Carnegie Foundation selects Loyola University Maryland for 2020 Community Engagement Classification

Loyola University Maryland has been awarded the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, a national recognition of the university’s institutional commitment and excellence in community-engagement. Loyola is the only university in Baltimore City and the only private institution in Maryland awarded with the classification.

The classification—which is valid until 2026—is awarded to higher education institutions who demonstrate national models for community-engaged learning—also known as service-learning at Loyola—and ensure reciprocal partnerships with local nonprofit, public, and other organizations.

“As a Jesuit, Catholic university, Loyola University Maryland wholeheartedly embraces its role as a member of our community,” said Rev. Brian F. Linnane, S.J., president. “Being anchored in Baltimore means we take seriously our role in this vibrant community and that we act on that responsibility in numerous ways. Just as we hope we are making a difference in our community, we also intend for our students to graduate with hearts, minds, and spirits awakened toward the needs of the world around them and a determination to apply their educations in a way that will bring about greater justice in the world.”

Loyola is one of 119 U.S. colleges and universities to receive this classification. The Carnegie Community Engagement Classification has been the leading framework for institutional assessment and recognition of community engagement in U.S. higher education for the past 14 years with multiple classification cycles in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2020. In order to receive the classification, Loyola demonstrated exemplary institutionalized practices of community engagement while aligning the University mission, culture, leadership, resources, and practices.

“This classification recognizes the work of hundreds of Baltimore community partners, local residents and Loyola faculty, students and staff who collaboratively work together to advance student and service-learning and make an impact in our local York Road Community, and throughout our world.,” said Erin O’Keefe, director for Loyola’s Center for Community Service and Justice, which coordinates the university’s community engagement, service-learning, and York Road Initiative. “We are honored to be recognized among universities across our country who take their responsibility as civic educators and members of their local communities very seriously.”

The central focus of the work honored is Loyola’s York Road Initiative, which was launched in 2010 and serves as a national model for long-term, place-based community engagement. Initiatives such as Loyola’s Clinical Centers (LCC), FreshCrate Healthy Corner Store Network, the Govanstowne Farmers’ Market, and their connections to academic service-learning courses and faculty scholarship helped Loyola receive this award—along with continued partnerships with long-standing nonprofit organizations, coalitions, and Catholic schools in Baltimore.

According to the 2018 National Assessment of Service and Community Engagement, 64% of Loyola undergraduate students and 72% of faculty participate annually in some form of service and community engagement and according to the Center for Community Service and Justice annual report, 2,574 students worked with over 100 community organizations in the 2018-2019 academic year.

About the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of teaching:

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching aims to build a field around the use of improvement science and networked improvement communities to solve long standing inequities in educational outcomes. The Foundation, through the work of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, developed the first typology of American colleges and universities in 1970 as a research tool to describe and represent the diversity of U.S. higher education. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education continues to be used for a wide range of purposes by academic researchers, institutional personnel, policymakers and others. For more information, visit https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/