Davidson Recognized for Deep Ties to Community and Commitment to Engagement
January 31, 2020
Davidson College runs a six-week Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School program each summer at the Ada Jenkins Center in the Town of Davidson.
The Carnegie Foundation this week recognized Davidson College’s success in reaching off campus and into the community. The century-old foundation, devoted to erasing educational inequities, has awarded Davidson its Community Engagement Classification.
The organization highlighted how the college’s curriculum, community partnerships, and research and service opportunities engage faculty and students in a mutually beneficial relationship with the broader community, while giving students crucial experience and life skills. Students connect what they are doing in the classroom with real world problems, part of Davidson preparing them for lives of leadership and service.
“Davidson is grateful for the opportunity to work with great community partners who are addressing urgent challenges our society faces,” said Davidson College President Carol Quillen. “Our students, faculty and staff are excited to build on these efforts and to honor this distinguished recognition from the Carnegie Foundation."
Davidson is one of 119 U.S. colleges and universities to receive the Community Engagement Classification, which indicates institutional commitment to community engagement.
This important classification is awarded following a process of extensive self-study by each institution, which is then assessed by a national review committee led by the Swearer Center for Public Engagement at Brown University, the administrative and research home for the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification.
“Community engagement is deeply engrained in our culture at Davidson,” said Stacey Riemer, associate dean and director of civic engagement at Davidson. “Many people across campus and in our community contributed to the year-long evaluation that allowed us to reflect upon the ways that our curriculum, programs, practices, and resources support robust community partnerships.”
Some Examples of the College’s Reach & Commitment
- Each student must take one course that satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community (JEC) requirement. These courses address the manifestations of justice and equality in various communities, locales, nations or regions.
- The Center for Civic Engagement and Athletics have partnered on a new “Cats Care” initiative to build upon current engagement efforts and encourage more engagement among athletes.
- In the 2018-19 academic year, faculty offered 27 community-based learning courses in partnership with community organizations.
- 80 Bonner Scholar students contributed a total of 22,400 hours of work with public and nonprofit organizations.
Six Davidson students spent the early weeks of summer break in training with the Children's Defense Fund Freedom School program before heading to their classrooms. Pictured: TJ Elliott, linebacker and sociology major, motivates Freedom School participants.
The Davidson College Advising Corps, established through the John M. Belk Endowment and The Duke Endowment, deployed 18 advisers to 19 schools this year. Alyssa Glover ’17 (pictured) offered students guidance as a CAC adviser at Northwest Cabarrus High School, in Kannapolis, North Carolina.
The North Carolina Campus Compact, a network of colleges and universities committed to civic and community engagement, honored Davidson College President Carol E. Quillen with the Leo M. Lambert Engaged Leader Award for leadership that fosters student engagement and community impact.
The College Advising Corps places well-trained, college graduates from institutions of higher education as full-time advisers in under-resourced high schools to support students as they navigate the complex processes of college admission and matriculation. Thomas Hall ’16 (pictured) served as a CAC adviser at R-S Central High School, a rural school in Rutherfordton, North Carolina.
Mikayla Smalls ’20 presented her project, “Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline: An Analysis of Mentoring Programs,” at the Verna Miller Case Research and Creative Works Symposium (VMC Symposium). The day-long annual event showcased a wide range of projects from more than 850 students, including projects focused on community-based scholarship.
A student shares research findings at the VMC Symposium. The student’s project is one of many spawned by the “Sociology of Beatties Ford Road” course, a collaborative course with Johnson C. Smith University led by Malcolm O. Partin Assistant Professor of Sociology Joseph Ewoodzie. The course focuses on the study of aspects of life in the Beatties Ford neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina.
President Carol Quillen joined students, faculty and staff at Lula Bell’s Resource Center to participate in a National Volunteer Week service project. The crew prepared jars of detergent for local partner agencies. Communities and individuals all over the world benefit from service projects led by Davidson student organizations and alumni.
The Davidson College Federal Community Service Work Study program places students in jobs with the Ada Jenkins Center, a local nonprofit that addresses community a plethora of community needs. Kenzie Bell ’20 serves as a teacher in the center’s LEARN Works after-school program.
As a staff attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative, Mickey Hubbard's work takes him from the state prisons of Alabama to the U.S. Supreme Court. As a student and Bonner Scholar, Hubbard (class of 2008) organized to combat homelessness and provide services to people in financial crisis.
“These institutions are doing exceptional work to forward their public purpose in and through community engagement that enriches teaching and research while also benefiting the broader community,” said Mathew Johnson, executive director of the Swearer Center, which houses the Carnegie classification.
The Carnegie Community Engagement Classification has been the leading framework for institutional assessment and recognition of community engagement in U.S. higher education for the past 14 years.
Without committed partners in the community, these invaluable experiences and opportunities would not be possible, Riemer said.
“This classification is also a recognition of community leaders in our nonprofit organizations, churches, businesses, and others who are eager to work together to build community capacity and who generously share their time and expertise with our students, faculty and staff,” she said.
Of the 119 institutions classified, 44 are receiving the classification for the first time; 67 are public institutions and 52 are private.
About the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching aims to build a field around the use of improvement science and networked improvement communities to solve long standing inequities in educational outcomes. The Foundation, through the work of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, developed the first typology of American colleges and universities in 1970 as a research tool to describe and represent the diversity of U.S. higher education. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (now housed at Indiana University Bloomington’s Center for Postsecondary Research) continues to be used for a wide range of purposes by academic researchers, institutional personnel, policymakers and others. For more information, visit carnegiefoundation.org.
About the Swearer Center for Public Service
In 1986, Brown University President Howard Swearer founded one of the first public service centers in the nation, now named for him—the Swearer Center for Public Service. The Swearer Center is a hub of community, scholarship, and action at Brown University. Through innovative programs and fellowships that reach across Rhode Island and around the globe, the Swearer Center connects people to co-create knowledge and positive social change, advances the field of engaged scholarship, and integrates social innovation with community engagement. In 2017, the Swearer Center became the administrative and research home of the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification. For more information, visit the Swearer Center website.
