Community Engagement
Where Campus Meets Community
UNC Asheville’s Key Center for Community Engaged Learning supports student transformation and growth as scholars, leaders, and active citizens. In collaboration with community partners, the Key Center equips students to develop critical thinking strategies, apply transferable skills, explore life purpose, and broaden perspectives.
We coordinate and support service experiences, community-based research, service learning, and educational programs. The Key Center fosters authentic relationships between UNC Asheville, our students, and our community partners—relationships that have resounding effects on the lives of students and the long-term stability of community organizations.
Key Center Programs
The Key Center for Community Engaged Learning was established in 1998 through an endowment started by Adelaide Key. Our Key Center programs honor Adelaide’s legacy by connecting students, faculty, staff, and community partners to promote authentic relationships and strengthened communities.
Service & Education
In collaboration with community partners, the Key Center provides service experiences and educational programs that equip students to develop critical thinking strategies and transferable skills, explore life purpose, and broaden perspectives. These opportunities include:
- Campus blood drives
- Days of service, including MLK Day of Service
- Voter registration and education
- Hunger and Housing Awareness Week
Food Equity Initiative
Food Equity Initiative
The Food Equity Initiative (FEI) is a student-centered project dedicated to increasing food access and reducing the stigma around food insecurity on UNC Asheville’s campus. We believe access to nourishing food is a human right and aspire to make food available to as many people as possible by removing barriers to food access, raising awareness of campus and community resources, and building community on campus and beyond. FEI programs and services include twice-weekly food distributions, open shopping hours, pop-up markets, community dinners, and service opportunities.
Find Us at The Side Door
Find Us at The Side Door
FEI’s new home is in The Side Door, Highsmith 001. The Side Door is open Monday-Friday for limited office hours and FEI open shopping. Join us on Thursdays from 5-7 p.m. food food distributions, sandwich making, service events, inclement weather distributions, and more! You can also find us most Tuesdays from 12-2 p.m., out on the Quad for distribution, weather permitting.
Questions? Reach out to us at foodequity@unca.edu.
We appreciate and accept donations of shelf-stable, non-perishable foods that are not expired. If you would like more information about donating food or other items, please email us at foodequity@unca.edu. Items that go quickly at distributions include: canned beans, canned vegetables, pastas and grains, pasta sauces, nut butters, jams/jellies, granola bars, oatmeal, canned tuna, canned or box soups, etc.
If you’d like to support the work we’re doing and help us reach more campus community members, you can also donate to our program via the UNC Asheville Make A Gift portal. Just select “Food Equity Initiative” in the drop-down designation. Thank you for your support!
Community Engaged Scholars
Community Engaged Scholars is a graduation distinction that provides students with opportunities to become deeply involved in community-based research and action in Western North Carolina and receive recognition for their efforts.
Accepted on a rolling basis, but require attendance at a Community Engaged Scholars Workshop to begin the review/approval process.
Complete six or more community-engaged learning credit hours, work with a faculty mentor, connect with a community partner advisor, propose and complete a Community Engaged Project that directly responds to a need identified by a local non-profit organization, submit a reflective research paper, and present at UNC Asheville’s Symposium of Undergraduate Research, Creativity, and Community Engagement.
- Project Application
- Approval Form
- Reflective research paper guidelines
- UGR Symposium research poster guidelines
Contact studentengagement@unca.edu for more information or to request a meeting.
Community-Engaged Learning Courses
Community-engaged learning enables students to connect their academic knowledge and skills with direct experience that addresses a community-identified need or priority. Service learning is a credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate and reflect on community engagement activities as a way to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of personal values and civic responsibility.
Find the most up-to-date course information on the UNC Asheville Course Catalog. Use the “Additional Filters” function on the left to search for community-engaged courses.
Community Partnerships
The Key Center for Community Engaged Learning partners with community-based organizations across the Asheville and Buncombe County region to foster the development of transformative and meaningful relationships while addressing community-identified needs and celebrating community and cultural assets. Our partners include nonprofits, grassroots organizations, public agencies, and K-12 schools that provide co-curricular and service-learning opportunities to UNC Asheville students.
Connect with us
We are happy to schedule a meeting to discuss your organization’s needs, assets, and goals to strategize ways to connect you with our students, faculty, and staff in mutually beneficial partnerships. To schedule a meeting, please email us at studentengagement@unca.edu.
Impact
Active community involvement and community-engaged learning foster significant benefits for students, faculty, institutions, and communities. Community-engaged learning increases student engagement, deepens learning, builds self-confidence, broadens lived experiences, and develops civic skills that prepare students for lifelong public service. Faculty benefit through enhanced teaching quality, expanded research opportunities, and professional recognition, while institutions see improved student satisfaction, retention, and community relations. Community partners also gain meaningful support through student and faculty collaboration, accessing expertise and resources that advance organizational goals and strengthen the broader community.
The Key Center’s Annual Reports showcase how these evidence-based outcomes come to life at UNC Asheville and capture the real-world impact of community engagement on students, faculty, the institution, and our community partners.
Awards & Recognition
The Campus Engagement Impact Award recognizes outstanding student service leaders for multiple or diverse forms of engagement, including: volunteer service, service-learning, policy work, community organizing, advocacy, internships, and/or campus leadership. Award recipients demonstrate a commitment to partnering with others to address community issues, the ability to lead and inspire fellow students, and sustainable impact in their area of work.
Past Community Impact Award recipients include:
Amarra Ghani (2011), Macon Foscue (2012), Stephanie Watkins Cruz (2014), Anja Mayr (2015), Amanda Slater (2016), Kayla Taylor (2017), London Newton (2020), Rogelio Gomez-Zacarias (2021), Mars Zappia (2022), Indigo Lesser (2023), and Mikaela Futrell (2025).
The annual Community Connector Award recognizes faculty and staff who strengthen and sustain partnerships between UNC Asheville and the broader community through relationship building, civic involvement, research, service learning, community-based learning, and/or public service. Community Connectors are meaningfully and sustainably engaged in community work that responds to root factors of social conditions and inequities.
Past Community Connector Award recipients include:
2025 Laura Jones (Health Sciences), 2023 Emma Olson (Center for Health & Wellness), 2023 Sam Kaplan (Math), 2022 Amanda Wray (English), 2022 Alison Ormsby (Environmental Studies), 2022 Kim Kessaris (Education), 2022 Jordan Perry (NC Center for Health & Wellness), 2021 Patrick Bahls (Math), 2020 Trey Adcock (American Indian & Indigenous Studies), 2019 Lyndi Hewitt (Sociology), 2018 Jessica Pisano (English), 2017 Lise Kloeppel (Drama & Education), 2016 Tiece Ruffin (Education & Africana Studies), 2015 Kathy Garbie (Health & Wellness Promotion), 2014 Ameena Batada (Health & Wellness Promotion), 2013 Michelle Bettencourt (Languages & Literatures)
Contact Us
Student Engagement
Office Location
Highsmith Student Union 301
One University Heights, Asheville, NC 28804
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 9 a.m.- 5 p.m.
Email: studentengagement@unca.edu
Phone: (828) 232-2417