Community Engagement is in VCU’s DNA
VCU was established by the Wayne Commission to be an urban serving institution, which means it was designed from its inception to be community engaged and address community needs. It is truly in our DNA.
Community engagement at VCU is a collaborative process where both the university and community partners co-create solutions to pressing societal issues. By prioritizing community engagement, VCU sets itself apart as a leader in this field. We integrate it into education, scholarship, research and clinical practice to improve the lives of our students, our patients, our faculty and staff and our community members.
Given our unwavering commitment to community engagement, VCU was one of the first universities to receive the Carnegie Community Engaged classification when it was launched in 2005, and was reclassified in 2015. We are up for reclassification in 2025. Everyone is working hard across campus to ensure our community engaged work remains this national recognition.
What is the Carnegie Community Engaged University Classification?
The classification is a national comprehensive self-study that asks us to audit, assess, and advance how we strategically implement community engagement across our mission and function – research, discovery, student learning, engagement/service partnerships, and their impacts – at campus and unit levels. It is a voluntary classification that allows Universities to distinguish themselves.
Why Are We Doing This?
- To celebrate our history and identity. The classification is an opportunity to revisit our history, celebrate with our partners how far we have come, and plan for the future of community engagement.
- To honor our strategic commitments and hold us accountable to the community, our community partners, and the principles and values documented in our mission statement, Quest 2028 Thriving Community Goals, VCU Health’s Quest 2028, OVPRI’s research priorities and individual unit commitments.
- To achieve our goals and support our work including advancing transformative learning, increasing our internships, improving our impact in our partner priority communities, advancing our research and more.
- To help us adapt to our changing world. Preparing our students, our faculty and staff for a world with AI must be done in deep partnership with the community. As AI integrates into our work and our life, it will challenge us to new understandings of relationships, trust, collaboration, and authenticity. Community partnerships help us learn these skills and acquire a deep understanding of these processes.
Who is Involved and How Can You Join Us?
Community Engagement touches everyone in VCU – either directly through partnership building, recruiting internship spaces, teaching service-learning courses, doing community-engaged research, or serving patients or indirectly through activities such as finance, HR, or facilities management that support those who do. Thus, a self-study on community engagement at VCU includes all of us.
The work is overseen by an Executive Committee, and we are grateful to the following leaders.
- Aaron Hart, Ed.D. Vice President of Student Affairs
- Andrew Arroyo, Ed.D. Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
- Lisa Ballance, Associate Vice President, Strategy and Regulatory Affairs
- Maghboeba Mosavel, Ph.D. Associate Vice President, Community Partnerships
- Mangala Subramaniam, Ph.D., Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
- Michael Bourgeois, Ph.D., Associate Vice Provost, for Institutional Research and Decision Support
This committee is supported by our Council of Community Engagement, which connects our community engagement professionals across VCU and VCU Health, our Division of Community Engagement, as well as our Student Engagement Council, our Community Ambassadors, our place-based community engagement centers – Mary and Frances Youth Center and the Health Hub and their networks.
Everyone is welcome to join in. Here’s how:
- Join us for a webinar on October 3 at 3:00 for an update on what we are learning. Look for registration in TelegRams.
- Help us describe VCU’s community engagement. The self-study asks us to describe who we are – to ourselves and the communities we work with. We are gathering all voices to craft a description that captures VCU’s community engagement work from all perspectives. Help us by completing this micro survey.
- Volunteer for a committee by contacting [email protected].
- Are you involved in a university-community partnership? We want to hear about it! Share it with us here.
- Do you engage in civic engagement activities in the community? We want to hear about that! Share it with us here.