Metropolitan State receives 2008 Community Engagement Classification

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching selected Metropolitan State University for its 2008 Community Engagement Classification. Announced in late December 2008, 119 US colleges and universities were selected from 147 applications to join the 76 institutions identified in the 2006 selection process. Of the 119 institutions, 68 are public and 51 are private. Metropolitan State and Augsburg College were the only two Minnesota schools selected this year.

Colleges and universities with an institutional focus on community engagement were invited to apply for the classification. Unlike the Carnegie 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.

Classifications were in one of three categories: Curricular Engagement, Outreach and Partnership, and Curricular Engagement and Outreach and Partnerships. Metropolitan State was in the third category because it has substantial commitments in both areas.

Metropolitan State President Sue K. Hammersmith commented that “the Metropolitan State heritage and mission commit the university to community partnerships … to support an urban mission, our vision includes an unwavering commitment to civic engagement and a university planning goal is engagement through community-based relationships. The achievement of the Carnegie classification for Curricular Engagement and Outreach and Partnerships both recognizes Metropolitan State’s consistent investment in integrating community-based learning with students’ academic experiences and recommits the university to the mutually-beneficial community relationships for which we have been well-known throughout our history.”

The university’s engagement, outreach and partnerships include such things as University-Community Library Partnership with the Saint Paul Public Library; PeaceJam in partnership with youthrive; Project SHINE (Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders); American Democracy Project; and the Dayton’s Bluff Urban Partnership, a collaboration of residents, neighborhood organizations, community leaders, businesses and educational institutions committed to developing the social, economic and physical health of the Dayton’s Bluff Community.