Center for Civic Engagement

Transforming student learning and social responsibility. Deepening faculty engagement. Partnering with the community to address identified priority areas. This is the work that drives the existence of the Center for Civic Engagement!

What is Civic Engagement?

We define civic engagement in the broadest terms as “the process of learning about the assets, needs, and concerns of the larger communities of which we are a part and the willingness to collaborate with others to help define and achieve the common good.”  (Elon University)

Civic engagement encompasses a range of activities, such as tutoring in elementary schools or conducting research to inform public policy, as well as community engagement.

What does Community Engagement look like?

Community engagement describes a relationship in which we work with communities for the mutually-beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources, in a context of partnership and reciprocity, with the explicit purpose to:

1. enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity;
2. enhance curriculum, teaching and learning;
3. prepare educated, engaged citizens;
4. strengthen ethical and civic responsibility;
5. address critical societal issues; and
6. contribute to the public good.

We believe that this form of engagement leads to impactful learning about social, structural, and systems issues, which can bring about change in our community. When faculty and students join community partners for collaborative and sustained exploration of community-identified needs, with tangible results, everyone benefits. Through service learning, we learn from, with, and about our communities!

What programs or initiatives do we support?

CCE supports programs and initiatives that align with the following characteristics:

• Meet community-identified needs or advances the work of a non-profit or public organization;
• Is collaborative in nature with involvement from the target audience and benefits an underserved population;
• Is evidence-based, data-driven, measurable, and sustainable over time to demonstrate impact;