For Students

In RISD’s Center for Community Partnerships, we offer students access to information and opportunities for socially responsible engagement. To discover avenues for doing community engaged work, see below.

Engagement kickoff — tools to get started

Goal setting

To make sure everyone’s working toward the same vision, use this resource to break large goals down into smaller, concrete activities.

Summary of expectations

Use this document to establish goals, expectations, commitment levels and timelines right from the start of your partnership.

Co-Sponsorship form

Campus and community partners can complete this form to request event or initiative co-sponsorship from us (usually in the form of promotional/marketing support). Access the form for more details.

Definitions: socially engaged practice at RISD

Learn the terms artists and designers use in describing their fields and the creative processes and approaches they take in their efforts to make systemic, social, economic and environmental change.

Community engaged funding

Spur Fund

This RISD Research program helps students advance interdisciplinary art- and design-based research and creative practice.

Internships

Through these experiential learning opportunities, students get to apply the knowledge and theory you pick up in the classroom and develop your skills in a professional setting.

Fulbright Program

This prestigious, competitive program awards grants for individual research/study projects that are self-designed to run for 9–12 months in a participating country outside the US.

RISD Maharam Fellowship

RISD’s long-running partnership with Maharam supports internships that address social equity and justice and/or urgent sustainability and environmental issues.

RISD Grant Directory

Use this database to search more than 600 grants, fellowships, scholarships and residencies available to students across disciplines.

GivePulse Network

Our online hub for community engagement

Student volunteers clean up Billy Taylor park on the East Side of Providence
Register for the GivePulse Network

By connecting campus with nearby groups, organizations and service opportunities, GivePulse helps facilitate many forms of engaged work at and around RISD.

When you create a GivePulse profile, you stay connected and aware of upcoming, ongoing and recurring community-based initiatives across and beyond our campus.

Interested in community engaged work? Contact us.

If you’re looking for ways to enhance and RISD education and apply what you learn here to serve the greater good, we encourage you to get in touch and explore what’s possible.

Community engagement interest form

Our partners on campus

Center for Student Involvement (CSI)

CSI supports student growth through campus activities, student government, leadership development and service/experiential learning.

Intercultural Student Engagement (ISE)

ISE works across campus to promote cultural awareness at RISD while providing academic, social, cultural and other resources to students. 

The Social Equity and Inclusion Division (SEI)

The SEI division guides and coordinates institutional efforts to make our community more diverse and welcoming of differences.

Academic Engagement Office

Academic Engagement supports RISD’s culture of inquiry by offering a platform for research initiatives, providing opportunities for funding, programming, and training, and by encouraging collaboration among students, faculty, and staff.

Teaching and Learning Lab

The Teaching and Learning Lab offers workshops and development opportunities that support faculty in creating inclusive and innovative curricula and pedagogies.

RISD Careers

RISD Careers educates and advises all students and alumni on translating their education and creativity into fulfilling professional experiences.

Student Employment

Student Employment guides on-campus employment and off-campus work study, helping students gain important experience and skills on the job.

RISD Museum

The RISD Museum offers an array of engaging programming in the areas of art and design, and connects communities around an appreciation of their cultural significance.

Staff Council

The Staff Council advocates for a working environment that helps all staff members reach their full potential and serves as a conduit between staff and senior administration.

Pathways of Public Service and Civic Engagement

RISD is among several colleges and universities who are part of Campus Compact’s Pathways of Public Service and Civic Engagement program—a collaboration that lets us know about student interests in service work as they relate to broad social changes.

The anonymous survey linked below helps us improve student programming, understand shifting student needs and desires, and develop a framework among our partners to share across the higher education landscape. We encourage all RISD students to take the survey linked below. (To learn about Campus Compact’s six pathways, watch this video.)

Take the Pathways survey

Impact stories

More impact stories