Students learning through community Impact

Center for Community Engagement

The Center for Community Engagement’s mission is to create opportunities for student learning through community impact – utilizing internships, research, and projects that align students’ academic and career goals with the goals of our community partners.

The Center for Community Engagement plays the lead institutional role in directing a nationally recognized campus-wide community engagement program that is delivered through both curricular and co-curricular avenues.

Mission

"Student learning through community impact"

We serve as the central connecting, training, organizing, and educating unit for community-engaged students, faculty, and partners.

We build reciprocal relationships with community partner organizations that leverage institutional and community resources to solve pressing challenges in our community through capacity-building efforts.

We prepare students to lead lives of significance by aligning their academic and career interests with community needs.

We instill the value of informed and engaged citizenship that prepares our students to be lifelong agents of social change in their local and global communities.

We recognize that our mission cannot be realized without an unapologetic and consistent focus on the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. To that end, our work is driven by practicing anti-racism

Collage that displays members of the Center for Community Engagement engaging in a series of activities

 

What does the Center for Community Engagement Do?

Since 2005, the Bonner Program has been a catalyst for student-led community transformation and social justice at Stetson University. Bonner students work with non-profit partners, each intent on collectively and collaboratively solving challenges in our local and global community. The Bonner Program is designed to transform not only the students who are directly supported by the program but also the campus and community in which they serve and learn. All Bonner students commit to eight or more hours of community service per week through an internship with a local non-profit community partner and to two hours of personal, professional and/or leadership training per week with other students in the program.

Community engagement is a way of life at Stetson University. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching recently awarded Stetson University its Community Engagement Classification in both possible categories: curricular engagement, and outreach and partnerships.

Community engagement occurs in a variety of ways at Stetson University. Faculty, staff and students routinely volunteer their time in the community and many members of the faculty require community engagement work as part of their course requirements.

We strive to develop truly collaborative relationships with our Community Partners. Our partners are the experts on the needs of our community. As we connect students with community partners, we work to develop opportunities that are mutually beneficial to both students and the community. Through Community Partnerships, our students are able to be a part of important and meaningful work while helping to build capacity in local organizations.

The Center for Community Engagement offers a variety of programs to help students get connected with their community, take action on issues they care about, and become informed global citizens. Some of our programs include Dialogues such as Things We Don't Talk About At Dinner and Ask Big Questions, the Social Action Leadership Academy, Values Day, and MLK Week of Action to name a few.

The mission of AmeriCorps is to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering.

The Center for Community Engagement has four AmeriCorps VISTAs as part of our team. Our AmeriCorps VISTA members support the Center for Community Engagement to make sustainable changes in areas affected by poverty across education, public health, climate and access to benefits through activities such as fundraising, grant writing, research and volunteer recruitment.