What We Do

Through active listening, knowledge sharing, and collaborative education, RISD cultivates inclusive opportunities that connect partners, students, faculty, staff, and alumni in building a more equitable and sustainable world. We aim to make RISD’s assets, skills, and knowledge accessible to diverse communities, while deepening our understanding of what it means to responsibly engage in civic and academic work.

Working in the field of community engagement requires high standards. At RISD, we hold ourselves accountable to these values:

• Commitment to listening: We engage as active participants, listening deeply to support equitable, inclusive, and sustained partnerships with diverse communities.
• Responsibility: We recognize that community work carries weight and can shape realities in both positive and negative ways. We center the needs of the communities we engage with.
• Transparency: We are clear in how we guide our work and how we communicate about it, acting as responsible supporters, contributors, participants, and collaborators.

Our monthly newsletter is one of the ways we keep our partners informed of the latest news and upcoming events in and around RISD. To subscribe, simply fill out the form below. 

You can also read past issues to see our work in action.

Supported by both a Community Engagement Advisory Committee and a K-12 Committee, and with input from across the institution, our team develops near- and long-term strategies to increase awareness of RISD’s mission, goals and agendas. We also steward new and existing community partnerships to help steer civic engagement efforts across the institution, in collaboration with stakeholders at RISD and elsewhere.