Canadian universities converge to champion community engagement

A group of 16 advanced-education institutions will gather at Simon Fraser University this week to explore how to work collectively to build stronger, healthier communities.

The initial meeting of the Elective Carnegie Classification Canadian pilot program will examine how universities and colleges can increase engagement by creating mutually beneficial partnerships with their communities through sharing knowledge and exchanging resources.

“SFU is delighted to be collaborating in this pilot program with 15 other institutions,” says SFU President Andrew Petter. “Canada’s public post-secondary institutions have a huge opportunity, and I believe responsibility, to increase the contributions we make to the communities we serve.”

The Carnegie Foundation’s Classification for Community Engagement is an elective classification and has been the leading framework for institutional assessment and recognition of community engagement in U.S. higher education for the past 13 years. The new elective Community Engagement Classification has been adopted by more than 350 U.S. campuses.

Around 50 attendees from pilot cohort institutions will take part in an orientation program led by Brown University to learn about the Carnegie Classification framework and how it might support community engagement in a Canadian context.

The event is co-presented by four collaborating institutions: the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University, SFU, and the McConnell Foundation. It will be held at SFU’s Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue from Feb. 26-28.

“We are excited to embark on this important project with our Canadian colleagues,” says Mathew Johnson, associate dean of engaged scholarship at Brown University and executive director of the Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service. “Community engagement is an essential component of 21st-century higher education and we are sure we will learn much from this collaborative project.”

The cohort partners are: Assiniboine Community College; Carleton University; Kwantlen Polytechnic University; McMaster University; Mount Allison University; The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; The Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies; Simon Fraser University; The Université du Québec; The University of Alberta; The University of British Columbia; The University of Calgary; The University of Ottawa; The University of Windsor; York University and Yukon College.

Following this initial orientation, partners will work together over the next year to complete the classification application. A closing meeting will be held in May 2020 and a formal Canadian Carnegie Classification Framework will be collectively written by the end of December 2021.

For more information: https://www.sfu.ca/carnegie.html