How Pitt’s executive director of the engaged campus forges community connections

Jamie Ducar is a woman with many identities.

On some days, she’s known as a conduit, a matchmaker. On others, she’s a facilitator and an ambassador for the University of Pittsburgh. While her identities evolve day-to-day depending on her work, she relishes her most consistent goal: to connect Pitt’s neighbors and friends to the best that the University has to offer — its people.

On paper, Ducar is the executive director of the engaged campus — a position in the Office of Engagement and Community Affairs (OECA) newly created to reflect Pitt’s increasing community collaboration and its role as an anchor institution in Pittsburgh.

[Here’s how the Office of Engagement and Community Affairs connects Pitt to the larger world.]

In her new role, Ducar, who most recently served as Pitt’s director of community engagement, is tasked with making sure the University has a strong, positive relationship with residents in its surrounding communities through various community affairs efforts.

This includes initiatives that show the University is a responsive neighbor with a vibrant campus and that Pitt has goals that align with the needs of its surrounding communities as it works to enhance quality of life in the region.

“My work is focused on folks that hold positions like mine — people who are the boundary spanners of the world,” Ducar said. “I am driven by the question, ‘How can community engagement professionals use their voice, their experiences, their beliefs to connect to an institution's engagement agenda?’”

Pitt has a long history of working with its neighbors, and OECA has played a key role, welcoming residents, communities and community organizations through Pitt’s front doors.

[See the Outreach and Engagement Map that shows Pitt’s impact on the region.]

Since Ducar joined Pitt in 2017 as assistant director of community relations, partnerships between the University and networks of community collaborators have evolved and expanded as community engaged work grew beyond a few specific faculty and schools.

“I come to the work assuming that folks naturally are looking for ways to contribute to the public good and I see myself as a facilitator. I help build the relationships between Pitt and the surrounding community,” Ducar said.

She credits her trajectory at Pitt to mentorship by her now retired supervisor, John Wilds, and current leader of OECA, Lina Dostilio, who came to Pitt to lead the Community Engagement Center neighborhood commitments.

Ducar is also set to graduate from Pitt this spring with a Doctor of Education degree. Before working in higher education, her career focus was on nonprofit organizations supporting youth and families.

She frequently uses these experiences and skills as tools for forging alliances in the greater Pittsburgh region.

“I’m a human services practitioner first, and I’m thrilled that my role as executive director of the engaged campus is a space for me to bring my full self into the role,” she said.

— Donovan Harrell and Nichole Faina