Our Mission as a Locally Engaged Anchor Institution

For Drexel, being an engaged anchor institution means applying our resources and expertise intentionally towards broad community benefit, far beyond the boundaries of the University. As an anchor institution, we are in it for the long haul, and we are not doing this work alone. We look to our campus neighbors as important partners in a shared local economy. Together, we have focused on priority areas: safety and sustainability, education, health and wellness, home-ownership, retail and the arts, and economic inclusion.

In particular, we identify a two-pronged set of priorities for how we connect with neighboring communities: Jobs Today, Jobs Tomorrow.

Jobs Today is our local economic inclusion strategy. It is all about prioritizing local hiring for positions in the university, and maximizing the investment in salaries that we make in West Philadelphia. It is looking for opportunities to purchase needed goods and services locally, enabling Philadelphia-based businesses to likewise increase their local hiring. We have established local-inclusion goals for ourselves when we do on-campus construction and renovation. And we offer a set of adult education resources for residents who want to finish their high school diploma in order to be eligible for a wider range of job opportunities and to get up to speed with digital skills.

Jobs Tomorrow is about leveraging and amplifying resources to support family-sustaining jobs in West Philadelphia and contributing to the kind of community stability that best serves families’ and children’s needs, creating a pipeline of learning opportunities for those children. Drexel convenes partnerships for place-based investments in this pipeline starting with early education. As the Schuylkill Yards innovation district expands, we envision satisfying career paths and opportunities for children born today in the West Philadelphia Promise Zone.