About UOE
Michigan State University’s Office of University Outreach and Engagement (UOE) is an academic support unit with a strong emphasis on convening community and academic partners in mutually beneficial ways to address pressing societal challenges. UOE advances MSU’s land-grant mission by translating research into practical applications, helping faculty and students build strong community partnerships, and creating meaningful, hands-on opportunities for engaged scholarship. UOE helps faculty, staff, and students in every college, institute, and center to partner with communities through scholarship and community-engaged learning that are collaborative, participatory, and transformative.
UOE’s structure includes departments that span academic research, student and faculty learning, and community development. These units work independently and collaboratively to foster engagement with internal and external partners and interest holders that is systemic, empowering, and grounded in scholarship.
UOE works in partnership with academic and administrative units, including MSU’s colleges, MSU Extension, International Studies and Programs, Undergraduate Education, Research and Innovation, and others to grow and sustain a unified, university-wide engagement infrastructure. We are informed by and responsive to the needs of MSU’s colleges and other units, including faculty, students, and staff.
See descriptions of all UOE departments at: engage.msu.edu/about/departments
Background
MSU’s commitment to outreach evolved in the mid-1980s, with a major shift toward integrating engagement as a core academic mission, catalyzed by a 1988 Kellogg Foundation grant. Over the following decades, UOE expanded its scope, added key programs and institutes, and developed tools, conferences, and recognitions to advance community-university partnerships and the scholarship of engagement. Today, UOE serves as a central hub for strategic engagement across Michigan and beyond.
UOE's Vision
To position MSU as a premier engaged research university that exemplifies the importance and value of community-university partnerships in scholarship and learning.
UOE's Mission and Values
MSU works with communities to produce practical solutions and lasting benefits in Michigan and beyond. We facilitate university-wide efforts to create an ecosystem of engagement by:
- supporting faculty, staff, and students in engaged scholarship and learning across all scholarly disciplines and areas for societal impact;
- fostering public access to university expertise and resources; and
- advocating for exemplary engaged scholarship, nationally and internationally.
In all its work, UOE emphasizes university-community partnerships that are collaborative, participatory, empowering, systemic, transformative, sustainable, and anchored in scholarship.
UOE's Pathways to Engagement
UOE supports community-university partnerships with a variety of goals across all academic disciplines, such as creating enriching educational experiences for youth and families, facilitating engaged learning that enhances student success, and promoting long-term and reciprocal research relationships. UOE’s major pathways for engagement include:
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