Civic engagement has always been a hallmark of IUPUI. We were founded, in large part, to serve the educational and research and development needs of
Indianapolis. That commitment to our urban community has endured over the past 44 years, even as our various civic engagement initiatives have expanded to
meet the needs of the state, nation, and world. In recent years, the extent and quality of IUPUI's civic engagement work have been recognized by virtually
every national organization that confers awards or develops rankings for institutional community engagement in higher education.
We also know from research conducted at IUPUI and elsewhere that civic engagement, particularly service learning, is a high-impact educational practice that requires
students to apply classroom learning to real-world problems and is associated with student academic success. With these findings in mind, we have developed service-based scholarship programs that are among the most extensive in the country in terms of their
breadth across campus and academic programs, numbers of participating students, and amount of funding dedicated. Our service learning programs, wherein
students serve communities as part of their credit-bearing course work, have more than quadrupled over the past decade under the leadership of the Center for Service Learning; in 2011-2012, 14 IUPUI schools offered service learning courses in collaboration with 278 community partner
organizations, with approximately 9,955 students providing 181,262 hours of service to those partners.
In addition, a number of IUPUI academic programs offer study abroad experiences that incorporate some form of service. More than a third of our study abroad
programs included a service learning component in 2011-2012. Across the institution, we view service as a powerful learning tool that helps prepare
students for current and future roles as community members, citizens, and leaders. Our students play an integral role in the success of our civic
engagement mission.
