MIT Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center (PKG Center)

The PKG Center taps and expands MIT students’ unique skills and interests to prepare them to explore and address complex social and environmental challenges. We educate students to collaborate ethically and effectively with community partners to engage in meaningful public service, today and in their lives beyond MIT. Service work has always happened at MIT—in fraternities, sororities, living groups, and through various campus clubs. In 1988, three MIT influencers, including our Center’s namesake, Priscilla King Gray, recognized that MIT needed a central resource to support and expand such efforts. Together, they created the MIT Public Service Center, one of the first established in the U.S. This office, recently renamed as the PKG Center, is committed to facilitating independent, student-driven initiatives with a strong infrastructure of advising and support. Since our founding, much has changed: MIT has evolved and grown exponentially as a global leader in science and engineering, and the practice of public service in higher education has evolved as well. Today, almost every college and university has a center dedicated to helping students participate in service. And what constitutes “service” has become more sophisticated, building upon a foundation of direct service volunteering with a new and expansive focus on rigorous curricular integration, reciprocal community partnerships, and measurable student learning outcomes. The PKG Center is constantly examining our programs to provide a better learning experience for our students and more impact for our community partners. In 2018, the PKG Center released a new strategic plan that will guide the Center forward as we sustain, scale, and seed programs that provide rigorous, academically aligned public service opportunities for MIT students.