The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has selected Northern Kentucky University to receive its 2015 Community Engagement Classification. NKU originally earned the classification in 2006, the first year it was offered, and this marks the foundation’s first re-classification year.
“This designation affirms NKU’s longstanding commitment to community engagement and its demonstrable benefits to student success,” said NKU President Geoffrey Mearns. “What makes this achievement particularly noteworthy is that we did not earn it because of one program – it reflects a depth of programming and an institutional culture where community engagement is valued within our classrooms and beyond.”
Transdisciplinary programs from across NKU’s campus were considered in the review process. The Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project transforms NKU classes into boards of philanthropists, evaluating local need and assessing nonprofits before distributing real funds to help address a wide range of regional challenges. The Center for Applied Informatics draws upon student and faculty expertise to help organizations locally and beyond meet the challenges of the informatics age. Additional programs within the fine arts, sciences, education, business, law, and health professions were also considered.
Colleges and universities with an institutional focus on community engagement were invited to apply for the classification in 2006 as part of an extensive restructuring of The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Unlike the foundation’s other classifications that rely on national data, this is an “elective” classification – institutions participated voluntarily by submitting required materials describing the nature and extent of their engagement with the community, either local or beyond. This approach enabled the foundation to address elements of institutional mission and distinctiveness that are not represented in the national data on colleges and universities.
“The importance of this elective classification is borne out by the response of so many campuses that have demonstrated their deep engagement with local, regional, national, and global communities,” said John Saltmarsh, director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education. “These are campuses that are improving teaching and learning, producing research that makes a difference in communities, and revitalizing their civic and academic missions.”
A listing of the institutions that hold the Community Engagement Classification can be found here.
From NKU
With the constellation of civic technologies, like online community engagement platforms, growing quickly, it’s important to recognize the positive and negative consequences of new practices in community engagement.