University Restructures and Expands Office of Community Engagement

Duquesne has restructured and expanded its Office of Community Engagement in order to widen efforts to build and extend strategic relationships with private, public, and nonprofit sectors.

The operation is now the Office of Civic Engagement and External Relations (OCEER) and will include the University’s Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations. The new alignment reflects Duquesne’s legacy as an institution dedicated to working with community partners to help provide equity and opportunity in the region.

Formed in 2018, the original Office of Community Engagement operated as a division within Duquesne’s Office of the President and served as the “front door” for internal and external audiences who wished to learn about and get involved with the University’s community engagement efforts. The office housed Duquesne’s government relations function, the Center for Engaged Teaching and Research (CETR) and the Duquesne University Volunteers (DUV) program.

The new OCEER absorbs Duquesne’s Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations in order to widen efforts to build and extend strategic relationships with private, public and nonprofit sectors. Bill Generett, vice president for community engagement, oversees OCEER.

“This expansion of the University’s front door to the community will allow for a new and reinvigorated fundraising effort to support Duquesne’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, as well as for an overall streamline of fundraising efforts for University programs,” Duquesne President Ken Gormley said. “It is not uncommon in universities to have the corporate and foundation relations function positioned together with government relations and community engagement, as the work of those groups align very closely. For Duquesne, this structure will be very beneficial, given Bill Generett’s community engagement and governmental relations success and his longstanding relationships with foundations and corporations locally and nationally.”

The organizational structure for Community Engagement and Government Affairs, within OCEER, will remain the same. For Corporate and Foundation Relations, OCEER will welcome Terese Hines as the assistant vice president of corporate and foundation relations. Joyce Raught will serve as the senior director of foundation relations for the College of Osteopathic Medicine. Monica Cooney and Elizabeth Rotz each will continue to serve in their respective positions as director of corporate and foundation relations and administrative assistant for that unit, respectively. Joan Hilton will continue to work as the executive assistant to vice president Generett and will assist him overseeing OCEER.