Cornell’s Rust to Green is an engaged university-community initiative, with the transformative agenda of advancing – through integrative research, education and practice – the transitioning of Upstate NY’s Rust Belt cities from rust to green. Over the years of R2G programming in Utica and Binghamton, a significant record of university courses, summer fellowships, project activities and accomplishments (design, planning and research), funding and resource generation, as well as quantifiable short and long-term impacts, provide evidence of R2G’s effectiveness. There is project-level evidence that the impacts on student learning, faculty research and community partners have been positive. However, the purpose of this grant project is to develop solid and substantive evidence to uphold this claim through systematic and consistent data gathering and assessment of impacts of Rust to Green on Cornell students and community partners.