Overall Rating	Silver - expired
Overall Score	50.39
Liaison	Marianella Franklin
Submission Date	Aug. 28, 2015
Executive Letter	Download

STARS v2.0

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
EN-13: Community Stakeholder Engagement

Status	Score	Responsible Party
	2.00 / 2.00	Cristina Trejo Community Engagement Liaison Office of the VP for Business Affairs

"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution adopted a framework for community stakeholder engagement in governance, strategy and operations?:

Yes

A brief description of the policies and procedures that ensure community stakeholder engagement is applied systematically and regularly across the institution’s activities:

The University’s Department of Community Engagement, led by the University's Community Engagement Liaison, ensures community stakeholder engagement is applied systematically and regularly across the institutions activities and decision-making. By partnering with community leaders, government officials and local citizens, we aspire to foster growth in our community, in order to secure the futures of our posterity.

A brief description of how the institution identifies and engages community stakeholders, including any vulnerable or underrepresented groups:

The Office of Outreach and Community Partnerships (OCP) was created to serve as the institutional support unit that promotes university-community partnerships to expand opportunities for engaged scholarship, teaching and learning, while addressing critical societal issues. The OCP works under the same division as Community Engagement and strives to ensure that the institutional vision of outreach and engagement is consistent with the needs of the community, provides the leadership for the university’s strategic initiatives to build thriving communities, strengthens the university’s presence in the community, and provides the platform for communication, collaboration and coordination.

The University formed its first development board to strengthen its relationship with the community and work together on improving the quality of life in South Texas. The board, comprised of loyal and accomplished alumni and friends from the region, state and nation and will serve as an advisory group to the president.
http://www.utpa.edu/news/2012/08/utpa-forms-development-board-to-advance-its-mission-and-vision.htm

United for RGV is a collaboration of local organizations in the Lower Rio Grande Valley working to support the creation of a truly engaged university in South Texas. United for RGV is partnering with the UT System to assure that low-income community residents are active participants in university planning efforts. Local organizations actively engage the RGV’s low-income community on a daily basis through diverse efforts around community development
Through various town hall meetings/campus forums, faculty, staff, students and community members can voice their concerns over university decisions that may impact the community. For example, when the strategic plan was created, and two town hall meetings were held to get input from the community before finalizing the university’s strategic plan.

List of identified community stakeholders:

Community-at-large
Public Sector/Government
Earth-Based Community
Private Sector Business
Non-Profit Community
Adult Learners
K-12 Parents/Teachers/Administrators
K-12 Students
University Faculty/Staff
University Students

A full list of all of our community partnerships can also be found here: http://issuu.com/utpapartnerships/docs/engaging_communities

A brief description of successful community stakeholder engagement outcomes from the previous three years:

Some of the successes shared with community stakeholders can be found in the EN-9-Community Partnerships section.
Other successes include:
-Community Play Day
Students, parents, and community partners planned, implemented and evaluated a Community Play Day at the local zoo with a focus on fostering bilingual emergent literacy in alternative learning spaces.
-McAllen ISD Dual Language Initiative
Since 2013, the Center for Bilingual Studies at the university and the Bilingual/ESL Department at McAllen ISD partnered to effectively implement dual language enrichment education in elementary schools.
-Community Forum
The Community Forum brought local stakeholders to the table alongside University administrators, faculty, and leading national experts in the fields of education, economic development, planning and health to help propose an aligned community vision for the future of the university. Two documents were drawn from this meeting.
Agenda: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55f857a6e4b0e0afe2858d3c/t/5618030ae4b0a0b98edaba3f/1444414218978/UTRGV_Community+Agenda.pdf
Forum: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55f857a6e4b0e0afe2858d3c/t/56180b58e4b0123e19c7339c/1444416344699/ForumBRIEF_FINAL.pdf

The website URL where information about the institution’s community stakeholder engagement framework and activities is available:

http://community.utpa.edu/

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Data source(s) and notes about the submission

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STARS v2.0

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley EN-13: Community Stakeholder Engagement

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
EN-13: Community Stakeholder Engagement