The OCE supports engagement opportunities that create pathways for students to gain career experience and for communities to thrive
THE OFFICE OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (OCE)
About the OCE
The Office of Community Engagement (OCE) invites students, community members, faculty, and staff from across the university to collaborate on innovative, multi-disciplinary work aimed at developing and advancing Houston’s neighborhoods, environments, and communities. From health, education, civics, and business, the OCE supports engagement opportunities in multiple fields, often intersecting to create better pathways for thriving communities and promising future career experience for students. By valuing student-driven inquiry and responsive partnerships, we support sustainable community development, yielding a wide variety of dynamic work, including useable research, shared understanding, and traditional service.
Community Engagement Starts With Community
We want to follow your curiosity about the changing, social world you find yourself in. You’ll practice asking innovative questions, and ignite the process of creating agentic, self-determined spaces for transformative learning and social experiences. Projects that start with your curiosity, ideas, and motivations are sustainable, and more likely to endure for multiple years, providing communities with partners they can rely on into the future. The OCE supports two student groups, Honors in Community Health (HICH), a university-wide registered student organization, and Community Advocacy & Responsive Engagement (CARE), a student-led program advancing leadership skills.
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Community-Engaged Research Fellowships
OCE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT SHOWCASE
Explore student projects and ways you can engageResponsive Partnerships
Communities have changing goals within a diverse collaboration. We change and so do your needs, incentives, and pressures. We start from the understanding that our relationships are dynamic, and that productivity, processes, services, and completed deliverables are more achievable and higher quality when they can flexibly evolve. This necessitates open and active communication channels that are maintained through the office. We convey invitations between each other’s expertise and into each other’s spaces, prioritizing work that cares as much as it produces.
University Partnerships
The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Science Institute (HPE DSI) partners with The Honors College to support a set of community-engaged research and learning programs unified around a central mission of re-orienting the role universities play in supporting undergraduate students and local communities.
- Engaged Data Science
Engaged Data Science (EDS) empowers all UH students to engage in data science’s practical and transformative impact across society, leveraging partnerships for real-world applications in communication, decision-making, and community-focused research. - Pharis Fellowship
The George “Trey” Pharis Fellowship Program offers undergraduate students at UH the chance to conduct data-driven research focused on the non-medical drivers of health in Houston communities. This 10-week, full-time summer program pairs students with faculty, staff, and external partners like HPE and Humana, providing access to large-scale data across fields like healthcare, education, and the environment.
Community Partnerships
Community-Engaged Coursework/Faculty
Related Coursework
A sample listing of community-engaged UH courses
- HON 3331: Introduction to Civic Engagement
- HON 3350H: Principles of Data and Society
- HON 3397H: Social Media, Digitality, and Politics
- HON 3397H: The Death Penalty in America
- HON 4350H: Data and Society in Practice
- HON 4355H: Engaged Data
- HON 4397: Social Advocacy in Action
- POLS 3352H: U.S. Immigration Policy
Faculty
- Daniel Price
- Andrew Kapral
- Janet Lawler
- Alison Leland
OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
Volunteer & Paid Positions
Through our broad network of community partners, there will occasionally be opportunities to consistently volunteer or intern with a local non-profit organization. These mentored experiences will be announced as available. There are also a limited number of paid positions to support the OCE, available based on experience.
Provost Service Learning Scholarship
The scholarship provides opportunities to serve, grow as a leader, hone your critical and thinking and problem-solving skills, and to improve as a student. PSL Scholars are active all over Houston, finding ways to apply what they’re learning in the classroom, acquiring career skills, and improving the lives of others. The value of the scholarship is $1,000 per year and it is renewable for 3 additional years ($4,000 in total), provided you continue to actively participate in community-engaged learning experiences. There are a variety of ways you can participate, and you will be expected to maintain a portfolio documenting your engagement activities.
Applications open in February and are due in March. Decisions are returned by April 1. Scholarship is limited to Tier-One eligible, incoming UH-Honors freshmen only.
Federal Work Study Positions
Depending on need, interested students who qualify may also be awarded up to $5,000 per year in Federal Work Study (FWS) funds.
If you have been awarded a Federal Work Study (FWS) for the academic year, your job placement can be fulfilled with a student worker position for the Office of Community Engagement. Additionally, you may pursue 5-10 hours per week working actively in a service-learning project for the CARE Program as FWS wages.
Any questions about your financial aid package can be answered best by the staff in the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid. Financial Aid Advisors are also available for Live Online Chat at www.uh.edu/livechat.
OCE IN THE NEWS
Meet the OCE Team
Connect with OCE
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Contact Us
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