Sac State Downtown’s Impact Continues to Grow
COMMUNITY PARTNER
Cynthia Hubert
"Sac State Downtown’s work and connections will be crucial to realizing our vision as an anchor institution”
With activity at its downtown presence in full swing just blocks from the state Capitol, Sacramento State has anchored itself to the city during the past year.
A grand opening heralded the University’s official arrival in Sacramento’s central city in August 2018, and since then Sac State Downtown has been teaching students, conducting research, and strengthening ties with public agencies and nonprofits that focus on solving vexing problems including climate change and homelessness.
Sac State Downtown’s work and connections will be “crucial to realizing our vision as an anchor institution,” said Phil Garcia, vice president for Public Affairs and Advocacy. “In some ways it is already happening.”
Sac State Downtown will continue to act as a hub for innovative teaching, learning, and research, leaders say, with the ultimate goal of helping government and other leaders address the region’s most pressing issues.
Sacramento State President Robert S. Nelsen’s “Anchor University” initiative has sharpened the focus of the Institute for Social Research and other Sac State programs, said the institute’s executive director, Shannon Williams.
“The institute has a 30-year history of working closely with the community, and now our work is explicitly connected to the mission of the university,” Williams said. The downtown location “has paradoxically raised our visibility on campus. Our staff can walk to our client meetings with the state, and we’ve been able to bring the community to Sac State by hosting events here.”
“Those kinds of connections”, said Garcia, are “key to our institutional role as a place where thought leadership takes place.”