PALS 2024-2025: Year In Review
NCSG’s Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS) connects the experience of UMD faculty and the creativity of UMD students with government, non-profit, and community partners to solve real-world problems. Each academic year, PALS works to match partner jurisdictions, agencies, and other organizations with relevant university coursework. Since 2014, PALS has connected 2,400 UMD students to more than 300 projects across the state of Maryland.
This academic year, PALS completed 34 projects. These projects ranged from a middle housing policy study for Maryland to a paper that examines changes in Korean population trends in Beltsville, Maryland, and Prince George’s County, Maryland (both by the School of Public Policy) to an assessment and forecast of 911 service demand by the Robert H. Smith School of Business (final report forthcoming). In addition to a final presentation and a report to the client, students and faculty participate in an annual showcase in May that is open to the public.
UMD students presenting their PALS project, Live! From Prince George’s County: Exploring the History of Music and Place, a historical analysis of live music venues in Prince George’s County.
The collaborative university-community partnership delivers recommendations, strategies and tools to address a community’s most pressing challenges, providing a road map for creating sustainable, thriving places to live, work and play. In the 2024-2025 academic year, PALS worked with 21 partners on 45 projects. This year’s partners include:
- Brookeville, Maryland
- Cecil County
- College Park Department of Planning & Community Development
- College Park, Maryland
- Community Forklift
- Defensores de la Cuenca
- Evensong Natural Building Lab
- Frederick County
- Frederick County Division of Parks and Recreation
- Local Initiatives Support Corporation
- Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development
- Maryland Department of Natural Resources
- Maryland Department of Planning
- North Beach, Maryland
- Prince George’s Community College
- Prince George’s County
- Prince George’s County Department of Parks and Recreation
- Prince George’s County Department of Planning
- Purple Line Corridor Coalition (PLCC)
- Resilience Authority of Anne Arundel and Annapolis
- Terps for Bike Lanes
Presentation on PALS project, Defensores De La Cuenca Interactive Web App, supporting environmental stewardship in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
In the 2024-2025 PALS Survey, partners reflected on their experience…
“We’ve worked with PALS in the past and have always enjoyed how enthusiastic and engaged the students are and how helpful they are in answering any questions we have as part of the analysis of their data. They take the time to understand any goals or outcomes we are specifically looking for and try to accommodate those. It has been a very successful project each time.”
“It was a complicated project with many moving parts, and the final result exceeded expectations. It could not have been possible without students’ input and labor and faculty leadership.”
“The students were very knowledgeable of the subject and provided great feedback.”
In the same survey, students shared….
“I think the aspect of the project that was most successful was that the client seemed excited to be able to potentially implement our recommendations because that means the work we did was data-driven and can have a real impact on Frederick County.”
“This project was an excellent opportunity to see how impactful our work in the university is for the community. Sometimes what we learn in the classroom seems abstract and very specific for only certain purposes, but having the possibility to apply what we learned in class to contribute to the understanding of the structure of the dune in Assateague State Park and how that can help direct efforts to protect both the dune and the infrastructure of the park was great!”
“I realized that I like working on smaller-scale projects that directly impact the community. It is great seeing all our hard work come to life in an event that brought joy to the community.”
Lastly, faculty commented…
“Working on these projects has generated research ideas and opportunities for me. I have developed research projects, written papers and book chapters, and presented materials derived from PALS projects at national and international conferences.”
“It was fabulous to be able to offer students a living, breathing, ready-made experience of community to supplement our activities inside the classroom and their readings and assignments at home. It’s one thing to learn “about” community from discussions and textbooks; learning “with” and “from” community takes all of that to a new level!”
“The students were inspired to learn by serving the community.”
Students sharing their PALS project at the 2024-2025 showcase.
This spring semester, PALS hosted its annual showcase, where students shared their work at a public event with experts, practitioners, and community members in attendance. Images from the 2025 showcase can be found at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCdXof.