As part of the university’s extensive community service program, which includes such structured efforts as the Douglas and Isabelle Crocker Center for Civic Engagement and the Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI), students are cleaning up streams, parks and public walkways, conducting literacy workshops, working with children, raising money for non-profit organizations, and helping society’s less fortunate.

In addition, faculty and staff volunteer hundreds of hours of their time in communities throughout the state. Fitchburg State graduates are community activists, too, extending the civic involvement model upon which the university places so much emphasis.

Global citizenship and community service are a critical component of the university’s mission, and close relationships have been forged with regional businesses, industry, nonprofit organizations, schools and government agencies in an effort to assist these institutions as they assess their needs and plan for the future.

Since 1894, Fitchburg State’s most important contribution to the Commonwealth has been the tens of thousands of students who have taken classes here, then gone out into the cities and towns of Massachusetts to be leaders in business, industry, education, health care, technology and public service. Competition in the global marketplace is intense, and the greatest advantage a company, an agency–even a state–can have is a well-educated citizenry.