Community Engagement

Community Engagement embodies the university’s commitment to teaching, research, and service that support and enhance student learning through capacity-building partnerships within local communities.

The integration of campus with community has been a cornerstone of the university’s approach to educating students throughout its history. Community Engagement provides students and faculty with the resources to connect student learning and faculty scholarship with community knowledge and expertise through civic engagement, community partnerships, and public programming.

Community Engagement serves as a resource for community organizations that seek to build mutually-beneficial partnerships with the university’s students, faculty and academic programs.

Community engagement describes collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. The purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching, and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.

From the Carnegie Classification.