Carnegie Community Engagement Classification

As part of NC State’s University-wide strategic plan, Wolfpack 2030: Powering the Extraordinary, in 2025 the Office of Outreach and Engagement submitted an application for reclassification as a Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching community engaged institution.

The results of the application will be communicated in January 2026. Thank you to our many partners across the University, including representatives from every College, who contributed time and expertise during the data collection process. 

NC State first achieved classification as a community engaged institution in 2005, with the added distinction of being in the very first cohort of institutions to be awarded. Since then, NC State was awarded reclassification in 2010 and again in 2014.

The Carnegie Foundation defines community engagement as the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities for the mutually beneficial creation and exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.

What is community engagement?

Community engagement describes activities that are undertaken with community members using particular processes of reciprocity in relationships and seeking to involve a wide range of viewpoints. In reciprocal partnerships, there are collaborative community–campus definitions of problems, solutions, and measures of success.

The purpose of community engagement is the partnership (of knowledge and resources) between colleges and universities and the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching, and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.

Community engagement is shaped by relationships between those in the institution and those outside the institution that are grounded in the qualities of reciprocity, mutual respect, shared authority, and co-creation of goals and outcomes. Such relationships are by their very nature transdisciplinary (knowledge transcending the disciplines and the college or university) and asset based (where the strengths, skills, and knowledge of those in the community are validated and legitimized).

Why we value this classification

It’s the process, not the prize: The designation is a voluntary effort that involves extensive, monthslong data collection and detailed documentation of key aspects of an institution’s mission, its commitment to its broader community and stakeholders, and its support of community-engaged teaching, research, and outreach among its faculty, staff, students and community partners. Through the self-study process, we are better able to demonstrate our community engaged successes while identifying areas where we might improve. 

Fulfilling our land-grant mission: NC State is a public land-grant university with a rich history of serving the state through education and research. Continued reclassification and the process by which we earn it recognizes our university-wide commitment to engaging with local, regional and global communities to advance our mission through research and scholarship, teaching and learning, and outreach and engagement.

Elevating our communities: Community engagement requires processes in which academics recognize, respect and value the knowledge, perspectives, and resources of community partners that are designed to serve a public purpose, building the capacity of individuals, groups and organizations involved to understand and collaboratively address issues of public concern.