Jamilah Ducar serves as associate vice chancellor for engagement and community affairs (ECA) at the University of Pittsburgh. In this role, she leads the University’s relationship-focused work — connecting partners to the right people and programs; navigating Pitt’s engagement ecosystem; and building the conditions for partnerships that are community-centered, mutually beneficial and built to last. ECA’s work spans place-based neighborhood partnerships in Homewood, the Hill District, Greater Hazelwood and Oakland; lifelong learning through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and Gismondi Neighborhood Education Program; strategic support for community-engaged scholarship; and opportunities for Pitt students, faculty and staff to engage as public collaborators. Ducar served as project lead and co-chair for the University’s successful 2026 Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement.
A scholar-practitioner whose work spans engaged identity development, praxis and architecture, she brings particular attention to the institutional conditions, design, and relational infrastructure that shape how universities show up as authentic and sustained community partners. Ducar is a contributing author in “Reframing Community Engagement in Higher Education” (Routledge, 2024) and “Preparing Students to Engage in Equitable Community Partnerships: A Handbook” (Temple University Press, 2023), and served as guest editor and author for Metropolitan Universities (2024). She is a co-editor of the forthcoming “The Community Engagement Professional’s Guidebook Refresh” (2026, with Justin Dandoy and Lina Dostilio). In 2023, Ducar became the first person in the U.S. to earn the Community Engagement Professional Credential through Campus Compact. She also completed the Practitioner Certification Program in human-centered design from LUMA Institute (2024).
Ducar is deeply engaged in civic and professional life at the regional and national levels. She serves as vice chair of the Allegheny Regional Asset District, vice chair of the Steel Valley Enterprise Zone (d/b/a Steel Valley Accelerator), and chair of the Oakland Task Force. Ducar is a member of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. She has served as national steering committee chair of the Place-Based Justice Network and as a national advisor to Weave: The Social Fabric Project. Ducar also is a member and donor of 100+ Women Who Care Pittsburgh and a member of the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership advisory team.
She holds an Ed.D. in urban education from Pitt, a Master of Public Management from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, and a Bachelor of Science from Duquesne University.
