Engagement and Partnerships

Central to UM-Dearborn’s identity is its unwavering commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. These values are not mere talking points but are intricately woven into the institution’s priorities and initiatives.

UM-Dearborn recently launched its new Office of Holistic Excellence, which aims to build an adaptive mindset among faculty, staff and students; value the exploration of important topics that may be challenging or uncomfortable; facilitate a robust and inclusive diversity of knowledge, thought and perspective on campus; capture views that may be marginalized, missing or unheard; increase awareness of our human tendency toward bias and misconception; and nurture and enrich an inclusive and equitable campus community.

Look to UM-Dearborn to also:

• Cultivate “More Than A Single Story: UM-Dearborn Speaks,” which documents personal experiences, such as nonlinear paths to deciding a major, what it’s like to be a student at UM-Dearborn and dispelling stereotypes.
• Identify research, scholarship, teaching and service that highlight and respond to issues related to inclusion and equity.
• Expand public engagement and work together to find ways the university can connect with communities in Southeast Michigan on issues of mutual importance.

Across UM-Dearborn’s campus, there’s a real culture of community partnership.

Through the UM-Dearborn Office of Community-Engaged Learning, faculty and students are helping to co-create tomorrow’s greater Detroit — today.

The Office of Community-Engaged Learning is committed to helping community partners engage with and integrate faculty expertise into work that will bolster the City of Dearborn and its surrounding communities’ economy, health and social welfare.

In part because of the work of the Office of Community-Engaged Learning, UM-Dearborn proudly earned the Carnegie Foundation Elective Community Engagement Classification. This classification recognizes collaboration between colleges and universities and their larger local and global communities to enrich scholarship, research and creative action that contributes to the public good. The university is just one of six higher education institutions in Michigan to hold this prestigious classification.