Carnegie Recognizes FIU For Community Engagement

Neeraj Venkatesh K.R./Contributing Writer

FIU was classified this year as a Carnegie Community Engaged university, which recognizes the collaborations and partnerships it has within the Miami community.

Brown University and the Carnegie Foundation create the selections committee, manage application and also decide the designation for the selected universities who are plugged in where they live.

The classification isn’t an award, but more of an accreditation process that universities elect to do. Institutions like FIU apply to be recognized as an engaged university by documenting just how plugged in they are with their community.

FIU’s Office of Engagement was one of the main drivers behind the application, it’s mission being to create collaborations between the University and other entities.

“To tender a powerful application to Carnegie, we needed to have a broad base of stakeholders that were faculty, professional staff, people involved in curricular activities, co-curricular activities,” said Saif Y. Ishoof, vice president of engagement.

Caryn Lavernia, assistant vice president of engagement, said that since the city of Miami Beach has one of the largest property taxes, with that comes sufficient funding to enhance the community.

The Office of Engagement tailored a partnership with the city of Miami Beach and the College of Engineering, where students get jobs working for the city’s schools and gain experience in activities like 3D-printing and robotics.

For students of other majors, the Engagement put together an event where select students from FIU and other institutions like Miami-Dade College had an opportunity to spend one day with Florida’s top CEO’s.

One student from Miami Dade College was partnered up with baseball Hall of Famer Derek Jeter from the New York Yankees as his mentor during the “CEO For A Day” event in January.

The end goal of this designation is to make sure that FIU is using its abundant resources to help identify and solve problems with the community by creating partnerships that will be beneficial to both.