May 7, 2018

UW’s Carnegie self-assessment will draw on years of community-engaged work

University of Washington kicked off the self-assessment process for the Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement Classification this spring, as a cross-campus initiative to understand, connect and build on UW’s broad efforts in community-engaged teaching, research and service. The Carnegie Working Group, comprising faculty, students and staff from units across campus, is tasked with exploring data and stories about the reciprocal partnerships that we have with communities in our city, region and across the world. Luckily, it is not hard to identify such projects.

Partnerships like Communities that Care, through the School of Social Work, work with community members to create mutually beneficial activities and outcomes for community and UW members alike. The Garden Cities project worked with communities to understand and improve environmental justice and socially responsible design.  The Implementation Science degree through the School of Public Health is working with communities across the world to disrupt the transmission of parasitic worms in developing countries and partnerships with the College of Ed and local schools, such as Lakeridge, are creating next-level learning environments. These are just some of the many examples of community engagement that UW students, faculty and staff participate in: projects and relationships that lead to positive impacts within and beyond our walls.

The working group welcomes submissions about projects, partnerships or efforts at UW that might fit Carnegie’s definition of community engagement.