KU Community Engagement Consortium

Through the KU Community Engagement Consortium, representatives from collaborative groups, networks, and KU units come together to share and strengthen efforts to advance civic and community engagement for impact through strategic coordination and communication.

The KU Community Engagement Consortium is a collaborative that works together to advance the coordination of community-engaged learning, scholarship, and outreach, including through civic engagement.

This group supports coordinated efforts across institutional-level partners (including various KU campuses, colleges, schools, research institutes, and centers) to elevate community engagement at KU by implementing the Carnegie Community Engagement Framework, in alignment with the APLU's Innovation and Economic Prosperity Designation guidelines.

Mission: The KU Community Engagement Consortium advances community impact and engagement at KU through the coordination of civic and community-engaged learning, scholarship, and outreach with institutional partners, including across KU units and campuses.

Community Engagement Consortium Intiative Details:

Foster Engagement for Community Impact through the Jayhawks Rising Plan to:

  • Institutionalize a Coordinated Community Engagement Infrastructure
  • Foster Mutually Beneficial and Respectful Partnerships with Local Communities
  • Promote Implementation of the Carnegie Community Engagement Framework to Guide Institutional Progress

Facilitate the Carnegie Community Engagement Framework Across the Institution to Advance:

  • Campus, Community, and Community Engagement Context
  • Institutional Identity and Culture
  • Quality Community Engagement Relationships and Academic Partnerships
  • Recognize, Reward, & Support Community-Engaged Faculty and Staff
  • Curricular Engagement
  • Co-Curricular Engagement
  • Civic Learning and Life
  • Community Engagement and Alignment with Other Institutional Initiatives

Implement Carnegie Community Engagement  Classification recommendations in the following areas: 

  • Community engagement infrastructure
  • Assessment
  • Community partnerships
  • Community engagement integrated into academic work
  • Faculty rewards for community engagement
  • Community engagement impacts on underrepresented students and faculty (important to integrate across all goal areas) 

Develop & Implement Civic Action supporting the following goal areas identified by Campus Compact: 

  • We empower our students, faculty, staff and community partners to co-create mutually respectful partnerships for communities beyond the campus nearby and around the world. 
  • We prepare our students for lives of engaged citizenship, with the motivation and capacity to deliberate, act, and lead in pursuit of the public good. 
  • We embrace our responsibilities as place-based institutions, contributing to the health and strength of our communities – economically, socially, environmentally, educationally, and politically. 
  • We harness the capacity of our institutions – through research, teaching, partnerships, and institutional practice – to challenge the prevailing social and economic issues that threaten our democratic future. 
  • We foster an environment that consistently affirms the centrality of the public purposes of higher education by setting high expectations for members of the campus community to contribute to their achievement.  

Coordinate efforts to support the APLU IEP Innovation and Economic Prosperity Designation.

The Consortium meets at least once each semester. 

  • Representatives of the Consortium may serve on working groups that meet more frequently. 

The Consortium supports three main working groups aligned with the goals:

  • Community Engagement Infrastructure 
  • Respectful Partnerships
  • Carnegie Community Engagement Framework Implementation

Members of the Community Engagement Consortium represented these academic departments, colleges, and schools:

  • Academic Success
  • Analytics, Institutional Research, and Effectiveness
  • Applied Behavioral Science
  • Biodiversity Institute
  • Career and Experiential Learning
  • Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis
  • Center for Service Learning
  • College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
  • College Office of Graduate Affairs
  • Community Relations and Business Development, KU Edwards Campus
  • Curriculum and Teaching
  • Dole Institute of Politics
  • Faculty Development and Mentoring
  • Health, Sport, and Exercise Sciences
  • Institute for Community Engagement, KU Medical Center
  • Institute for Policy and Social Research
  • Kansas Geological Survey
  • KU Endowment Association
  • KU Libraries
  • KU Medical Center
  • Lied Center of Kansas
  • Lifelong and Professional Education
  • Life Span Institute
  • Natural History Museum
  • Office of Research
  • Public Affairs
  • Research and Innovation, KU Edwards Campus
  • School of Business
  • School of Education and Human Sciences
  • School of Engineering
  • School of Music
  • School of Pharmacy
  • School of Social Welfare
  • Spencer Museum of Art
  • The Commons
  • University Career Center
  • University Honors Program
  • Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

If you are interested in learning more about participation in the Community Engagement Consortium, email us at communityimpact@ku.edu!

You might also be interested in...