This fall, Eastern celebrated the reopening of its Office of Community Engagement, reviving a campus resource that had been shuttered for nearly four years.<\/p>\n
The office, located on the first floor of Showalter Hall, will function as a hub for student volunteerism, service-learning and internships. The October event, which drew a number of current and potential community partners, marked the office\u2019s official return to campus life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a lot of potential to build deep connections with our local community here \u2014 and people are ready for it \u2014 both on campus and off campus,\u201d said Mark Este, newly appointed director of the office. \u201cHopefully we can just get in there and be that bridge for all the great work that is already being done.\u201d<\/p>\n
The revitalized engagement office, Este adds, focuses on three key areas: volunteerism, service-learning and internships \u2014\u00a0all experiences that will \u201cbenefit students while helping the larger community.\u201d
\nThis will require maintaining and sometimes reestablishing partnerships with local and regional businesses, government agencies and nonprofit organizations. The ultimate goal, Este says, is to create pathways for students to gain experience as they work to address those groups\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n
In her remarks during the event, Shari McMahan, Eastern\u2019s president, said the reopening reflects the university\u2019s role at the center of our region\u2019s intellectual and economic life. \u201cThis is what we do; we are an anchor institution. We are tied to our community,\u201d McMahan said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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A newly reopened Office of Community Engagement helps Eagles help others. This fall, Eastern celebrated the reopening of its Office of Community Engagement, reviving a campus resource that had been shuttered for nearly four years. The office, located on the first floor of Showalter Hall, will function as a hub for student volunteerism, service-learning and…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":86484,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-86482","stories","type-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","stories_categories-campus","stories_tags-fall-winter-2025-26"],"acf":{"subheading":"","featured_image_format":"cover","display_byline":false,"display_featured_image":true,"display_date_published":false,"featured_video":"","Links":false,"Resources":false,"page_override_title":"","page_hide_sidebar":false,"page_enable_page_nav":false,"page_persona_bar_default_tab":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/86482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/86482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86488,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/86482\/revisions\/86488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}