Making a local impact
Serving the Common Good
The importance of connecting with the local community is ingrained throughout Elon’s culture. Community-based learning takes place in many academic courses across campus, and service is a common thread through student organizations, athletic teams, and fraternities and sororities, anchored by the nationally recognized Kernodle Center for Civic Life. The center serves as the convener of community-based engaged and experiential student learning opportunities in collaboration with faculty, staff and community partners to address the common good. The Kernodle Center connects Elon students, faculty and staff with service opportunities at nonprofits, schools and government agencies, and, in turn, those partners impart valuable knowledge about community assets, needs and social issues.
More than 125 partner organizations work with the Kernodle Center, and university volunteers have completed more than 1 million hours of service to date. The center’s signature programs include:
Community-Based Learning
This experiential education approach involves reciprocal relationships, guided by the expertise of professors and community practitioners, to combine student learning with community needs as an integrated component of an academic course.
Elon Volunteers!
This organization provides all students with opportunities to engage with diverse communities and actively contribute to civic life. Elon Volunteers! is run by more than 70 student leaders each year who coordinate opportunities that directly address areas such as affordable housing, food insecurity and education in the local community.
Campus Kitchen
As part of this program, volunteers take part in the weekly preparation and delivery of meals for local residents experiencing food insecurity in partnership with Elon Dining. Through a collaboration with the Center for Environmental Studies, students also harvest vegetables from Elon’s Loy Farm to use in meals and provide fresh produce to nonprofit organizations.
Elon Votes!
This nonpartisan campus initiative provides students with the necessary resources to vote and learn about issues at stake in local, state and national elections.
Habitat for Humanity
Elon’s Habitat for Humanity chapter is one of the most active in the country due to its commitment to help build one house each academic year. Students perform a variety of tasks for each home, including constructing walls, laying shingles, installing siding and painting.
More Than a Stay
Staying, eating or attending events at The Inn at Elon helps make a college education possible for many students, with all profits going toward scholarships at the university. Nearly 200 students have received scholarships from Inn at Elon funds totaling more than $2 million.
Transformative Internships
Elon’s nationally recognized Student Professional Development Center and Kernodle Center for Civic Life launched the Campus Alamance summer internship program in summer 2021. This paid, eight-week internship program, offered at no expense to the employers, partners businesses, nonprofit organizations and government entities in Alamance County with talented Elon University interns for a mutually beneficial experience. The program addresses two of the most significant reasons why students forgo summer internships — lack of financial opportunity and access. It offers participating students a $2,500 stipend, given by the university.
One of the intentions of the program is to build a pipeline of talent for employers in the Alamance County area. The program has doubled in community partners and nearly tripled in student participation, a direct response from Alamance County employers seeking to get involved with talented Elon students and hoping to retain them in the area after they graduate.
Fueling the Local Economy
For more than 130 years, Elon has been a significant contributor to the Alamance County economy. Since 2010, Elon has pursued the most transformative period in the university’s history, making an investment of more than $800 million.
In the 2020 fiscal year, Elon generated $372.1 million in direct and indirect economic impact in Alamance County, according to a report by consulting firm Tripp Umbach. The university’s operations created more than $18.8 million in government revenue in Alamance County, which includes the direct taxes paid to state and local government as well as additional indirect tax payments. In the 2019 fiscal year, Elon attracted 136,882 visitors to campus whose spending totaled $133.3 million and generated $17.5 million in government revenue.
Elon is one of the four top employers in Alamance County, along with the Alamance-Burlington School System, LabCorp and Cone Health Alamance Regional Medical Center. One out of every 10 jobs in Alamance County is attributable to the university. As of the 2020 fiscal year, Elon operations supported 5,702 full-time and part-time jobs within Alamance County, including 1,782 direct jobs at the university along with 3,920 additional jobs maintained by other employers due to the university’s operations in the county.
Staff Volunteerism
Elon University recognizes the importance of being a good corporate citizen and the responsibility to help our surrounding communities. Staff are encouraged to become involved in the community by volunteering with programs that positively impact the quality of life within these communities. Regular full-time staff are granted up to 16 hours of paid volunteer service leave per calendar year with one of the university’s active community partners, which include education, government and nonprofit agencies throughout Alamance County. In the 2022-23 academic year, staff completed about 633 hours of service through the Alamance-Burlington School System, Habitat for Humanity of Alamance County, Special Olympics and more. Elon employees also volunteer to serve on many local boards, including the Alamance County Chamber of Commerce, the United Way of Alamance County and Impact Alamance.
Partners in Community
Elon is proud to be Alamance County’s hometown university. The Partners Program is designed to better connect local businesses and Elon through a shared partnership in order to provide greater exposure to varied audiences. This free program signals to Elon faculty, staff, students, families and visitors that they are welcome customers at local businesses, and offers benefits to business owners.
Enacting Positive Change
The Elon Year of Service Fellows Program is a 12-month, post-graduation program connecting Elon graduates with community partners to help tackle challenges in health, education and economic development unique to Alamance County. Fellows utilize their knowledge and skills in collaboration with their partners to strengthen the community and facilitate lasting change. Six local agencies participate in the program: Alamance Achieves, the Alamance County Health Department, Alamance Regional Medical Center, the City of Burlington Economic Development Department, the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation and Impact Alamance.
Throughout their year of service, the Fellows receive strong mentorship from their site supervisors and Elon faculty mentors. Participants are also eligible for an incentive stipend at the completion of the one-year program if they attend graduate school in North Carolina or accept employment in Alamance or a surrounding county. To date, 71% of program alumni have either accepted a job or a ended graduate school in North Carolina the year following their fellowship.
Honoring Our Region’s Roots
Elon University strives to honor the legacy of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation (OBSN), the indigenous people on whose land the university stands, and in partnership with the local tribe is exploring more opportunities to center the Occaneechi people and their impact on this region. The OBSN adopted an official land acknowledgement in 2022, and Elon joins with the tribal community in encouraging all to treat this land with the respect, love and care that generations of Occaneechi exhibited.
Locally Grown
A Center for Environmental Studies initiative, Loy Farm is a 20-acre intensive teaching and research farm that provides sustainably grown produce and food system education for Elon and its surrounding communities. The farm gives back to the university and the larger community by providing produce to Elon Dining, Elon Campus Kitchen and Allied Churches.
Alumni in Action
For many Elon graduates who call Alamance County home, changing the world begins right in their backyard. From holding local and statewide political offices, serving on community boards, leading nonprofit organizations, coaching youth sports and owning successful businesses to serving as firefighters, police officers and victim advocates, Elon alumni are actively putting into practice the lessons learned in the classroom for the betterment of all members of the community.
Personal Finance Resources
The Center for Financial Literacy aims to provide objective, high-quality resources to assist individuals in making personal financial decisions. The CFL helps students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members develop financial skills. Programming includes workshops and speakers on a variety of topics, including saving for retirement and making money to pursue one’s passion.
Supporting Local Business
The Martha & Spencer Love School of Business supports Alamance County through professional development and workshops hosted by centers within the school; service-learning partnerships that connect hands-on student learning with businesses, nonprofits and entrepreneurs; and student interns who bring value to local companies. Faculty also serve on the Alamance County Economic Development Committee and produce economic impact studies.
Communication Services
Live Oak Communications is Elon’s award-winning, student-run communications agency. The agency has implemented campaigns both nationally and locally, including website design, video production, media relations, print and broadcast advertising, event management and more. Local clients include United Way of Alamance County, The Village Grill and McPherson Cleaners.
By the Numbers
In the 2022-23 academic year: