Cornell’s growing commitment to hands-on, partner-based, reciprocal learning has earned it the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, a national designation recognizing universities with sustained, mutually beneficial community partnerships.

The classification is awarded by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, an independent policy and research organization chartered by an act of Congress in 1906. Institutions receive the designation through an elective process of self-study that examines how community engagement is embedded across curriculum, research and institutional practice.

For Cornell, the classification underscores an approach to learning and service that goes back to its roots.

“Cornell’s founding vision ’to do the greatest good’ demands that we strive for impact across our academic mission,” President Michael I. Kotlikoff said. “As an institution, we have deep connections with many communities, and we make sure that our students have opportunities to step beyond the classroom, to work alongside dedicated community partners and to confront and understand society’s complex challenges. The Carnegie classification reflects our conviction that engagement is not peripheral to our ethos and impact, but central to it.”

The current designation follows Cornell’s initial recognition in 2010 and a reclassification in 2020. 

“The first round, in 2010, captured all the wonderful work we’d done for the previous 150 years, such as through cooperative extension,” said Jake Dillabaugh, associate director of strategy and operations in the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, who led the application process. “It also served as a gap analysis of what kinds of programs didn’t exist.”

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These insights inspired new efforts to embed engagement opportunities in students’ experiences, such as the Engaged College Initiative and a variety of student programming in Student and Campus Life. 

“Today, it’s very hard for students to miss a high-quality engaged experience as they make their way through Cornell,” Dillabaugh said. Current projections indicate that every member of the Class of 2029 will participate in at least one community-engaged learning opportunity before graduating. 

Examples of Cornell’s long-standing partnerships include the Community Work-Study Program, through which hundreds of Cornell students gain paid, community-based work experience while enabling nonprofits, municipalities and schools to expand; and the 16-year collaboration with nonprofit Finger Lakes ReUse, supporting more than 60 research projects and numerous co-curricular student initiatives that help strengthen a local reuse economy.

Community-engaged learning is also embedded in academic programs such as the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management’s Grand Challenges initiative, a multi-year course sequence that works with more than 40 community partners each year. In team-based capstone projects, students address such topics as hunger, climate action, sustainability and equity.

“Cornell’s engagement work takes many forms across campus,” said Katherine McComas, vice provost for engagement and land-grant affairs. “These partnerships aren’t add-ons. They are core to how students learn and how communities benefit – from education access and sustainability to civic leadership and public service.”

Olivia Hall is a freelance writer for the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement.