Our Purpose and Mission
Community engagement is core to the purpose of higher education and essential to the student experience, teaching, and empowering students to become active and responsible civic participants, and central to the theme of UC Merced's Principles of Community.
The Community Engagement Center brings together UC Merced students, staff, faculty, and Merced community members, agencies, and organizations to create and develop reciprocal partnerships that generate student learning, build capacity, and solve problems through service, scholarship, and leadership. These actions contribute to building a healthy and sustainable community (local to global) and creating positive change.
Community Engagement Center Goals
- Facilitate equitable, effective, and reciprocal partnerships and opportunities for students, faculty, and community partners in educational and co-curricular service and research experiences.
- Provide opportunities to, and facilitate connections between, campus and community entities.
- Support positive community engagement outcomes through educational workshops, trainings, and program implementation.
Community Engagement Center Student Learning Outcomes
- Civic Responsibility: Capacity to express an understanding of issues within the community and the responsibility to participate in democratic processes to work toward positive changes.
- Consciousness of Self: Ability to identify individual values and interests, to gain the confidence to act consistently with values, and to respect and appreciate the perspectives, values, and life situations of others.
- Academic Success: Ability to apply academic concepts to community issues and concepts of community issues to academic learning, alongside the development of professional skills.