Campus earns status as Community Engaged campus

December 23, 2008

AMHERST, MA - The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has selected the University of Massachusetts Amherst for its 2008 Community Engagement Classification. It joins 118 other institutions in earning the distinction this year. This classification recognizes the campus' collaboration with its larger communities "for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity."

For over three decades, the Carnegie Classification system has been the most accepted framework for describing institutions of higher education based on empirical data. In 2006, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released the elective Community Engagement classification and named 76 schools to the list. Carnegie selected 118 of the 147 institutions that applied in 2008.

To earn this classification, UMass Amherst engaged in a six-month application process led by a committee of faculty and staff from several units on campus. After considering over 70 of the campus' engagement projects, the committee included 15 exemplary initiatives in the application, each highlighting teaching, scholarship and public service.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst earned the Community Engagement classification for its commitments to Carnegie's Curricular Engagement and Outreach & Partnerships categories. Curricular Engagement recognizes institutions where teaching, learning and scholarship engage faculty, students, and community in mutually beneficial and respectful collaboration. Outreach & Partnerships includes institutions whose approaches to outreach include applying and providing campus resources for community use and whose partnerships focus on collaborative interactions with community.

In a letter to the campus community, Chancellor Robert C. Holub noted that the Community Engagement Classification "is a significant honor for UMass Amherst, and for the many campus programs that have fostered strong relationships with external community partners to address many of the social, economic, environmental, educational and cultural needs and issues in our region, the Commonwealth, nationally and internationally."

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