Pillar 3: Community Engagement

St. John Fisher College will 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.

Goal 3.1

Formalize our Commitment to Civic and Community Engagement

Create an institute to provide leadership for community engagement work, to expand our efforts as an anchor institution, and to achieve institutional goals.

1. Through sustained leadership, set a platform to facilitate transformational community engagement experiences for students, faculty, staff, and alumni.
2. Advance our efforts to be more clearly identified as an anchor institution.
3. Promote and expand our efforts to provide training for non-profit board leadership and to support the non-profit sector.
4. Assess the impact of community engagement on the institution and ascertain the community’s perception of the College’s community engagement efforts.

Goal 3.2

Expand Mutually Beneficial Partnerships

Implement new and expand existing mutually beneficial partnerships, linking campus assets to community needs, in order to expand our impact, research possibilities, and experiential learning opportunities for students.

1. Develop a sustainable model that links service learning courses, service opportunities, and volunteer efforts to community organizations.
2. Expand the process for tracking and documenting the needs of community partners and link to our ability to address these needs over time.
3. Identify community workforce needs and seek to create partnerships to address them.
4. Identify and expand partnerships that leverage institutional expertise.

Goal 3.3

Implement our Civic Action Plan

Focus on sustained and comprehensive collaborations to expand Fisher’s engagement with and positive impact on the Rochester-area community.

1. Build a Platform Partnership with Connected Communities.
2. Engage in a collective impact network (ROC the Future) by providing faculty and staff training about collective impact and providing service, research, and volunteer opportunities to interested students.
3. Create a Signature Model by developing service learning courses in all majors to maximize students’ ability to participate in service learning experiences.

Goal 3.4

Extend our Commitment to our Catholic, Basilian Heritage

Re-conceptualize our Catholic, Basilian heritage by linking it to the needs of the campus and the community.

1. Preserve and extend our Catholic heritage and our ecumenical orientation.
2. Promote service as an extension of our common humanity and a commitment of a responsible citizen.
3. Incorporate the chapel into the ongoing life of the campus.