Community Engagement

At Dominican, community engagement is fundamental to your education. We connect classroom, campus, and community through reciprocal partnerships contributing to a just, equitable, and healthy world. 

Modes of Community Engagement

Community engagement is a key part of every student’s Dominican Experience.

Our Center for Community Engagement assures that all students have meaningful opportunities to collaborate with community partners to enrich their education and contribute to the public good.

There are many ways to engage with your community and Dominican offers several methods to give options to learn, grow, and make a significant impact within the community:

  • Service-Learning integrates meaningful community engagement with the academic curriculum, emphasizing critical reflection, and analysis. With community organizations and schools, students learn about the lives of others and the larger contexts and root causes of issues that impact us all.
  • Global learning encompasses academic programs that further intercultural understanding and comfort with difference. Through coursework, internships, and research, both in the United States and abroad, students explore the interconnectivity of global systems and their own global responsibility.
  • Internships provide a structured experience related to the student's major or career goal where students gain practical experience related to their field of study and enhance their academic, career, and personal development.
  • Fieldwork provide opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience working with clients and/or programs under the supervision of a qualified practitioner.
  • Community-based projects are embedded in academic courses, designed to serve "client" community organizations and businesses. Through structured, faculty-guided initiatives, students hone leadership and team skills while applying disciplinary knowledge and engaging local experts.
  • Community-based research is student and faculty research conducted with established partners in diverse fields. Partner organizations benefit from students' work gathering and analyzing data for select projects, and students build critical skills.