Pillar 3: Great Partners
A core mission of UCI is service to the community. Effective service requires deeply inclusive community engagement – the exchange of information, ideas, and resources – to benefit both the university and the community. This engagement broadens our intellectual capital and leverages our social capital, allowing us to provide leadership in and solutions to diverse societal issues such as resource management, technology, healthcare, education, and social inequality. UCI, already aligned with the world’s leading research universities and recognized for addressing matters of great importance, embraces engagement through its excellent teaching, translational research, alumni participation, community outreach, and creative activity. We are committed to accomplishing much more. By lifting engagement up to a new level, meeting people where they are and valuing their expertise, we will serve as a model for the nation.
Build an engagement culture
- Expand our existing strengths in engaged teaching, learning and community-based research and our resources available through co-curricular programs
- Promote opportunities for disciplines to cross-pollinate onsite and offsite for research, teaching, and broad community engagement
- Create a strong faculty culture of meaningful community and public engagement by collaborating with the Academic Senate on ways to elevate the impact of interdisciplinary research, service, and teaching as part of the merit and promotion process
- Develop scholarly programs with international perspectives and participate in meaningful academic initiatives and scholarly collaborations such as publications and presentations abroad
- Enhance emeriti faculty engagement in student research, teaching, lectures, and other activities with community impact
- Utilize emerging technologies, including making visual enhancements to communications
Create a powerful Anteater-for-life ethos that promotes ideal and sustained student and alumni participation
- Promote intercollegiate athletics, club sports, and other innovative competitions such as e-sports as critical factors in enhancing student experiences and engaging our alumni
- Create global networks and other connection opportunities for our students and alumni
- Strengthen alumni engagement by: ensuring we have accurate and accessible data and tailored communications; exploring new concepts in degree renewal and lifelong learning; promoting participation in campus events such as lectures, performances, and sports; and creating market-leading career programming and support for our alumni
- Draw attention to the clear value of a UCI degree and UCI’s place in the community by: engaging alumni and the community in raising UCI’s rankings and reputation; creating a clear value proposition in which UCI invests in the lives and careers of its alumni and stewards their time and talents when they give back; and creating structures to support on-campus and community volunteering
- Instill a culture among faculty and staff that values external constituents and activities, including alumni, parents, businesses, and community organizations
- Make it easier for community members to visit campus during evenings and weekends
Become a stronger partner with community organizations
- Develop an engagement resource center to provide services, information, and coordination of meaningful volunteer opportunities, on- and off-campus, for students, faculty, and staff
- Become a trusted partner with business by increasing integrated public-private partnerships, leveraging the activities of Applied Innovation, fostering entrepreneurship and regional economic development, and cultivating opportunities for student internships and alumni employment
- Become an even better partner with national, state, and local government, increasing elected officials’ understanding of UCI’s value and driving greater engagement with faculty, students, staff, and alumni
- Drive collaboration with nonprofit organizations through access to researchers, alumni, students, and physical spaces
Partner with Orange County to develop a national model for how to live responsibly and well in the 21st century
- Partner with Orange County in developing a sophisticated water conservation model that will provide a paradigm for 21st-century water management nationally and internationally
- Partner with regional agencies and businesses to develop new, more sustainable models for energy production, delivery, and consumption, including traffic efficiency and pollution control
- Implement an ethos of sustainability for students, faculty, and staff supported by clear processes and simple implementation strategies
- Make UCI a favorite destination for the Orange County community through joint public/campus events, the provision of public spaces for the exchange of ideas, greater faculty involvement in regional service, and the expansion of arts engagement initiatives
- Enhance the learning environment for Orange County citizens through dynamic engagement across the full educational spectrum, utilizing UCI Extension for online and remote learning, engaging the K-12 system with an emphasis on underserved communities, and undertaking an educational needs assessment of the county’s citizens
More broadly communicate and translate UCI’s discoveries and innovations
- Communicate the strengths of UCI and its impact in the world by building a clear and strong identity, leveraging all forms of media, and showcasing UCI’s value – with special emphasis on health and life-enhancing research – to community leaders and constituents
- Expand the visibility and accessibility of UCI’s scholarly output by increasing knowledge of and access to the research and educational resources produced by our faculty and students, utilizing multiple channels, such as open access publishing, data sharing, and contributions to open source educational initiatives
- Strengthen our international presence and engagement by expanding: leadership visits to important geographies; exchanges and partnerships with international universities; satellite offices; international speakers and events; travel grants; visiting scholars; participation in world issues; and representation on education and research policymaking groups