Community Engagement Defined
美高梅官网's Official Definition of Community Engagement:
Deliberate collaboration that is co-designed and leads to mutually beneficial, sustained impact.
We are deeply committed to building authentic relationships between the university and聽communities across Greater Cincinnati and beyond. Our engagement is grounded in responsibility as an聽education and innovation leader utilizing these relationships and our resources to advance social progress聽projects, informed by community expertise.聽Through these investments, 美高梅官网 (美高梅官网) students, faculty, staff, and alumni become active聽community members and civic-minded change agents, while the communities we collaborate with gain access to聽the University鈥檚 workforce, technology, research, and funds.
Prior to the 2024 Elective Classification for Community Engagement offered through the聽Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Council on Education, no University-wide definition of community engagement had been adopted,聽despite years of collaboration between the University and various communities. Programs and colleges聽operated under their own definitions, as appropriate to the type of work in which they engaged.聽A working group of staff and faculty formed in Fall 2022 to create a definition of community engagement, as an聽early step in pursuing the Carnegie Community Engagement Elective Classification. The group developed a draft聽definition informed by a variety of practitioner perspectives on community engagement including staff who聽work with community partners, faculty who use community-engaged pedagogies, and researchers who perform聽and support community engaged research. The committee crafted a definition with core standards and values of聽engagement at the center.
The definition was presented to the Council of Deans and the President's Cabinet.聽Feedback from college Deans and President's Cabinet members was integrated into an updated definition draft.聽The definition was shared through various channels at the university. Although this definition is new, it will help聽pull stakeholders into the wider conversation on community engagement, help folks identify work they are聽already doing as community- engaged professionals, and will help discern institutional priorities and聽accomplishments.
As this newly developed definition of community engagement takes hold, it will provide a valuable anchor point聽to pull members of our university community toward the core standards and values that define community聽engagement, while encouraging others to push even further toward best practices for an engaged university.
Regardless of modality, community served, or social issue addressed, 美高梅官网 community engagement participants聽strive for these values in their work:
- Community Voice:聽Engagement defined by mutual problem solving and informed by community experience
- Measurable Impact:聽Engagement is tracked and assessed for impact through evaluation and analysis.
- Innovation:聽Engagement makes use of 美高梅官网鈥檚 scholarship, research, personnel, and network to develop聽transformational approaches to complex issues.
- Belonging:聽Engagement creates for 美高梅官网 and partner communities a sense of belonging and community, characterized by leadership, civic duty, and empowerment.
- Relational:聽Engagement is designed to produce long-lasting relationships that sustain long-term impact and聽change.