SHSU Marks 16 Years as a Carnegie Foundation Community Engaged Institution

January 13, 2026 By Mikah Boyd

By partnering with Walker County Head Start, SHSU's dietetic interns make a positive impact on the lives of local children and their families by introducing them to fruits and vegetables included in the meal kits the interns assemble as part of an Academic Community Engagement course led by two SHSU professors.

SHSU Marks 16 Years as a Carnegie Foundation Community Engaged Institution

Sam Houston State University has once again distinguished itself as a leader in higher education through its receipt of the 2026 Carnegie Community Engagement (CE) Classification, marking 16 years since the university first received this recognition. The classification has been the leading framework for institutional assessment and recognition of community engagement in U.S. higher education for the past 19 years.

Awarded by the American Council on Education (ACE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, this elective designation highlights SHSU’s commitment to community engagement.

"Community engagement is infused into SHSU's curriculum to ensure that students understand the relevance of what they are learning and how it can contribute to making life better,” said Lee Miller, director of the Center for Community Engagement. “Faculty work with community partners to employ their research expertise to help meet real-world challenges. Through teaching and research, SHSU is increasingly engaged with the community it serves."

As part of the classification’s qualification process, SHSU’s Center for Community Engagement reviewed all community engagement efforts that all of the departments, colleges and student organizations participated in since the past CE classification cycle.

"This recognition reflects how Sam Houston State University faculty, staff and students work alongside communities to support learning, address challenges and create lasting impact. Community engagement is central to who we are as a university," University President Alisa White said.

About SHSU’s Center for Community Engagement

The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) is SHSU’s hub for campus-community connections and collaborations. Through Community Partnership Development, Faculty Development, and Student Development, the CCE designs, plans, manages, and promotes many initiatives that enhance the culture of community and civic engagement. The CCE is dedicated to maintaining SHSU’s status as a community-engaged campus recognized nationally since 2010 by the Carnegie Foundation.

About the Carnegie Classifications

The Carnegie Classifications are the nation’s leading framework for categorizing and describing colleges and universities in the United States. Utilized frequently by policymakers, funders, and researchers, the Classifications are a critical benchmarking tool for postsecondary institutions. ACE and the Carnegie Foundation announced a partnership in February 2022 to reimagine the Classifications to better reflect the diversity of postsecondary institutions and more completely characterize the impact that today’s institutions have in society.

About the Carnegie Foundation

The mission of the Carnegie Foundation is to catalyze transformational change in education so that every student has the opportunity to live a healthy, dignified, and fulfilling life. Enacted by an act of Congress in 1906, the Foundation has a rich history of driving transformational change in the education sector, including the establishment of TIAA-CREF and the creation of the Education Testing Service, the GRE, Pell Grants, and the Carnegie Classifications for Higher Education. Today, the Foundation is dedicated to the transformation of the American high school and making the postsecondary sector a more vital engine for economic mobility.