Graduating engaged citizens

Re: Andrew Petter: The new community builders: universities, colleges and institutes are vital source of social infrastructure, May 25

Andrew Petter is right: universities must be engaged in strengthening communities. Nonprofit, private institutions like Adler University also share this responsibility.

By integrating community service into all we do, students experience social challenges directly, support healthier communities and advocate for society’s most vulnerable individuals. In 2017, Adler University students in Vancouver worked with over 200 community partners and, together with their Chicago peers, contributed 580,000 hours of service, impacting about 78,000 people.

Student connection to community will be bolstered as we launch Adler Community Health Services in Vancouver this September; a new model of community-embedded counselling and clinical psychology to support those in need. This will begin to break down the barriers to effective, accessible mental-health services and address larger systems change through research, policy analysis and advocacy.

When post-secondary institutions actively support communities, they graduate engaged citizens equipped with the tools and knowledge to advance a more just society.

Joy MacPhail, chair, Board of Trustees; and Bradley O’Hara, executive dean, Adler University