(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Marianne E. Krasny, Cornell University

(THE CONVERSATION) At Troy University in Alabama, students went online to help a county with a high infant mortality rate in the state of Georgia to analyze health disparities and develop solutions.

At Cornell University, where I teach, law students are providing legal services online to death-row inmates in Tanzania and children and young farmworkers in upstate New York.

At five state universities in the U.S. heartland, students are helping M...