UC Merced has been recognized with the 2026 Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement.
January 13, 2026 - By Brenda Ortiz - UC Merced has once again been recognized as a national leader in community-engaged scholarship. The 2026 Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement affirms the university’s deep and expanding commitment to serving the public.
The designation from the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is awarded to institutions that demonstrate robust, institutionalized community engagement through rigorous self-study, data collection, and clear documentation of their missions, identities and commitments.
“Our renewed Carnegie designation makes clear that community engagement is deeply embedded in UC Merced’s identity,” Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz said. “Since 2015, that commitment has expanded across every corner of the campus, building strong, reciprocal relationships across California’s Central Valley and beyond.”
UC Merced is one of 277 institutions recognized by the Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement. Its formal notification praised the university’s application, noting “excellent alignment among campus mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices that support dynamic and noteworthy community engagement.” It also highlighted UC Merced’s “examples of exemplary institutionalized practices of community engagement.”
UC Merced’s 2015 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification had expired, and Muñoz appointed former Special Assistant to the Chancellor Marjorie Zatz to lead the effort to renew the designation, now valid until 2032.
A campuswide working group was convened in October 2024, and the reclassification application was submitted in April 2025. The process reflected broad and meaningful collaboration with department chairs, research centers and more than 130 faculty members contributing information and evidence. Together, they crafted a compelling narrative demonstrating how UC Merced has strengthened the institutionalization of community engagement since its initial classification.
“I would like to thank Dr. Zatz and all of the members of the working group on behalf of our entire campus community for organizing the successful effort that resulted in this very important recognition,” Muñoz said.
This reclassification comes on the heels of a landmark year for UC Merced. In early 2025, the campus earned Carnegie R1 status, placing it among the nation's top-tier research institutions with very high research activity and doctoral degrees conferred just 20 years after opening.
Later in 2025, UC Merced earned the Carnegie Student Access and Earnings Classification “Opportunity Colleges and Universities,” becoming one of only 21 institutions nationwide, and three in California to be recognized as both R1 and Opportunity.
Source: UC Merced
