Students
Connect Learning to Action!
Community Engaged Learning empowers you to put your knowledge into action while developing valuable, real-world skills. You’ll gain practical experience to enhance your résumé, deepen your civic and social awareness, and build meaningful connections with faculty, staff, and community leaders who inspire growth and impact.
Pathways to Public Service and Civic Engagement
At UConn, students are encouraged to explore how their passions, skills, and studies can make a real difference in the world. As Connecticut’s public land and sea grant university, UConn is committed to empowering students to tackle pressing issues and contribute to the public good. Using Stanford University’s Pathways to Public Service and Civic Engagement framework, the Office of Outreach and Engagement helps you discover your own path to impact on campus, in local communities, and beyond.
Krimerman Community Engagement Grants
The Krimerman Community Engagement Grants give students the opportunity to turn their ideas into action and create positive change in their communities. Inspired by Professor Leonard I. Krimerman’s legacy and the alumni who learned from his community-focused approach, these grants fund student-led projects that make a real impact through direct community involvement.
Co-Curricular Community Engaged Learning
For students interested in volunteer opportunities, community service, or ways to connect with student organizations, please visit Community Outreach in the Department of Student Activities. Community Outreach’s mission is to enrich learning at the University of Connecticut through preparing students to be active global citizens by engaging them in service activities that enhance the quality of life for both others and them.
Curricular Community Engaged Learning
Students can search for a Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning Course here by checking Community-Engaged Teaching Under Courses for Specific Academic Communities.
Undergraduate Research
The Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) is a resource for all undergraduates in all majors on all UConn campuses seeking to enrich their undergraduate experiences through participation in research, scholarship, and creative activity. OUR helps students find and develop opportunities to engage in independent or collaborative research with faculty members and other mentors working across the University’s academic disciplines.
Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships
The Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships (ONSF) provides support for students who are applying for nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships. ONSF is part of UConn Enrichment Programs and works with all graduate and undergraduate students at the university, including students at the regional campuses.
ONSF nominates and prepares candidates for scholarships that require institutional endorsement, including the Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, Goldwater, Udall, Truman, and Gaither Junior Fellows competitions, and those that incorporate some form of institutional review into their selection processes, including the Fulbright US Student Program.
Campus Compact
Student Civic Leadership Learning Platform
Campus Compact’s Student Civic Leadership Learning Platform provides students with free, self-paced training that builds civic skills and develops student leaders.
The Student Civic Leadership Learning Platform provides students across Campus Compact member institutions with free, self-paced, expert-developed training to turn civic passion into measurable real-world impact.
Built directly from what students told us they need—equitable access to high-quality leadership training—and backed by Lumina Foundation, the Student Civic Leadership Learning Platform offers self-paced online learning that students can use to supplement their on-campus experience.
The Student Civic Leadership Platform will offer five core modules—with more to come in the spring—that are designed around student-identified skill gaps: funding, community mapping, leadership style, effective communication, and meeting facilitation. After completing a module, students will receive digital credentials, adding professional value to their civic leadership journey.
Get started
The platform is currently open for enrollment for students, faculty & staff at Campus Compact member institutions.
Students who enroll in the Student Civic Leadership Platform will have access to all five modules over the course of one semester. As long as students are actively making progress toward module completion, they can retain access to the platform. Upon completion, students will receive a digital badge and certificate, validating their learning experience and adding professional value to their civic leadership journey.
Faculty and staff are welcome to sign up to explore courses. We encourage faculty and staff to use these resources and trainings strategically to complement the robust training and development your university may already offer.
Available modules
Funding for Change 101
Community Deep Dive
Professional Communication Skills
My Leadership Style
Leading Effective Meetings
Sharable flyers
Title Of File Or Publication
Funding for Change 101 course flyer
Community Deep Dive course flyer
Professional Communication Skills course flyer
My Leadership Style course flyer
Leading Effective Meetings course flyer
Why a Civic Leadership Learning Platform?
Campus Compact believes that championing student civic participation begins with amplifying and uplifting student voices. The Student Civic Leadership Learning Platform was developed as part of a set of recommendations uncovered by Campus Compact’s Student Design Fellows in their Strategic Vision, a document that explores students’ hopes for the future of student civic leadership and envisions a path forward.
The Student Design Fellows found that students don’t just want a voice—they want high-quality resources that equip them with the skills they need to use their voices most effectively. As a result, Campus Compact began a series of student focus groups in 2025 to explore what specific skill sets or courses students most wanted access to. Over the last nine months, Campus Compact’s team (led by Dr. Joanna Kenty, Student Talent LMS focus groups, and Director of Student Engagement Will Brummett) has worked with practitioners from across the country to develop and offer our first set of courses demanded (and vetted) by students.
Looking ahead
Contribute to module development
An additional five courses are scheduled for release in the spring semester in the following areas
- Managing conflict: Learning to navigate individual and group dynamics when things get hard.
- Civic financial literacy: What are the financial foundations to understanding how funding influences the issues I care about and what I can do about it?
- Shared governance for students: Methods and models for making student voices heard and powerful at decision-making tables on campus and off
- Finding Your Pathway: Finding your specific approach to social change that you resonate with the most and ways you can turn that into a career
- Working with Legislators: Beyond just voting, how can students actively and constructively engage with legislators on the local, state, and national levels?