Community Partnership

The Office of External Relations is a leading liaison for the University’s engagement with the community.  The Office staff identifies and fosters sound, mutually beneficial community partnerships and relationships on behalf of the University in coordination with its leadership, faculty, staff, and students representative of the University’s public mission and its role as an anchor institution within community.

Community Partnership Priorities

  • To develop and steward an effective plan for maintaining positive relations with external constituencies
  • To serve as a strategic partner with the President and Cabinet to increase community awareness of institutional curricular, co-curricular, and research activities
  • To serve as a resource for the campus community in its members’ seeking engagement with external constituencies
  • To help identify faculty/staff members for service on community partner boards and key community partners to serve on institutional external advisory boards

Center for Community Solutions

Notable community partnership work is led by the Center for Community Solutions (CCS).  The purpose of the CCS housed within the Office is to address community need through providing project-based, community-engaged learning experiences for students, enabling their applying knowledge and skills learned, and value for community partners through their achieving organizational goals and objectives with needed assistance at no cost.  Thus, the CCS is central to informing, growing, and sustaining the University’s community engagement and leadership as an institutional priority and demonstrating its genuine commitment to actualize its public mission.

Associated Community Engagement Roles

Additionally, the Executive Director fulfills the following roles within and beyond the University:

 

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