Office of Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility changes name to redirect its focus
By Theresa Pratt, Deputy News Editor
Towson University’s Office of Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility is now the Office for Social Impact.
The name change came after over three years of discussion, one of the reasons being its length. The office found that some people only said half of the title, which they felt deemphasized the other parts of their work. The office’s previous acronym, “CESR,” also left people confused about what the letters stood for.
Since getting hired in 2022, Romy Hübler, director of the Office for Social Impact, has led a rebranding effort to steer the office toward more sustainable, high-impact programming.
“The idea of changing the name was actually presented to me when I was interviewed for my position. In that process, I really wanted to focus on identifying what the work is that we do holistically before we looked at the name change,” Hübler said.
To invite collaboration, Hübler also said they intentionally used “office for” instead of “office of” in the new title because they see their work as collective and ongoing.
Before selecting the office’s new title, some faculty members voted on the options. They researched how offices and organizations that do similar work at other universities selected their name, avoiding titles with similar words.
Charis Lawson, the coordinator for civic engagement, said she thinks the new name will have positive results.
“I really just want the work that we do to be more accessible so that people understand the work that we do. When it comes to what civic engagement or community engagement work is, a lot of people don’t know what both of those mean,” Lawson said. “When they see or think through how we are making a social impact, that is something that is very clear and can really help bring us together.”
