Student Civic and Community Engagement

Please check out our community engagement track and make the connection with service and leadership!

Global Youth Leaders (GYL) is a civic leadership program coordinated by Buffalo State College Community Academic Center (CAC). This program is for multilingual high school youth and local college students, focusing on service to Buffalo’s East and West Side communities, developing college and career readiness, and fostering civic growth and social justice knowledge. Like all CAC programming, GYL is designed to provide reciprocal learning opportunities for community students and Buffalo State students. In GYL, Buffalo State AmeriCorps mentors and other Buffalo State College students provide program support and informal mentoring to local high school students. GYL are continuing to learn about different college and career pathways and engaging in community service projects which includes support for other multilingual students and families.

Buffalo State nominates one student annually for a Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellowship, which recognizes and supports community-committed students who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country. Through the fellowship, Campus Compact provides learning opportunities throughout the one-year fellowship focused on the skills fellows need in order to serve as effective agents of change in addressing public problems and building equitable communities.

Student Civic Leadership Board members are students who care about issues facing our communities and our world, and have demonstrated ways in which they have worked towards change, and want to continue to address critical community issues such as poverty, hunger, homelessness, climate change, diversity and inclusion, equity, and access to education. Student Civic Leadership Board goals and activities include: Learning about and addressing social and environmental issues in our world; developing activities to engage the campus community in addressing those issues; building community and connections on campus and within the WNY region.

The President's Certificate of Recognition for Community Engagement is a distinction that only SUNY Buffalo State undergraduate and graduate students can receive, awarded by Buffalo State President, Dr. Katherine Conway-Turner. This honor is given to students who have had extended engagement with the community and represent their commitment to social responsibility and community participation, while meeting the demands of course load and work obligations. Check out this video on how to apply for the President's Certificate of Recognition for Community Engagement.

Facilitated by SUNY Buffalo State, the member organizations of the West Side Promise Neighborhood provide an annual leadership opportunity as a commitment to West Side residents and stakeholders. We intend to help address the need for equitable and community-centered leadership development and to support our civically-engaged community leaders initiate creative change. The implementation plan is simple: empower diverse facilitators from all walks of life to present on themes and content areas they feel are relevant to leadership and provide that information to the participants supplemented with some of the skill sets and experts we have on campus and within the WSPN Network.