Miami Dade College (MDC) has been awarded the 2015 Community Engagement Classification by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, an elective classification that involves data collection and documentation of an institution’s mission, identity and commitment to community engagement. MDC is the only community college in Florida to earn this designation, and one of only 20 community colleges in the entire nation to do so.
“Earning the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification is the gold standard in higher education for civic engagement and something that everyone associated with MDC should be very proud of,” said Josh Young, director of MDC’s Institute for Civic Engagement and Democracy. “Our faculty, staff, students, and college leadership are working hard to build stronger communities and create a new generation of involved, informed citizens who care about the common good and want to make a difference.”
MDC is among 361 institutions that now hold the Community Engagement Classification since the program’s development in 2006. The college has been recognized widely for its long-standing institution-wide commitment to community engagement through college initiatives such as the Institute for Civic Engagement and Democracy, academic service- learning, the Earth Ethics Institute, Miami Book Fair International, MDCulture, extensive community-campus partnerships, and the commitment of MDC faculty to foster civic engagement and civic responsibility as part of the teaching/learning process — as well as myriad other engagement initiatives.
“These are campuses that are improving teaching and learning, producing research that makes a difference in communities, and revitalizing their civic and academic missions,” said John Saltmarsh, director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education and one of the leaders of the Community Engagement Classification process.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is committed to developing networks of ideas, individuals, and institutions to advance teaching and learning. It joins together scholars, practitioners, and designers in new ways to solve problems of educational practice. Toward this end, the foundation works to integrate the discipline of improvement science into education with the goal of building the field’s capacity to improve.
To learn more, visit www.carnegiefoundation.org.
