About community engagement
Building Capacity for Community Engagement
Learn about a tri-campus effort currently underway.
Building on each campus’ comprehensive assessments of community engagement through the Carnegie Foundation, which led to each campus’ successful classification as Community-Engaged Campuses in 2020, the UW continues to grow our collective abilities to partner effectively and equitably in community. Learn more here.
Our commitment as a public university means we are a critical partner in helping to address the challenges of our region and the world. Our values — integrity, diversity, excellence, collaboration, innovation, and respect — extend from our campus to people and organizations around the Puget Sound, the Northwest, and the world. Community engagement is at the heart of our work.
Community engagement at the University of Washington can be defined as collaboration between the UW and our larger communities (local, tribal, regional/state, national, global) for the equitable, mutually beneficial creation and exchange of knowledge and resources. These collaborations with public, private, non-profit, and individual partners span disciplines and sectors. They are grounded in reciprocity, entailing co-developed definitions of problems, solutions, and measures of success; and they are asset-based, where community partners’ strengths, skills, and knowledges are respected and incorporated.
Community engagement enhances curriculum, teaching, and learning; prepares educated, engaged citizens; strengthens democratic values and civic responsibility; supports the vitality of our surrounding communities; and contributes to the public good. This fulfills our mission as a public university.
In addition to driving our work, community engagement serves as a lens by which the efforts of UW faculty, staff, and students may be understood. Such efforts may include but are not limited to community-based research, public scholarship, community-engaged learning, direct service, communication, civic action and participation, and institutional planning and partnerships. Examples in scholarship, teaching and learning, and service follow.
Research and Scholarship
Community-engaged research, scholarship, or creative activity is that which uses community-engaged approaches and methods.
- Citizen science, community-based participatory research, or other means of research, scholarship, or creative activity is community-engaged if it incorporates a reciprocal partnership with community.
- Outreach, public scholarship, applied research, open scholarship, science communication, and other means of translation or broader impact may be considered community-engaged if undertaken in a context of partnership and reciprocity.
Curriculum and Community-Engaged Learning Activities
Community-engaged curriculum and learning activities are those that use community-engaged approaches and methods.
- This may include community-engaged learning, community-led curriculum and instruction, studio courses, or other ways of teaching and learning if they are undertaken in partnership with community.
- This should align with the tri-campus definition of Community Engaged Learning courses
- Community engaged learning (CEL) courses are hands-on, skill-building opportunities for you to engage with community partners through the mutually beneficial exchange of creativity, knowledge, and resources.
Community Partnerships
Community-engaged service includes other individual or organizational activities that happen in reciprocal partnership with community. This may include:
- The mutually beneficial inclusion of community partners on UW councils and committees.
- Faculty, student, or staff service on external committees or boards, wherein the resources, including labor, political capital/will, funds, or other, of the UW can be brought to bear in mutually beneficial service to the outside organization’s mission.
- Volunteerism, direct service, or other co-curricular or service activities may be considered community-engaged if they are undertaken in reciprocal partnership with community.
Community Engagement Steering Committee
Meet the members of this Seattle-campus committee (2018-2020)
Ed Taylor, Vice Provost and Dean (Co-Chair)
Undergraduate Academic Affairs
edtaylor@uw.edu; 206-616-7175
Joy Williamson-Lott, Dean (Co-Chair)
Graduate School
joyann@uw.edu; 206-543-5139
Branden Born, Co-Director
Livable City Year
bborn@uw.edu; 206-543-4975
Iisaaksiichaa Braine, Tribal Liaison
Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity
dabraine@uw.edu; 206-616-6056
Renee Cheng, Dean
College of Built Environments
rycheng@uw.edu; 206-616-2442
Sally Clark, Director
Regional & Community Relations
salclark@uw.edu; 206-616-8401
Catherine Cole, Division Dean of the Arts
College of Arts and Sciences
colecat@uw.edu; 206-543-7045
Jennifer Davison, Program Director
Urban@UW
jnfrdvsn@uw.edu; 206-240-6903
Butch de Castro, Associate Dean
School of Nursing
butchdec@uw.edu; 425-352-3237
Hilary Godwin, Dean
School of Public Health
hgodwin@uw.edu; 206-685-6643
Lisa Graumlich, Dean
College of the Environment
graulic@uw.edu; 206-221-0908
Mary Gresch, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer
University Marketing & Communications
mgresch@uw.edu; 206-685-3710
Rickey Hall, Vice President and University Diversity Officer
Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity
rickey1@uw.edu; 206-543-2441
Michaelann Jundt, Associate Dean
Undergraduate Academic Affairs
mjundt@uw.edu; 206-221-1871
Lisa Thomas, Associate Vice President
University Advancement
thomasl@uw.edu; 206-616-9289
Mia Tuan, Dean
College of Education
mtuan@uw.edu; 206-616-7854
Edwina Uehara, Dean
School of Social Work
eddi@uw.edu; 206-685-2480
STAFF
Christopher Partridge, Curriculum
Specialist Graduate School
chrisrp@uw.edu; 206-543-9973
Micah Trapp, Executive Assistant to the Vice Provost and Dean
Undergraduate Academic Affairs
micahlt@uw.edu; 206-616-1446
Stories
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Welcoming back Tent City 3 to the UW
Welcoming back Tent City 3 to the UW
As one part of the community’s response to homelessness in the region, the University of Washington will welcome back Tent City 3 — an organized tent-city community — on its Seattle campus for 90 days during winter quarter 2021.
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Creating communities that care
Creating communities that care
Across Seattle, UW School of Social Work students and community leaders are working together to encourage healthy behaviors in young people — and set them up for success.
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I climb up the ladder
I climb up the ladder
Growing up on the Makah Reservation in Neah Bay, Auston Jimmicum vividly remembers meeting University of Washington students for the first time.
Read story
More stories
MLK Week: Day of Service activities – The University of Washington’s MLK Week was organized to remind us of the history and the fight that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many other lives have put up for freedom and equality.
UW Honors students use art to disrupt the narrative on homelessness – Students in the Interdisciplinary Honors class “Citizen Acts to Challenge Poverty” collaborated with Real Change to bring the exhibit Portraits for Change to the UW campus.