Engaging Faculty & Community Partners
Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) connects students and faculty with community leaders, changemakers, and residents to learn about justice issues and support the work of social change.
What is Community Engagement?
Community engagement is the development of sustained and authentic partnerships between the university and its diverse city, state, national, and global communities for the reciprocal exchange of knowledge, skills, and resources. By addressing critical societal issues at home and abroad, students, faculty, and staff contribute to the common good and to changing the world.
Work Together to Change the World
The McCarthy Center supports community-engaged learning by providing faculty development, cultivating and maintaining community partnerships, and facilitating orientations, reflections, and social justice lessons for students.
Faculty Develop CEL Courses
Faculty develop CEL courses by integrating curricular content and community-rooted experiences to foster students’ holistic development as leaders who will fashion a more humane and just world.
Community Partners Co-Educate
Community partners play a critical role as co-educators of students and collaborate with faculty to facilitate deep learning about social justice issues, community resilience, and civic participation.
Students Contribute to Positive Social Change
Students build relationships with peers and community members through CEL courses. Integrating community engagement into credit-bearing courses guides students to contribute to positive social change by working alongside community leaders on projects and activities that also connect with their academic course content.
Celestino Ellington
Founding Executive Director, Urban Student Athlete Development Academy
Make an Impact
Having USF as a community partner has been a win-win. Our students are able to build relationships with current college students, while USF students are able to apply their class lessons within the community that have true impactful results."
Celestino Ellington
Founding Executive Director, Urban Student Athlete Development Academy
Strengthen Community Ties
The University Council for Community Engagement creates, nurtures, and sustains partnerships between the university and the community.
Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good
Masonic, Room 106
San Francisco, CA 94117
Monday - Friday:
8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.