Every year, The Ohio State University's Outreach and Engagement Awards honor faculty, staff, students and community partners for outstanding achievement in producing engaged scholarship and community impact. 

The Community Engaged Practitioner Award recognizes staff members who are committed to developing, coordinating, and sustaining projects, activities, or initiatives involving Ohio State and community partners that enhance engaged scholarship and community impacts. This year, the Byrd Center's Education and Outreach Group Director, Jason Cervenec, was one of three Community Engaged Practitioner Award recipients.

Jason has worked at the Byrd Center for more than eleven years, helping the Center reach more than 107,800 people through nearly 2,000 education programs, numerous events and public tours.  He has also aided in developing interdisciplinary education resources and virtual programs designed to engage audiences from youth to adults, students to community members.

Jason is also a member of the  STEM Impact Collaborative and a co-founder of WestFest, a science and sustainability festival held annually on West Campus. This family event brings the public and university communities together to highlight research programs and engage youth in various STEM fields. WestFest has demonstrated excellence in community-engaged scholarship and has been certified by Ohio State's University Outreach and Engagement as a program of excellence in engaged scholarship. WestFest will be held on October 19, 2024.

To learn more, visit the College of Arts and Sciences and See the complete list of awards on the Outreach and Engagement website.