Carnegie Community Engagement Classification


Are you Engaged with the Community?   Tell us how!   Visit the CE Register to submit your Community Engagement related activities at Mason:

About the Classification

The Carnegie Foundation’s Classification for Community Engagement is an elective classification, meaning that it is based on voluntary participation by institutions. The elective classification involves data collection and documentation of important aspects of institutional mission, identity and commitments, and requires substantial effort invested by participating institutions. It is an institutional classification; it is not for systems of multiple campuses or for part of an individual campus.

The classification is not an award. It is an evidence-based documentation of institutional practice to be used in a process of self-assessment and quality improvement. The documentation is reviewed to determine whether the institution qualifies for recognition as a community engaged institution.

The Carnegie Foundation has selected 240 U.S. colleges and universities to receive its 2015 Community Engagement Classification. Of this number, 83 institutions are receiving the classification for the first time, while 157 are now re-classified, after being classified originally in 2006 or 2008. These 240 institutions join the 121 institutions that earned the classification during the 2010 selection process. Currently, a total of 361 campuses have the Community Engagement Classification.

For more information about the Carnegie Classification, visit the Carnegie Foundation website.


The Carnegie Foundation Definition of Community Engagement:

Community engagement describes 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.

The purpose 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.”

Community engagement describes activities that are undertaken with community members. In reciprocal partnerships, there are collaborative community-campus definitions of problems, solutions, and measures of success. Community engagement requires processes in which academics recognize, respect, and value the knowledge,perspectives, and resources of community partners and that are designed to serve a public purpose, building the capacity individuals, groups, and organizations involved to understand and collaboratively address issues of public concern.


Mason Peer Institutions with Carnegie Classification:

Arizona State University

Florida State University

Indiana University – Purdue University – Indianapolis

Michigan State University

New York University

Northeastern University

Rutgers University at New Brunswick

Temple University

Stony Brook University

University of Connecticut

University of Kansas

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Massachusetts at Amherst

University of Minnesota at Twin Cities

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of Southern California

For a complete listing of institutions that hold the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification visit the New England Resource Center for Higher Education.