The "Community Engagement Classification" is an elective and institutional classification granted by the Carnegie Foundation. The process of application requires a voluntary but substantial effort. Oregon State University (like other aspirational peer institutions) engaged in an institutional self-reflection process to collect community engagement data and document engaged work across all aspects of our mission:

1. Teaching and learning
2. Research and scholarship
3. Outreach and engagement

The outcome of this process is an "evidence-based" documentation of community engaged practices statewide. This documentation serves as a self-assessment tool and a catalyst for improvements in community engaged work on campus, attending to reciprocity, mutual benefit, and shared knowledge creation among institutional and community partners.

Carnegie definition of community engagement

There are a variety of ways that higher educational institutions like OSU, individuals within these institutions, and community partners can define “Community Engagement." The Carnegie Foundation provides a definition for the elective community engagement classification that consists of two parts:

What it is/how it is done: “Community engagement describes the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.”

What it actually does/purpose: “The purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good”.

Relevant links

Learn about 2020 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification

List of relevant resources from the American Council on Education

Why is it important for OSU?

OSU first received the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification in 2010 and was reclassified in 2020. This is a prestigious recognition of community engagement. The reapplication process offers an opportunity for institutional self-assessment and identification of community engagement efforts across campus that can be made visible, shared and celebrated, including efforts across all three aspects of our mission:

• Teaching and learning
• Research and scholarship
• Outreach and engagement

The classification provides public recognition and visibility for the many community engagement efforts faculty, staff and students are involved with and underscores the university's commitment to:

• Engaging in a self-study of community engaged practices that can celebrate successful approaches, identify promising practices, highlight challenges and initiate pathways for addressing gaps in engagement efforts
• Continuing to foster alignment of community engagement practices across teaching and learning, research, and outreach
• Continuing to build a community-engaged institutional identity that distinguishes OSU from peer institutions and is not necessarily represented in national data informing assessments of colleges and universities

External partners survey

Coming in November 2024

Internal survey for OSU employees

This internal OSU survey aims to collect data from individuals, teams, departments, colleges, and units across the university about community-engaged teaching, learning, research, and scholarship efforts to support the application. In your responses, please share:

• Data and/or examples illustrating community engagement work aligning with the Carnegie definition (below)
• Only information that reflects established or completed (rather than aspirational) projects or efforts
• Information from academic years 2021–2022, 2022–2023, or 2023–2024, and fall 2024.
• Information in any format, including narrative descriptions, bullet points, lists, numerical data, or others that best represent your activities
• Links to evidence that would help give a full and complete picture of the work you have described, such as websites, publications, reports, etc.

It may be helpful to review the OSU Public Engagement Framework to identify relevant examples of projects or efforts to share.

If you have questions about Oregon State University’s Carnegie Community Engagement Reclassification application, please contact Karen Cannon, Carnegie Reclassification Coordinator, or Marina Denny, Associate Vice Provost for Engagement.

Thank you for your assistance in our data-gathering process!

Carnegie classification terms and definitions

Civic learning and life

Examples of extra-curricular civic learning and life activities and practices can include:

• Civic awards to students, faculty, and staff, or the community
• Civic fellows/scholars
• Civic-focused student organizations (voter engagement, Model UN, Model OAS, Peace Corps Prep or similar programs)
• Debate team
• Electoral education and participation (such as voter information, education, registration, polling site(s); meetings with elected officials; Constitution Day)
• Issue awareness and advocacy training (such as Advocacy Days)
• Meetings with community members, elders, and community leaders to learn about community issues; land-based learning

Practices or activities that incorporate civic life and learning that may be curricular and/or co-curricular can include:

• Conveying ideas across differences – orally and in writing
• Critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning
• Development of cultural humility, empathy, compassion, and courage to act in service of the greater good
• Development of digital data and media literacy
• Listening attentively and with patience
• Models prevalent in communities of color
• Opportunity to collaborate and participate with multiple forms of culturally based leadership
• Reflexive thinking
• Seeking out and engaging with multiple perspectives
• Understanding of intersectionality, privilege, and bias

Co-curricular engagement

Co-curricular engagement activities or practices are “structured learning [opportunities] that happen outside the formal for-credit academic curriculum through training, workshops, and experiential learning opportunities. These efforts require structured reflection and connection to academic knowledge in the context of reciprocal, asset-based community partnerships.”

Activities that are considered co-curricular engagement can include:

• Alternative break – domestic
• Alternative break – international
• Athletics
• Campus Scholarship Program
• Civic Engagement, electoral engagement
• Community service projects – outside of the campus
• Community service projects – within/on the campus
• Greek Life
• Intergroup Dialogues
• Living-learning communities/residence hall/floor
• Opportunities to meet with employers who demonstrate corporate social responsibility
• Social Innovation/entrepreneurship
• Student internships/co-ops/career exploration
• Student leadership
• Student research
• Student teaching assistants (provided the TAs are not receiving credit)
• Study Abroad/Away
• Work-study placements

Community-engaged courses

Community-engaged courses refer to academic courses with community engagement components. Your unit/department/program may use a different term, such as service-learning, academic service learning, community-based learning, public service courses, or another term.

Community engagement

Community engagement describes “the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.” This definition describes the process of engagement.

Curricular engagement

Curricular engagement refers to “teaching, learning, and scholarship that engages faculty, students, and community in mutually beneficial and respectful collaboration… Interactions address community identified needs, deepen students’ civic and academic learning, enhance community well-being, and enrich the scholarship of the institution.”

Investments

Investments from your unit/program/division may include infrastructure, budget allocation, fundraising, tracking, monitoring and assessment, professional development, or other efforts.

Partnerships

Community engaged/engagement partnerships are “mutually beneficial, reciprocal and asset-based.”

• Mutually beneficial means that all parties involved achieve outputs and/or outcomes that serve their interests.
• Reciprocity means that all partners, especially community partners and students, are thought partners and collaborators who help decide and inform the direction, activity, assessment, and dissemination of the partnership’s efforts.
• Asset-based means that the knowledge, capacities, resources, and resilience of all partners, especially community and student partners, are recognized and valued.

2026 Reclassification Committee

Sam Angima, Associate Dean of Extension, College of Agricultural Science

John Becker-Blease, Associate Dean, College of Business

Emily Bowling, Director of Civic Engagement & Leadership, Student Affairs

Marina Denny, Associate Vice Provost for Engagement, Division of Extension & Engagement

Michael Harte, Professor, College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science

Julie Judkins, Department Head, Special Collections & Archives Research Center, OSU Libraries

Shannon Lipscomb, Professor and Associate Dean of Research, OSU-Cascades

Allison Myers, Associate Dean for Outreach and Engagement, College of Health

Andrew Norwood, Director of Development, Scholarship and University Initiatives, OSU Foundation

Julie Risien, Director of Transdisciplinary Research, Division of Research & Innovation

Jeff Sherman-Duncan, Associate Vice Provost for Partnerships, Division of Extension & Engagement

Zachery Spire, Public Engagement Research Specialist, Division of Extension & Engagement

Temmecha Turner, Director of Community Diversity Relations, Office of Institutional Diversity

Karen Cannon, Carnegie Reclassification Coordinator

Click to read the full submitted application (PDF, April 15, 2019). Thanks to all who participated in this process. The 2020 Carnegie reclassification team appreciates your time, efforts and community engagement excellence.

As we prepare for the 2025 application deadline, please report your engaged scholarship efforts in Faculty Success.