Laura Hunt Trull wins Research and Scholarship award

By: Sara Banton
Creative Services Student Writer

Pictured left to right:  CHBS Dean Sharon Lovell, Laura Hunt Trull, and Social Work AUH Lisa McGuire.

Social work professor Laura Hunt Trull believes that receiving the Research and Scholarship Outstanding Faculty Award is an endorsement of the values she holds dearest. The award, which honors excellence in philanthropy education and civic student engagement, highlights the accomplishments of her course, Grant Writing for Agencies.

“It has been a truly rewarding experience that allows grant-writing students to actually put money back into the hands of the community,” Hunt Trull said. “I feel like they make a lasting impact with what they’re doing and I love being part of that. This award is really recognition of something that we’re doing well.”

The course, which is cross-listed by family studies, gerontology, nonprofit studies and social work, covers the basics of grant and proposal writing. Students learn to implement efficient research, persuasive prose and focus on the importance of relationships. Additionally, the course examines private and corporate philanthropy and government grants.

The course has been largely funded by Learning by Giving, part of the Buffet Family Foundation. Through this association and other funding, the grant writing course awards $5,000 each to two non-profit organizations in the Harrisonburg area. In addition to funding through Learning by Giving, students in the course participate in a national blog contest which they have won for the past two years. Students have used the $3,000 prize to increase their ability to fund grants.

In the two years that Hunt Trull has taught this course, students have given a total of $26,000 to community agencies.

“One of the most important things we can do with community engagement and engaged learning is make sure that we have mutually beneficial reciprocity, that students not only benefit from the learning experience, but that agencies benefit from the experience,” Hunt Trull said. “I think having highly intentional, reciprocal, community engagement is really important.”

Students begin her class with little knowledge about grant writing, but by the end of the course, feel fully confident in their ability to write grants for agencies.

“They develop the request for proposals, they write the proposals, they write the rubric to score the proposals, but they never score any that they have written or any for agencies that they have maybe been a client for or volunteered with to avoid any conflicts of interest. Then they score the grants and the highest-scored grants get the money,” she said.

During this process, students meet with non-profit agencies to write the grants. This interaction is mutually beneficial to both students and the community. Students work towards building a better understanding of this process while also completing practical work that fosters change and opportunity in the community.

Lisa McGuire, head of the Department of Social Work, was delighted to nominate Hunt Trull for the award.

“All of her scholarly endeavors involve community and/or civic engagement. She has crafted the Learning by Giving grant to maximize opportunities for students to engage meaningfully with the community,” McGuire said.

By giving back to the community through education, Hunt Trull utilizes her course to foster philanthropy through civic student engagement, while also encouraging students to be the change in their community.