University of Massachusetts Lowell
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Institution has one or more formal community partnership(s) with school districts, government agencies, non-profit organizations, NGOs, businesses and/or other external entities, to work together to advance sustainability.

This credit recognizes campus-community partnerships that the institution supports (materially or financially) and that address sustainability challenges in the broader community. This may be demonstrated by having an active community partnership that meets one or more of the following criteria:

• The partnership is multi-year or ongoing, rather than a short-term project or event;
• The partnership simultaneously supports all three dimensions of sustainability, i.e. social equity and wellbeing, economic prosperity, and ecological health; and/or
• The partnership is inclusive and participatory, i.e. underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations are engaged as equal partners in strategic planning, decision-making, implementation and review.

A partnership is considered to be “transformative”, “collaborative”, or “supportive” based on the number of criteria that are met (see D. Scoring).

This credit is inclusive of partnerships with local and distant communities.

Participatory, community-based research and engaged scholarship around issues of sustainability may be included if it involves formal partnership(s). Although community service activities (e.g. academic service learning, co-curricular service learning and volunteer activities, Work-Study community service and paid community service internships) may involve partnerships and contribute toward sustainability, they are not included in this credit. Community service is covered by the Community Service credit.

This credit applies to all institutions.

Institutions earn the maximum of 3 points available for this credit for having at least one formal community partnership that is “transformative”, i.e. it meets all of the criteria outlined above. Partial points are available for institutions that have a partnership that meets at least one of the criteria, as follows:

Timeframe

Report on current partnerships and/or partnerships that were active during the three years prior to the anticipated date of submission.  

Sampling and Data Standards

Not applicable