Carnegie selects St. Norbert College for 2010 Community Engagement Classification

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From St. Norbert College, January 6, 2011
by Mike Counter, mike.counter@snc.edu, (920) 403-3089

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has selected St. Norbert College as one of 115 U.S. colleges and universities to receive its 2010 Community Engagement classification. St. Norbert joins the 196 institutions identified in the 2006 and 2008 selection process, and is one of only three schools in Wisconsin to receive this designation. It is the only private college or university in the state so honored.

"St. Norbert College sees service to the wider community as central to our mission, and this classification recognizes that," said Daniel Robinson, director of the Center for Community Service and Learning on campus. "This service is only possible because of the generous community organizations that we've had the privilege to work with to build up the common good in our area."

Colleges and universities with an institutional focus on community engagement were invited to apply for the classification, first offered in 2006 as part of an extensive restructuring of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Unlike the foundation's other classifications that rely on national data, this is an "elective" classification--institutions choose to participate by submitting documentation describing the nature and extent of their engagement with the community, both local and beyond. This approach enables the foundation to address elements of institutional mission and distinctiveness that are not represented in the national data on colleges and universities.

"Through a classification that acknowledges significant commitment to and demonstration of community engagement, the foundation encourages colleges and universities to become more deeply engaged, to improve teaching and learning, and to generate socially responsive knowledge to benefit communities," said Carnegie President Anthony Bryk. "We are very pleased with the movement we are seeing in this direction."

For St. Norbert College, service is an integral part of the institutional mission. The college is guided by the Norbertine ideal of Communio, which encourages individual and collective response to the needs of the local and global communities.

A listing of the institutions in the Community Engagement Classification can be found on the Carnegie website.