About Us

Partner with Us

We are always looking for community partners to collaborate with in our efforts to discover transformative solutions and create equitable social change in the Rochester community and beyond. By partnering with the Center for Community Engagement (CCE), your organization can benefit from University of Rochester resources, as well as the energy, expertise, and innovative thinking of our highly engaged student body. You can also connect to faculty members seeking collaborators for their teaching and research.

We seek to align University resources and strengths—in the arts, social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, human capital, and operational capacity—with the assets of communities beyond campus to build capacity and social capital, and to strengthen community resiliency to address challenges and advance equity.

We understand these partnerships to be reciprocal and mutually beneficial: students and faculty members gain real-world insights through their collaboration with non-academic community partners, as well as personal and professional growth. In addition, the University benefits institutionally through these partnerships toward its mission to learn, discover, heal, create—and make the world ever better. Finally, we strive to ensure that our partnerships are beneficial to the community and strengthen individual organizations and contribute to improving outcomes in the communities beyond campus.

Our Programs

We offer a variety of programs that work with local community partners to help enrich the lives of University of Rochester students and strengthen our connection to the local community. If you see a program that you believe would be a good fit for your organization, please contact us at community.engagement@rochester.edu.

Community-Engaged Learning

We support faculty in cultivating community partnerships for their teaching and research. We also administer the certificate of achievement for community-engaged learning, which allows students to gain recognition for completing community-engaged coursework as well as a capstone project carried out in collaboration with a community partner organization.

Learn More about Community-Engaged Learning

Rochester Youth Year

Rochester Youth Year is an AmeriCorps VISTA-sponsored year of service that matches recent graduates with community agencies to create, expand, or sustain initiatives that alleviate the effects of poverty on Rochester youth and families. The fellows work full time for a full year to create sustainable systems, processes, and infrastructure for their partner organization to more efficiently and effectively provide community support. 

Learn More About Rochester Youth Year

Rochester Urban Fellows

Rochester Urban Fellows is a ten-week summer program that mobilizes undergraduate students to carry out projects in partnership with local community organizations, while also learning about social issues relevant to Rochester through weekly seminar-style discussions led by faculty members and community leaders. Students also attend other community events.

Learn More About Rochester Urban Fellows

Wilson Day

Wilson Day was created to increase students’ awareness and knowledge of the local community and to introduce community engagement as an important part of the undergraduate experience at Rochester. Students visit various partner organizations to carry out projects such as helping teachers prepare for the start of school, working in community gardens, and applying fresh coats of paint at a nonprofit center. Our primary event takes place in late August each year during Welcome Week for new students, but programming continues throughout the academic year on a smaller scale.

Learn More About Wilson Day

Community-Engaged Employment

We facilitate partnerships that allow students to pursue paid employment opportunities with local non-profit organizations and public agencies that address issues in the public interest. We usually choose to partner with organizations that focus on early childhood reading and math literacy, but may address other issues of vital importance to the local community.

Current partnerships include:

• LEAP and Roc Reading Partners, both of which engage students to work with children to improve literacy outcomes
• TOUR, where students serve as academic coaches and social mentors for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to make the University a more inclusive environment

Student Organizations

The University has more than 20 student-led organizations whose missions focus on community engagement. Some of them have been leading successful partnerships for decades, while others are new efforts. The Center serves as an advocate for these student organizations and can help connect them to new community partners whose missions align with theirs.

Learn More Student Organizations

Volunteer Opportunities

CCE maintains a web portal for community organizations to present one-off or ongoing volunteer opportunities for students. Submissions to this portal are reviewed to ensure that they align with the capabilities of students, and then are published and promoted to students and other University stakeholders as appropriate.

Visit the Campus-Community Bridge Website

Community Partners

We are proud to partner currently with the following community organizations.