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The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching recently announced that it has selected Millersville University as one of the 115 U.S. colleges and universities for its 2010 Community Engagement Classification. Millersville joins the 196 institutions identified in the 2006 and 2008 selection process.
“This is a terrific accomplishment for the University,” said Francine G. McNairy, president of Millersville University. “Community Engagement is such a critical agenda for us and because of the vision of our executive director of the Civic & Community Engagement & Research Project (CCERP), Dr. Mel Allen, we have been able to accomplish more than we ever thought possible. We have infused civic engagement across the campus, from our classrooms and residence halls to our speakers and special events.”
Colleges and universities with an institutional focus on community engagement were invited to apply for the classification, first offered 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 elected to participate by submitting required documentation describing the nature and extent of their engagement with the community, be it local or beyond. This approach allowed the foundation to address elements of institutional mission and distinctiveness that are not represented in the national data on colleges and universities.
“Whether its students working in Washington, D.C., through the Robert and Sue Walker Center for Civic Responsibility & Leadership or linking Millersville with a network of community and business partners through the Entrepreneurial Leadership Center, we are connected with the wider community,” explained Allen. “Our goal is to develop public policy literacy among our students. One way we do that is through conferences, ranging from education policy to how the economy impacts the middle class to science and technology. And coming up this spring we will hold a conference on international policy.”
In addition to the Walker and Entrepreneurial Leadership Centers at Millersville, CCERP also offers the Center for Public Impact, which lends support and expertise to searches for creative and pragmatic solutions facing our region, nation and the world and the Center for Public Scholarship, which is committed to the production and dissemination of rigorous research. And, the Office of Experiential Learning and Career Management oversees academic internships and volunteer opportunities within the community.
In order to be selected, institutions had to provide descriptions and examples of institutionalized practices of community engagement that showed alignment among mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices.
“We noted strong institutional alignment across leadership, infrastructure, strategic planning, budgeting, faculty teaching and scholarship, and community partnerships,” explained Amy Driscoll, a consulting scholar with the Carnegie Foundation and the New England Resource Center for Higher Education; “There is increased student engagement tied to the curriculum as well as increased use of institutional measures such as the National Survey of Student Engagement for understanding student engagement in learning through community engagement.”
The foundation, through the work of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, developed the first typology of American colleges and universities in 1970 as a research tool to describe and represent the diversity of U.S. higher education. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education continues to be used for a wide range of purposes by academic researchers, institutional personnel, policymakers and others.
