA ’09, Marketing & Communications

awarded Vice Provost Brenda Kowalewski the 2024 91·çÁ÷ Barbara A. Holland Scholar-Administrator Award, which honors a scholar-administrator whose leadership and intellectual voice illuminates the transformative power of urban and metropolitan higher education.

“I can’t think of anyone more deserving than Brenda to receive this award,” said 91·çÁ÷ President Brad Mortensen.

Kowalewski is vice provost of high-impact educational experiences, faculty excellence and international and graduate studies. She helped the university increase inclusive pedagogy through the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning and co-created the Office of Community Development.

She also convened a coalition of seven anchor institutions in Ogden, including Ogden School District, Ogden-Weber Technical College, two local hospitals and others, to assist in revitalizing East Central Ogden. That coalition, the Ogden Civic Action Network, facilitates collaboration and local partnerships in health, education, built environment, economic stability and social fabric in the community.

Kowalewski garnered extensive national attention for Weber State’s commitment to connecting coursework with community engagement since opening the Center for Community Engaged Learning in 2006.

As chair of a 30-member task force, Kowalewski oversees 91·çÁ÷’s application process for the Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement Classification, awarded in 2008 and renewed in 2015.

In 2015, she received the New York Life Higher Education Civic Engagement Award, and in 2013, she was a finalist for the Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award. She has written and presented on community engagement and the gender wage gap in leading journals.

“Urban and metropolitan universities must be places where partnerships in the community are cultivated, celebrated and seen as critical for fulfilling our co-responsibility as good stewards of place,” Kowalewski said. “We must change university business practices to create a positive economic impact in local communities. We must convene local anchor institutions and leverage their collective resources to create a sustainable economic, social, cultural and environmental system that ensures opportunity for everyone.”