The University of Nebraska Medical Center was cited this month as the only academic health science center in the United States to be awarded the “Community Engagement” designation by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching this year.
The classification recognizes UNMC’s commitment of more than six decades to Nebraska’s urban and rural communities and provides a way for institutions to describe their identity and commitment to community with a public and nationally recognized classification.
“This designation illustrates UNMC’s broad and deep collaboration with the communities it serves across the state,” said UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D.
“For more than 65 years, our commitment to community involvement has extended from urban areas to rural towns. UNMC faculty and staff are dedicated to providing care to the people of Nebraska, teaching opportunities to our students and educating a much needed workforce in the health professions,” he said. “We are grateful to the campus-wide task force that gathered the necessary information and submitted the Carnegie Foundation application materials.
“The opportunities to further enhance this work are rich and extensive. We will build on this new classification with an even stronger standard for what is possible when universities and communities collaborate.”
Ruti Margalit, M.D., associate professor and director of the Inter-Professional Service Learning Academy (SLA), UNMC College of Public Health, and her SLA team led a 21-member campus-wide task force.
“The task force accomplished an enormous amount of work within four months that would normally take 12 months,” Dr. Margalit said. “It was outstanding.”
A total of 361 institutions in 33 states and U.S. territories now hold the Community Engagement classification, a status earned by a voluntary submission of required materials that describe the nature and extent of engagement with the community. UNMC joins the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Nebraska Methodist College as the only other two institutions in Nebraska with this top Carnegie designation.
The Carnegie Foundation defines community engagement as the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.
The foundation, through the work of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, developed the first typology of American colleges and universities in 1970 as a research tool to describe and represent the diversity of U.S. higher education.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (now housed at Indiana University Bloomington's Center for Postsecondary Research) continues to be used for a wide range of purposes by academic researchers, institutional personnel, policymakers and others.
A listing of the institutions that hold the Community Engagement Classification can be found on the New England Resource Center for Higher Education’s website.
UNMC has long been recognized for exceptional community outreach throughout Nebraska. Here’s a listing of outreach programs and how long the programs have been operational:
- Community Sites for Clinical Education provide rural rotation sites for more than 500 UNMC students each year – some programs more than 65 years;
- Clinical and genetic outreach clinics provide diagnostics services and consultation – 30 years;
- North Omaha Community Care Council improves communications and achieves greater access to affordable and quality health care, education, information, resources and services for the North Omaha community – 28 years;
- Rural Health Education Network, a pipeline program in which 77 percent of all practicing graduates have worked in a rural community at some point in their career – 24 years;
- Mobile Nurse Managed Clinic provides preventive and health promotion screening, teaching, referral, advocacy and advanced practice nursing services to people in various communities throughout Nebraska – 20 years;
- Behavioral Health Clinics provides clinical services – 17 years;
- Healthy Heartland and Rural Pharmacy Student Association provides community screening for patients who have diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and/or osteoporosis – 15 years;
- SHARING Clinics provide free or low cost health care in North and South Omaha – 15 years;
- Senior Health Promotion Center provides blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose and bone density screening, teaching, and referral and advocacy services to older adults – 15 years;
- Workforce development has impacted more than 500 public health, dentistry and nursing students a year – 10 years;
- Do Justice Program addresses the epidemic rates of sexually transmitted infections in Douglas County by educating, testing and treating high-risk and underserved individuals in the local jail – five years;
- Omaha Public Schools and Head Start provide physical and occupational therapy, oral screenings and prevention, RN consults, health screenings and telehealth consults – five years;
- Dental Hygiene Sealant Program provides oral screenings and prevention to the underprivileged – four years;
- Bridge to Care Program links resettled refugees in the Omaha metro area to health care providers and preventive health services, and at the same time, helps students develop cultural awareness and a better understanding of global health – four years.
Through world-class research and patient care, UNMC generates breakthroughs that make life better for people throughout Nebraska and beyond. Its education programs train more health professionals than any other institution in the state. Learn more at unmc.edu and follow us on social media.
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