Turning Institutional Values into Practice
The Office of Engagement, Culture & Community (ECC) helps Pratt turn institutional values into shared practice. ECC provides leadership, coordination, consultation, learning, and institutional support across areas that shape how people participate in, experience, and contribute to the Institute.
Engagement, culture, and community are not the work of a single office. They are shaped collectively through the actions, decisions, relationships, creative and academic practices, services, and daily participation of students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, institutional leaders, and community partners.
The ECC works across the Institute to support meaningful participation, accessibility, trustworthy processes, dialogue across differences, shared accountability, and relationships within and beyond Pratt. In doing so, the ECC helps connect Pratt’s mission and values with the ways the Institute learns, leads, communicates, and makes decisions.
Our Core Functions
1. Strengthen institutional policy, practice, and systems
The ECC works with campus partners to examine policies, practices, communication, and decision-making processes. This work helps identify barriers, clarify responsibility, and connect institutional systems with Pratt’s commitments to participation, accessibility, community, and belonging.
2. Monitoring and interpreting institutional climate
The ECC brings together institutional data, climate findings, community feedback, and lived experience to help Pratt understand how people experience the Institute. This work supports reflection, identifies patterns, growth opportunities, and informs institutional learning and priorities.
3. Building institutional capacity and shared practice
Through educational programs, workshops, facilitated dialogue, consultation, and resources, the ECC supports the knowledge and practices people use to communicate, collaborate, lead, engage with the community, and participate responsibly across differences.
4. Designing and supporting strategic engagement initiatives
The ECC develops and supports cultural programs, heritage observances, cultural celebrations, dialogue, leadership and partnership opportunities, and campus-wide engagement and community-building initiatives that deepen relationships and participation, foster creative expression, and inspire collective community participation.
5. Advising, aligning, and coordinating institutional efforts
The ECC works with academic and administrative units, governance bodies, committees, student organizations, and institutional leaders to strengthen cross-divisional partnerships and institutional collaboration; support strategic communication and storytelling efforts; provide consultation; and support institute-wide engagement and alignment.
6. Supporting community infrastructure and relationships
The ECC supports relationships with alums, donors, neighbors, community organizations, artists, designers, educators, and external partners. These relationships expand opportunities for learning, mentorship, participation, and connection beyond the Institute, ensuring Pratt stays connected and present within the broader social, creative, and civic landscape.
7. Guiding complex and sensitive situations
The office helps the institution navigate sensitive, high-impact, and complex issues with care, clarity, integrity, and institutional responsibility. This includes bias intervention and institutional response; support structures; guidance related to Title VI, Title IX, Section 504, and freedom of expression concerns; and consultation during moments of institutional tension, conflict, or community concerns. The office works collaboratively with institutional partners to help support approaches that balance accountability, communication, care, institutional values, and community well-being.
8. Institutional participation and governance integration
The office participates in institutional committees, cross-functional working groups, and governance structures, including advisory groups, strategic planning and governance processes, and institutional response and support structures, to ensure that considerations of embedded engagement, culture, community, accessibility, and belonging remain integrated into institutional planning, operations, and decision-making.
A Broader Framework & Portfolio
The ECC adopted a broader framework and expanded portfolio; this evolution connects institutional commitments to the conditions that shape participation, access, culture, accountability, trust, and community life. These efforts are intentionally designed to engage multiple opportunity areas simultaneously, moving beyond reactive interventions toward coherent, proactive, sustained structural and cultural evolution.
The ECC organizes this work around five interconnected priorities:
- Institutional Alignment & Governance Coherence: connecting values, policies, responsibilities, communication, and decision-making.
- Equity in Institutional Design: identifying and addressing barriers within systems, environments, services, and processes.
- Relational & Cultural Capacity: strengthening communication, dialogue, leadership, collaboration, and practice across differences.
- Accountability & Repair Infrastructure: improving how the Institute acknowledges impact, responds to concerns, learns, and follows through.
- Trust & Community Legitimacy: strengthening transparency, participation, responsiveness, and confidence in institutional processes.
Accessibility and ADA/Section 504 coordination, The Black Alumni of Pratt, the Council for Community & Culture in Practice, Perspectives, and related institutional programs, events, and partnerships are connected through this framework. Each has a distinct purpose, history, responsibility, and relationship with the community.
Accessibility at Pratt
Accessibility is part of how Pratt creates the conditions for people to participate, learn, work, create, and engage. The ECC provides Institute-wide leadership, coordination, consultation, and institutional support for accessibility and ADA/Section 504 coordination.
The Black Alumni of Pratt
The Black Alumni of Pratt (BAP) is a longstanding network of students, alums, and community partners committed to advancing scholastic and professional opportunity for African, Black, and Latine students. Within the ECC’s broader framework, BAP strengthens alums’ connection, mentorship, opportunity, trust, and community relationships.
Its work includes scholarships and financial support; mentorship and CareerConnect; portfolio and résumé guidance; and professional development and networking that have connected generations of Pratt students and alums for years.
Board of Trustees, Culture & Community Committee
The Board of Trustees Community and Culture Committee supports the Board’s governance responsibilities by considering institutional culture, community experience, and related priorities. The ECC supports the Committee by providing relevant context, analysis, program and assessment updates, and coordination.
Council for Community & Culture in Practice
The Council for Community & Culture in Practice is a cross-institutional advisory and consultative body that brings together students, faculty, staff, and administrators. It helps Pratt connect institutional values with policies, practices, systems, communication, leadership, and everyday community experience. The Council contributes perspectives, analysis, and recommendations related to institutional climate, engagement, culture, accessibility, community, and belonging. It provides a sustained space for listening, inquiry, shared learning, and consultation across institutional roles.
For general questions? Email campus-community@pratt.edu.