UC Merced recognized for community engagement

UC Merced was recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for its commitment to collaborating with the community in research and service, campus officials announced Wednesday.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement in Teaching selected 240 U.S. colleges and universities to receive its 2015 Community Engagement Classification. UC Merced was among 83 universities that received the classification for the first time.

According to a press release, UC Merced has worked closely with community partners at the local, regional and state levels even before the campus opened in 2005. The collaboration has contributed much to the university’s success in education and innovation, the press release stated.

UC Merced joined 361 other universities that have been recognized with the title since it was first granted in 2006. UCLA and UC Davis are the only other UC campuses to have received the same recognition.

According to the press release, the classification is not a monetary award or ranking, but a way to identify institutions that are committed to making a difference in their communities.

Projects and initiatives that helped UC Merced obtain the Carnegie Foundation’s community engagement classification, according to the release, include:

▪ A partnership with the California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities Initiative to foster education and networking for community research collaborations.

▪ The California Valley Fever Initiative, through which UC Merced’s Health Sciences Research Institute is leading a regional effort to address the disease.

▪ The UC Merced Regional Network Small Business Development Center, which provides entrepreneurs and small businesses with training and support to increase profitability and regional economic growth.

▪ A research project called Ethnic and Gender Disparities in Adolescent Obesity in Merced, in which UC Merced faculty and undergraduate students worked with school district staff to study an issue of local, national and global significance.

▪ The Engineering Service Learning program, through which faculty-mentored student teams collaborate with nonprofit agencies such as the Merced County Office of Education to try to solve the Central Valley’s urgent public problems.

▪ CalTeach, an academic program through which UC Merced and teacher mentors in local K-12 schools prepare undergraduate students to become future math and science teachers.

▪ Opera in the Schools, another partnership with MCOE, which takes K-12 students to UC Merced to experience live theater and opera.

“One of the very special characteristics of UC Merced is the extent to which community engagement permeates nearly everything we do,” Chancellor Dorothy Leland said in the release. “We want to support our region in ways that we can, and we believe strongly that our faculty, staff and students are enriched by working with local communities.”

This story was originally published January 8, 2015 at 4:41 PM with the headline "UC Merced recognized for community engagement."