By MARTY LEVINE
Pitt has submitted to the Carnegie Foundation its re-application to continue as a Carnegie Community Engagement Classified campus.
Jamilah Ducar, assistant vice chancellor of the Engaged Campus, told the University Senate’s Community Relations committee on April 28 that Pitt should hear a decision by the end of the calendar year, with success to be announced in January 2026 with a celebration, she hoped.
It took 40 people across 15 of Pitt’s 17 schools to conduct the self-study and complete the application process, she said. The self-study noted that, since the previous application in 2020, “Pitt now has a network of assistant and associate deans within the schools with an explicit charge to advance teaching and research through community engagement.”
It also found that “the progress made (in) revising tenure and promotion policies, university-wide, to evaluate engaged scholarship commensurately with other forms of research and creative activity … is a boon to Pitt achieving its role as an engaged problem solver.”
Ducar told committee members that Pitt’s work with community partners — in conducting research and providing service — “most certainly is not even” across schools. The School of Social Work, for instance, given its need to place students in community work for training, already “has an amazing enterprise fully staffed” for that purpose, with 600 community partners prepared to accept student placements.
But other schools have made noted strides toward greater community engagement since Pitt’s last successful Carnegie Classification application in this area, in 2020. The School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences opened wellness centers in Pitt’s Community Engagement Centers in February 2020, for instance, and now local residents can see their primary physicians “right around the corner” from where they live, Ducar said.
“I’m actually excited for what is ahead,” she added, including working with the David C. Frederick Honors College, which is currently aiming for every student to have community engagement. “We’ll have a lot to showcase next time” there is a Carnegie reclassification application — in 2032.
Asked whether the regional campuses are involved in this effort, she reported that only one university has ever gotten Carnegie to include its regionals — the University of Minnesota. Ducar said she has been able to discuss that possibility with the head of the team behind Minnesota’s Carnegie application. She also has been meeting with Bradford representatives already, since they are “probably furthest along” in community engagement efforts among the regionals, followed by Greensburg (whose small community engagement staff has been concentrating on projects involving high school and middle school students) and Johnstown (which is more focused on economic/Main Street development).
The self-study report also found that, at Pitt, “public service and volunteerism efforts are supplemented by a wide array of fellowships, community engaged learning and outside the classroom experiences.”
But one comparative weakness Pitt needs to address, the report said, has been “the lack of systematic tracking and assessment … in our community engagement efforts.” Ducar’s team is studying the implementation of GivePulse, a commercially available platform for tracking Pitt’s community engagement activity, giving the University the ability to “see different types of activity next to each other,” she said, and to help with matches of community partners to Pitt resources.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.