Community Engagement
Fostering mutually beneficial relationships with local communities and encouraging civic participation
Community Engagement Opportunities
On-campus events, civic engagement organizations, and local partners offer many ways to get involved.
Civic Participation
Our students are among the most engaged in the nation when it comes to voting — and not just in presidential election years.
Muhlenberg’s nonpartisan student organization BergVotes works with the Office of Community Engagement (OCE) and its team of student workers, the Voter Promoters, to encourage students to register to vote, get informed on key issues, and make a voting plan.
Current students in search of voting information can find resources on BergConnect.
Engagement Programs
Students can participate in a variety of opportunities at local schools, nursing homes, and nonprofit organizations, including:
America Reads (Hays, Roosevelt, and Muhlenberg Elementary Schools)
As part of a national program aimed at improving reading amongst K-3 students, Muhlenberg students collaborate with teachers to reinforce literacy lessons.
Game Time at Phoebe Home
Muhlenberg students are paired with senior citizens who reside at Phoebe Home, just down the road from the college.
English-Language Learner Conversation Group at the Refugee Community Center
Students facilitate and create groups to reinforce conversational English skills that adults and teens in local communities would like to enhance.
Community Bike Works
Muhlenberg students work with the earn-a-bike program to connect kids with life lessons in leadership through bicycles.
Allentown Ecumenical Food Bank
Students assist at a large choice pantry with food distribution efforts.
Signature Events
These annual events that mobilize large groups of student volunteers are sponsored through the OCE.
Jefferson Field Day
Every spring more than 600 students from Allentown’s Jefferson Elementary School travel to Muhlenberg for their annual Field Day. Each class of Jefferson kids rotates through eight different stations where Muhlenberg students run physical fitness activities and get to know the children. Field Day is a favorite day of the year for both Muhlenberg and Jefferson students.
Winter Spectacular
Each year Muhlenberg community members purchase requested gifts for local children in partnership with Pinebrook Family Answers and Allentown’s South Mountain Middle School and Muhlenberg Elementary School. The families all come together at the college for an evening of fun activities and connection with one another.
College Connect
On approximately eight Fridays per year, the college hosts third, fourth, or eighth grade students from local partner schools on campus for an engaging afternoon of activities. Science, art, physical activities, and teamwork are explored as the kids engage with Muhlenberg students, faculty, and staff and dream big about the future.
Dream to Read
The Muhlenberg basketball teams visit Jefferson Elementary in early January to read to the first graders and reinforce lessons of equity and inclusion in the stories.
Leadership Opportunities
These opportunities are intentionally designed to engage students with a reflection of what community engagement means to them, its impacts, and its challenges.
OCE Student Staff
The OCE oversees a significant number of work-study students each year. We have approximately 30 students on our staff and each member works with a specific team in the office in addition to one or two community-based organizations.
Civic Scholars
Civic Scholars are students who are committed to work with Allentown communities on a weekly basis. Scholars can expect to critically contemplate power structures in local contexts, work independently on a project, and actively contribute to change efforts on campus and off.
OCE Student Coordinators
All of the community programs run through the OCE are overseen by student coordinators. Students recruit volunteers, orient them to programs and sites, assist them with clearances if necessary, take attendance, problem solve, create plans, and more in collaboration with the OCE.
Community Internship Program
This program allows students to work in paid internships with local community nonprofit organizations and schools. Community partner organizations apply to host students as interns, and students apply directly to those internships they feel best fit their skills and interests. The Career Center accepts student applications through Handshake.
Alliances for Justice Active Leadership (AJAL) Workshop Series and Retreat
Held in collaboration with the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and MOSAIC (the Muhlenberg Office for Student Access, Inclusiveness, and Community), this series of workshops, open to all Muhlenberg students, leads up to a retreat prior to the spring semester. Students come together for a weekend of reflection and deep engagement with the work of social justice grounded in dialogue.
Community-Engaged Courses
These courses allow students to work with partners in Allentown and the greater Lehigh Valley.
Contact the Office of Community Engagement
Reach the OCE at 484-664-3121 or communityengagement@muhlenberg.edu .