Engaged Scholars
Engaged Scholars is one of three university-wide initiatives under the cross-cutting strategic theme of Ensuring Highest Student Quality and Enhancing the Student Experience. By better integrating Emory's teaching and research missions with service to humanity, Engaged Scholars aims to produce socially conscious leaders with a portfolio of skills developed and values tested in community engagement. In the process, Engaged Scholars will contribute to positive transformation in the local community and beyond.
A key objective is to provide a continuum of community engagement opportunities for Emory students and faculty across the nine academic units. The continuum begins with volunteer service experience; advances to academic courses in which students develop new understanding and new skills by applying what they learn in the classroom to complete community-benefiting activities and/or projects; deepens with intensive experiential academic programs in which students devote a summer or semester to addressing the underlying causes of community problems; and culminates with the production of original research based on transformational community practice and/or experience.
Through the Office of University-Community Partnerships (OUCP), Engaged Scholars provides the support Emory faculty need to successfully incorporate community-benefiting projects into their courses and research portfolios. The OUCP also serves as a centralized resource for coordinating and connecting the rapidly growing number of community-engaged learning, scholarship and service activities enhancing the student experience across the university - making community transformation even more substantial and sustainable.