Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is one of the world’s leading public research universities serving a diverse population of 41,000 students of which over 26,000 are undergraduates, who come from throughout the United States and over 80 foreign countries.  University of Michigan is home to 19 schools and colleges offering top-ranked academic programs and diverse cultural and social opportunities in a stimulating intellectual environment.  The University is well known for its commitment to public engagement.

For 13 years, the University’s Ginsberg Center for Community Service Learning, a unit within Student Life, has served as a national leader in the fields of service learning, social innovation, and engaged learning.  In 2012, the Center’s leadership, staff, faculty and other stakeholders engaged in an extensive and inclusive strategic planning process and created an exciting new vision for the Center to focus on social impact outcomes. This vision includes utilizing a Collective Impact model to create a hub for large-scale social change, leveraging the significant resources and global reach of the University, and will focus on addressing community-identified needs, engaging students and faculty in community-based scholarship, service, and learning, and ensuring the Center’s ongoing leadership and contribution to the fields of service learning, social innovation, and engaged learning nationally. Notably, to date there has been extensive progress in the area of childhood literacy, one of the stated priorities of the Ginsberg Center. This new vision is an opportunity for the University to demonstrate what is possible when you coalesce significant human and financial capital in support of ambitious social change goals and to be an exemplar for other institutions of higher education.