West Chester University Receives 2026 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification
West Chester University has been selected to receive the 2026 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, a national designation that recognizes institutions for their commitment to community engagement and partnerships.
The 2026 classification was announced by the American Council on Education (ACE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which jointly administer the elective designation. In this cycle, 237 colleges and universities nationwide earned the classification following a comprehensive self-study and review process.
The Carnegie Community Engagement Classification is the nation’s leading framework for assessing and recognizing community engagement in higher education. Institutions must document how community engagement is embedded across teaching, research and service, and how those efforts are mutually beneficial to both the University and its community partners.
WCU’s application was submitted in April 2025 and represented more than a year of coordinated work across campus.
“This designation belongs to the entire West Chester University community,” said Dr. Rita Patel Eng, senior director of the Center for Community Engagement and Social Impact (CCESI). “I am incredibly thankful for the faculty, staff, and community partners who took the time to share their work, their data, and their stories. This application touched nearly every area of the University, and it would not have been possible without the collective commitment to community engagement that defines WCU.”
Patel Eng served as lead for the application and worked closely with a University committee that met regularly from November 2023 through April 2025 to collect, draft, and refine the submission materials. Other WCU committee members included:
- Dr. Sara Hinkle, Assistant Vice President, Student Affairs
- Dr. Julie Dietrich, Executive Director for External Relations, Office of External Relations
- Helen Hammerschmidt, Associate Vice President for Communications, Operations, and Strategy, Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost
- Dr. Elizabeth Munz, Professor, Department of Communication and Media
- Dr. Tina Chiarelli-Helminiak, Professor, Graduate Social Work Department and Faculty Associate for CCESI
Since WCU’s previous reclassification process in 2019, the University has expanded its academic and curricular commitment to community engagement. Twenty-three academic departments have added Community Engaged Learning (CEL) courses to their catalogs, which increased the percentage of departments with CEL offerings by 44 percent.
The Carnegie Foundation noted that institutions receiving the 2026 classification exemplify higher education’s role in fostering civic engagement, building usable knowledge, and creating real-world learning experiences for students.