Office of the ProvostMichigan State University seal

Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement

Hiram Fitzgerald

Hiram E. Fitzgerald

The Office of University Outreach and Engagement is a campus-wide resource dedicated to helping faculty and academic units construct more extensive and effective engagement with the communities of our state, nation, and world. The Office advocates for and facilitates outreach initiatives, working closely with departments, centers, institutes, and MSU Extension. It promotes and provides seed funding for community-based scholarship. It gathers and provides stakeholders with information about the ways in which MSU is fulfilling its land-grant mission. At Michigan State University, outreach is a form of scholarship that cuts across teaching, research, and service. It involves generating, transmitting, applying, and preserving knowledge for the direct benefit of external audiences in ways that are consistent with university and unit missions. Many MSU faculty and academic staff are actively engaged with people, organizations, and communities outside the University. Some do so through community-based applied research and evaluation, technical assistance and consulting, or partnerships. Some do so by teaching nontraditional students at off-campus sites or through technology-delivered distance education. Some provide clinical services. Many engage their students in service-learning experiences. Others develop and curate managed learning environments and demonstrations.

Hiram E. Fitzgerald, Ph.D., is Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement and University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University. He is co-chair of the MSU Family Research Initiative, executive director of the World Association for Infant Mental Health, and serves as a member of the NASULGC Council on Extension, Continuing Education, and Public Service Benchmarking Task Force. Fitzgerald is co-director of the Michigan Longitudinal Study of Family Risk for Alcoholism over the Life Course, and is principal investigator of the Michigan local site component of the 17-site national evaluation of Early Head Start. His major areas of research include the study of infant and family development in community contexts, the impact of fathers on early child development, implementation of systemic models of organizational process and change, the etiology of alcoholism, and broad issues related to the scholarship of engagement. Fitzgerald holds a Ph.D. in experimental child psychology (1967) from the University of Denver. Further information available at: http://outreach.msu.edu/pplAPUOE.asp

  • Hiram E. Fitzgerald, Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement
  • Kellogg Center, Garden Level
  • East Lansing, MI 48824-1022