Academic Outreach

University of Virginia Earns Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement

The UVA Rotunda with an overlay on the left showing the Carnegie Foundation Elective Classifications logo for Distinction in Community Engagement.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — The University of Virginia has been awarded the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, a national recognition of institutions that demonstrate an exceptional commitment to deep, reciprocal partnerships with their local, regional, national and global communities.

The designation, awarded by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, affirms UVA’s longstanding mission to serve the public good and its strategic priority to strengthen communities through shared work, collaborative scholarship and meaningful civic engagement.

“This recognition reflects the courage and commitment of our students, faculty, staff and our community partners,” said Louis Nelson, vice provost for academic outreach. “At UVA, we understand community engagement not as a set of service projects, but as an academic practice grounded in humility, reciprocity, scholarly rigor, and shared purpose. Partnering with individuals and communities grounds our work in real-world conditions, introduces voices and data from outside the academy and invites academics and students into transformative education and expanded research practices. The Carnegie Classification affirms what our partners have helped us build: a model of engagement that prioritizes community-identified needs and co-created solutions.”

In recent years, UVA has expanded its structural support for community partnerships, launching new academic programs, strengthening data and research collaborations across the region and investing in place-based initiatives designed to improve health, education, housing and economic mobility. 

“Community engagement is fundamental to UVA’s identity as a public institution,” said Brie Gertler, interim executive vice president and provost. “This designation recognizes not just the quality of our programs, but the shared commitment of our community collaborators, local leaders, nonprofit partners and educators who work alongside us every day. We are proud of the progress we have made together—and even more committed to the work ahead.”

Examples of UVA’s community-engaged research and programming cited in the University’s application for this elective designation include:

  • Public Service Pathways, an undergraduate experience for UVA students that integrates civic learning and service.
  • Starr Hill Pathways, a multiyear college and career pipeline program for local youth in the Charlottesville area.
  • The Center for Community Partnerships, which supports research collaborations and community fellows, and the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, which provides data and services to communities, governments, and public sector leaders.
  • Programs designed to equip students with hands-on public service and policy experience such as the Virginia College Civic Leaders Program and the Wallerstein Scholars Internship program.
  • UVA Health’s Community Engagement and Health Outcomes programs such as an initiative to explore local drivers of disparities in cigarette smoking prevalence in Appalachia and a community advisory board focused on Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Continuing education programs for K-12 teachers across Virginia that are managed by UVA’s Center for Liberal Arts. 
  • Longstanding legal clinics, engineering collaborations, environmental resilience work, and additional K–12 partnerships.

“It is so gratifying to see how far we have come in establishing relationships in which our local residents now feel valued, welcomed, and play an integral role in engaging as peers with leadership, faculty and staff to ensure that we all benefit from and share in the success of the University, said Karen Waters, member of the Center for Community Partnerships Local Steering Committee and co-chair of the President’s Council on UVA-Community Partnerships. “This designation recognizes the hard work on the part of the community as well as the University to bridge the divide between town and gown and sends a strong message to younger generations that there is indeed a place for them in the academical village.”

The University joins 278 other U.S. colleges and universities that have earned the Community Engagement classification, aligning UVA with institutions that exemplify higher education’s commitment to the greater good. While validating the University’s public service mission, the classification also encourages UVA to improve, assess, strengthen, teach and research its civic responsibility to be a good neighbor.