The Honors Living-Learning Community (HLLC) at Rutgers University–Newark (RU-N) pushes the boundaries of academia’s possibilities by placing community-engaged scholarship as a critical pillar of student success. Established in 2015, the HLLC is pursuing its triumvirate rallying call—“revolutionizing honors, cultivating talent, and engaging communities”. The HLLC brings together dynamic students passionate about social justice issues, Rutgers University-Newark faculty and staff, and community partners aiming to tackle some of the nation’s most urgent social issues. Pivoting on a curriculum structured around what it means to be a local citizen in a global world, the HLLC brings students and faculty members from every school and college at Rutgers-Newark together with community-based partners to operationalize authentic experiential learning. With its emphasis on social action and issues of inequality, the HLLC brings together the academic sphere and community-based organizations to design and implement projects and courses that promote social justice in the community and enact ameliorative changes based on shared passions and mutual interests. Through a multimodal approach grounded in literature and best practices, the HLLC is built intentionally from the ground up on high-impact practices for student success and the principles of full participation. This paper highlights the HLLC’s efforts to engage students and community members through community-engaged courses and programs to address issues such as inequity. Furthermore, the authors offer a model that actively moves beyond theory to practice-based initiatives within an honor’s academic context. Examples of the HLLC’s initiatives are presented to enhance the discourse around collective knowledge building and community-engaged research by highlighting student and community partner-led initiatives. Given the HLLC’s resolve to develop a national model, the paper dedicates special attention to pedagogy and programs.

Studies have found that in higher education institutions in the United States of America, a variety of resources, student engagement, institutional practices, and other stakeholders contribute to students’ perceptions of becoming positive change agents. This project explores how the Honors Living-Learning Community (HLLC) program at Rutgers University-Newark (RUN), New Jersey capitalizes on resources, leadership, curriculum, and other strategies to promote students' perception to become positive change agents. Secondary research from a survey completed by the HLLC graduates was utilized for this project. As a descriptive study, survey responses were coded and evaluated to determine the HLLC’s impact on students’ perception on becoming positive change agents. The study found that the HLLC program at RUN successfully promotes students' perception to become positive change agents. The HLLC program achieves this through its curricular structure, which integrates academic rigor with community engagement, and a strong emphasis on leadership development. The HLLC’s success in developing positive change agents has practical implications for institutions of higher education. Other universities could consider replicating the HLLC 's unique curricular structure and community engagement strategies to promote leadership development and cultivate positive change agents among their graduates.