The Richard E. Cone Award recognizes an exemplary early-career individual who is an emerging leader in the field of community engagement, whose work has had a positive impact on campus and in the community, and who is guided by the best practices of community-campus partnerships. It is the hope of California Campus Compact that this award will inspire all higher education institutions to consider ways to deepen their efforts to institutionalize and sustain authentic community-campus partnerships. As it often has been said, a community’s character is reflected in the people it selects to honor.
From 1999-2016, the award was bestowed annually upon an individual who made significant contributions to the development of partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education – partnerships through which student learning and the quality of life in communities are simultaneously improved. In 2017, we moved to honor Dick Cone’s work to support and mentor emerging leaders in the field.