Kara Adams has been selected as the new director of community engagement at the University of Washington Bothell where she will help move its mission to be a regionally accountable public university to a new level.

In her new role she will be building out assessment, strategic planning and partnership strategy. More broadly, she will help institutionalize community engagement throughout the curriculum. Her work will help the University apply for the prestigious Carnegie Community Engagement Classification.

Adams still oversees the UW Bothell Office of Community-Based Learning and Research, where she had been interim director. The office facilitates off-campus learning experiences for students in mutually beneficial partnerships with agencies or businesses, which are considered co-educators.

Adams won praise for her record of building a wide, collaborative network of community partners and making the office a resource for faculty and students.

“UW Bothell’s community engagement work aligns directly with its core values of transformational education, engaged scholarship and inclusive culture,” Adams said. “Because of community engagement, UW Bothell more proficiently educates our students, applies our research to pressing questions and needs of our region, and upholds our public mission as a state institution.”

UW Bothell currently has approximately 120 community partners. One ongoing partnership is UW Bothell student participation in the Bothell Youth Court. Some other recent projects have included mechanical engineering students building a solar-powered cooler for a Woodinville farm and students analyzing the demographics of Real Change readership.