Pillar 3: Community Engagement

St. John Fisher University will continue to serve as an anchor institution by engaging in purposeful and mutually beneficial partnerships to develop enriched learning opportunities and to broaden its impact in the Rochester area and beyond.

Students pack bags for a community service project.

Goal 3.1

Deepen our Commitment to Civic and Community Engagement 

Facilitate transformational community engagement experiences for students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

  • Create a Signature Model by expanding community-engaged learning courses to maximize students’ ability to participate in community-engaged learning experiences.
  • Obtain renewal of Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement.
  • Infuse the four elements of the University’s Basilian heritage into our operations.

Goal 3.2

Grow Mutually Beneficial Partnerships to Deepen our Impact

Students stand with bags packed for a community service project.

Using our Civic Action Plan, focus on sustained and comprehensive collaborations to expand Fisher’s engagement with and positive impact on the Rochester-area community.

  • Expand the process for tracking and documenting the needs of community partners and link to our ability to address these needs over time.
  • Develop a sustainable model that links community-engaged learning courses, service opportunities, and volunteer efforts to community organizations.
  • Centralize service outreach and develop an infrastructure to coordinate volunteerism that further strengthens community relations and partnerships. 
  • Promote and expand our efforts to provide training and capacity building for non-profit board leadership and to support the nonprofit sector through the rebranded Center for Nonprofit Leadership, now part of the Institute for Civic and Community Engagement.