Our Journey: A Quarter Century of Impactful Service, Dynamic Partnerships, and Meaningful Collaboration

Over almost three decades, the Center has served as a foundation anchoring RU-N’s commitment to work meaningfully with and within the Greater Newark community and beyond. Over time, the Center has expanded its mission and grown exponentially to reflect the changing dynamics of impactful university -community engagement.

Commissed in 2001, by then Provost Steve Diner, the Campus Information and Conference Services Center (CICSC) began as a focal point for campus-community connection and as a resource for high-profile event services. The Office of Campus and Community Relations (OCCR) reflected a growing emphasis on meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships. Later, the Office of University-Community Partnerships (OUCP) deepened that commitment and became a nexus that forged and strengthened partnerships and collaboration, combining community voice, scholarship, research, and strategic investment. The addition of the Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement (CHECE) combined the talents and scholarship of the School of Public Administration with proven strategies incubated under the Office of University Community Partnerships and helped focus efforts on research partnerships that promote measurable change. The NEW Center for Health Excellence & Community Empowerment (CHECE) advances tools and strategies that strengthen the capacity of the university and the community to engage effectively. It affirms that sustainable solution-building is transdisciplinary, embraces bi-lateral communication, collaboration, and recognizes strengths and talents across sectors.

The Office of University-Community Partnerships (OUCP) at Rutgers-Newark has a dynamic history grounded in principles of education, service, and community building. Founded in 2001, the department originally was engineered to provide quality information and customer service to the campus community and to off-campus inquirers and visitors, as well as to provide conference and event planning expertise to faculty, staff and community organizations. In 2005, the department was designated the Office of Campus and Community Relations to reflect its increasingly prominent role in advancing broader institutional efforts to strengthen ties between Rutgers and Greater Newark.

In 2010, the department was officially renamed the Office of University-Community Partnerships. OUCP maintains its initial mandate for engaging faculty, staff, student, and community partners to create greater collaboration and cooperation internally and externally in a way that infuses teaching, learning, scholarship, service and engages and develops the civic agency, talents, and capacities of all invested partners.