Community Engagement Impact

Being The Difference with our partners

In 2019 Ӱ faculty and staff received $12 million through corporate, foundation, state and federal grants to conduct community-engaged research and provide services to address community-based issues in Milwaukee and beyond.

Marquette also invests more than $17 million worth of care and services annually in the city through its centers, clinics (dental, legal and health), institutes and programs. Additionally, the Ӱ Police Department conducts more than 90% of its work in the public right of way at a cost of more than $5 million annually.

Beyond faculty and staff, Marquette undergraduate and graduate students embrace the mission of the university and actively seek ways to engage the broader community through service and community-based learning. Highlights of this engagement include:

  • In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in partnership with American Family Insurance and the Johnson Controls Foundation, Marquette launched the President's Challenge COVID-19 Response grant. The challenge awarded three recipients up to $50,000 in funding for innovative, interdisciplinary, collaborative work that addresses needs in Milwaukee's community that have been created or magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic and represent critical areas in the community's recovery efforts.
  • 80% of our graduating seniors state that they participated in community service during their time at Ӱ.
  • In 2019-2020, the Community Day of Service . The event placed more than 1,300 volunteers at 58 sites throughout the community for a one-day service project and donated $5,000 to Walker's Point Youth and Family Center.
  • In 2018, in partnership with the Johnson Controls Foundation, The challenge awarded a $250,000, two-year grant for one interdisciplinary, collaborative proposal that addresses inequities within a community. In 2019, The Next Step Clinic

People on Impact page

  • Marquette's Service Learning Program connects 1,200 to 1,300 students to more than 110 community organizations and nonprofits each semester.
  • The School of Dentistry 
  • 85+ nonprofit organizations/schools in the greater Milwaukee area have benefited from more than 168,000 hours of service provided by Burke Scholars since the program began 25 years ago.


Ӱ has the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement.

 

Near West Side Partners impact

Hundreds of students and more than a dozen faculty members from across campus have contributed to the Near West Side Partners, a sponsored by including Marquette. Highlights include:

  • Economics students compiling and evaluating commercial and residential real estate data.
  • Political science students gaining applied learning experiences by conducting surveys of residents, employees and peers.
  • Business faculty and students organizing a neighborhood charrette and contributing to a local “shark tank” business plan competition to attract new businesses.
  • Members of Ӱ Student Government engaging in neighborhood cleanups and attending local landlord compacts to learn more about the concerns and efforts of local property owners/managers.
  • Collectively reducing crime through place-based interventions and collaborations.
  • Supporting the expansion of a monthly community meeting connecting residents of the seven neighborhoods that make up the Near West Side.
  • Installing neighborhood ambassadors, equipped to respond to safety concerns and provide resources to community members.