As a member of Campus Compact, Utah State University (USU) is pleased to celebrate the organization’s 30th anniversary through the development of a Civic Action Plan. This plan will help USU recommit to community engagement in research, academics, and the preparation of students for a lifetime of democratic citizenship. Over the past year, the civic action planning team developed the following three commitment statements the plan will address:
- Develop a campus culture of civic and community engagement through increased awareness of opportunities that prepare USU students for lives of engaged citizenship.
- Provide incentives to increase the high-impact practice of service-learning/community engaged learning across all disciplines.
- Improve USU’s ability to share successes and tell the story of community engagement through systematic campus-wide tracking and assessment.
With this plan, it is hoped USU will be better able as an institution to provide an environment that encourages community engagement. The goal statements above will help the university to establish mechanisms for building and fostering mutually beneficial relationships with local, state, national, and international communities, to bring together internal and external stakeholders, and to share the successes of community engagement on USU campuses.