Walking the Talk

At Warren Wilson, we share your fierce passion to serve your community. So we walk the talk. Community engagement isn’t optional at Warren Wilson. It’s required.

Here, every major has classes where you will think deeply about issues that you are passionate about and collaborate with others to take action in the local and global community..

And as a member of the Warren Wilson community, you will be surrounded by faculty, staff and peers who are dedicated to addressing our most pressing social and environmental justice issues and exploring creative solutions right alongside you.

By integrating community engagement into every aspect of your learning experience and requiring it of all students, our program does a superior job of cultivating engaged citizens.

Explore Our Issue Areas

At Warren Wilson College, we collaborate with community partners to address social and environmental justice issues. We find that the issues that we care about in the world are often connected and there are many points of intersection. Students engage with a wide variety of issues, but we commit the most time and develop the deepest partnerships in our designated Issue Areas.

• The Environment
• Food Security
• Housing & Houselessness
• Race & Immigration
• Youth & Education

How You’ll Do It

The Community Engagement Office supports your involvement by providing a variety of opportunities, including:

• Community-Engaged courses
• Community-Engaged Research
• Internships
• Ongoing commitments with local organizations
• Community-Engaged work crews

Lightning Term

These place-based, community-engaged courses begin with on-campus learning and end with travel over break in the greater Asheville community or in the southeast. Lightning Term gives you the ability to engage deeply with our local community both during the semester in the classroom and directly with community partners over break. 

What It Means

Annually, Warren Wilson students complete over 35,000 hours with local, national, and global communities.

But we’re interested in more than how many hours our students contribute. We want to know that we’re sending young people into the world with the confidence and experience they need to engage in their future communities. Our alumni tell us it works.

• 81% of Warren Wilson alums indicated that their experience here prepared them well for social and civic involvement (national comparison: 56%).
• 79% Warren Wilson graduates said that they felt their experience here contributed quite a bit or very much to their knowledge, skills, and development in civic engagement (national comparison: 55%)