Augusta University Pursues the 2026 Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement
Augusta University continues to foster a culture of care that teaches our students how to become transformative citizens in the areas of volunteerism, community involvement, and service-learning.
Community engagement remains interwoven within our mission and strategic plan to provide meaningful and impactful experiential learning experiences while addressing the needs of the communities we serve and advancing student success.
Our Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement by 2026 goal serves to prioritize community engagement efforts across every unit, division, and department of Augusta University. This is one of Carnegie's two elective classifications, requiring a self-assessment process by higher education institutions.
This classification provides a means and a "guidebook" for becoming more intentional and systematic as an institution about how we develop effective community engagement programming in alignment with national best practices, including: faculty and staff rewards, partnership strategy, curricular integration, civic engagement, and community engagement tracking and assessment methods.
It enables us to become a more active, visible member of a national community of institutions committed to impactful community engagement.
Serves as a way to bring disparate parts of campus together in alignment with a larger community engagement vision while also identifying best practices across campus.
Serves as a tool to demonstrate actions around our mission to serve the public good and to partner with communities in impactful and meaningful ways.
Serves as a tool to demonstrate actions around our mission to serve the public good and to partner with communities in impactful and meaningful ways.
Serves as a tool for fostering institutional conversations and alignment for community-based learning, teaching, and scholarship.
Provides clarity and legitimacy to our mission and identity. The process is the purpose.
Click here to full a full listing of all campuses currently classified.
The application process will be led by a cross-campus working group made up of faculty, staff, students, and community partners with diverse perspectives on our community engagement efforts at Augusta University.
To assist in outlining the institution’s continued community-engaged efforts across campus, a Community Engagement Leadership Council has been established. The council’s work is to share best practices and increase communication to promote opportunities in campus-community partnership, emerging community-engaged scholarship and research, and other related initiatives. The CELC aims to provide significant support for impactful and effective campus-community engagement.
January 16, 2024
April 1, 2025
December 2025
January 2026 - Public Announcement of 2026 Carnegie Community Engagement Institutions
