By: Nicole Castro / Staff Writer
As the Spring semester unfolds, the University has already set an aura of success as the prestigious Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching recognizes the institution for its commitment to the local, national and international community.
Among the 154 institutions that applied for The Community Engagement Classification, 115 were approved based on evidence of an institution-community partnership for a “mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources.”
Other recipients for the 2010 classification include Florida State University, University of South Florida and Nova Southeastern University.
“Clearly there is a great deal of interest among colleges and universities in being recognized for their community engagement commitments,” stated John Saltmarsh, the director of the Carnegie Foundation’s Administrative Partner for the classification on the Carnegie Foundation website.
Divina Grossman, vice president of the newly founded Office of Engagement at FIU, agrees with Saltmarsh’s statement and recognizes that it shares the same interests.
“We are a public university that is receiving funding from the state and the fact that we’re able to demonstrate not only internal impact but also in the community shows that we are an institution that has actual results,” said Grossman.
The work the University commits to is an actual application of the institution’s intellectual capital comprised not only of students, but faculty and staff. Grossman also feels that community engagement is a “very important statement to make especially in this day and age when public resources are diminishing”.
Institution-community partnerships at the University date back to when it was first founded in 1965, but the Office of Engagement points out that they are more intentional about these partnerships and that the partnerships are mutually beneficial.
Within less than a year of its establishment, the Office of Engagement has demonstrated a rapid rate in progress.
The office opened Feb. 5, 2010 and in a matter of 8 months, it created the infrastructure of the office, established a budget, initiated a number of significant partnerships and most importantly submitted the application for the Community Engagement Classification.
In its most recent initiative, the Office of Engagement is taking public schools in Liberty City, such as Miami Northwestern, and establishing community schools in hopes to provide security, healthcare and social services.
Consequently, the number of high school graduates will increase due to those resources.
“The goal in liberty city is to increase the academic success of student, as well as [their] college transition,” said Grossman. “The more successful they can be, the more likely they will graduate from high school and come to FIU.”
In the agenda of the Office of Engagement are plans to visit the University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center for Community partnerships, a program that has nationally been held up as a model, in order to mirror their involvement.
An additional project is the life sciences quarter, an economic development initiative. The work group consists of the deans of all public and private universities in South Florida, including University President Mark Rosenberg. They have begun to meet in an attempt to attract more companies and venture capitalist to create more jobs in the area of the life sciences.
Grossman believes this is important because of the way the region has been affected by home foreclosures and unemployment.
“It is important to create an economy that is more knowledge based [in the life sciences], to create jobs that are higher paying and that are not subject to the fluctuation of the real estate cycle,” said Grossman.
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