This year, for the first time, the Outstanding Community Partner Award was awarded to two community partners – Muncie Metal Products and Whitely Community Council.

Ball State University President Geoffrey Mearns presented the 2025 awards on April 18 as part of the Immersive Learning Showcase at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center.

This annual award, administered by Ball State’s Office of Community Engagement, is given to an organization that has demonstrated excellence as a collaborator and co-educator with Ball State faculty, staff, and students.

“These immersive experiences allow our students to develop deep connections in our community,” Mearns said. “And these projects allow businesses, organizations, and nonprofit agencies to collaborate with our faculty, staff, and students to develop practical solutions to challenges and to produce meaningful outcomes.”

Midwest Metal Products was recognized for going above and beyond in serving as an industry partner with students from Ball State’s Estinopal College of Architecture and Planning.

Kevin Klinger, Associate Professor of Architecture and leader of the iMADE initiative, nominated Midwest Metals for the award.

“For years, Midwest Metals has been central to the success of many of our student-driven ‘design-through-production’ projects, helping our students realize the work of full-scale projects, and fostering a consideration of manufacturing, decision making, and design thinking,” Klinger said in the nomination letter.

President Mearns noted that “Midwest Metals has donated time and resources to the partnership in addition to making high-tech fabrication equipment available to our students for free. In return, our students have pushed the limits of the company’s production equipment with their innovative design thinking, inviting the Mid-West Metal team to challenge themselves in new and exciting ways.”

John Smith of Midwest Metals, who developed the partnership with Klinger, accepted the award on behalf of the company.

“We are very proud of this award and the partnership with students,” Smith said after the award ceremony. “Our entire team really enjoys working with the students, helping them take a project from concert to reality.

Frank Scott accepted the award for Whitely Community Council and its partnership with Ball State Geography students.

The project required students to spend a lot of time in Whitely, meeting with residents who shared their stories of the neighborhood.

“Students offer fresh eyes, a fresh perspective on how to celebrate our rich history,” Scott said as he visited the display the students created about the project at the Immersive Learning Showcase.

That perspective led to interactive maps, a Monopoly-like game of the neighborhood and much more.

“I can’t wait to play this game with my grandkids,” Scott said as he pointed to the board game, complete with “money” that featured portraits of well-known Whitely neighborhood residents.

Senior Ian Kowalksi said working on this project gave him “a new perspective on Muncie.”

“I thought I knew a lot about Muncie,” he said, adding that he enjoyed meeting with residents of the neighborhood each Tuesday to learn from their “wealth of knowledge and experience.”

Jorn Seemann is the geography professor who led the “Maps, Environment, and Society” course and who nominated the Whitely Community Council for this award.

Seeman, in his nomination letter, said this immersive learning experience allowed students to apply their cartographic skills to a project. But more importantly, the students improved their soft skills when it came to working with neighborhoods and neighborhood associations.

“Community mapping requires communication skills, and most of the students ‘opened up’ when they were together with the community members,” Seeman said.

Klinger said the “two-way” street these immersive learning projects offer “contributes to making Muncie – and Ball State University – a distinctive place.”