The American Association of State Colleges and Universities launched its stewardship of place program in 2002, “to promote direct, two-way interaction with communities and key external constituencies through the development, exchange, and application of knowledge, information, and expertise for mutual benefit” (AASCU, 2002). The emphasis on economic development and community engagement is occurring in an era of rapidly declining and/or inconsistent state appropriations. This study surveys perceptions of CEOs and CAOs regarding issues and barriers related to public regional university involvement in economic and community development, to assess the engagement of stewardship of place. Out of the 375 public regional university members of AASCU, 98 CEOs responded to the survey while 115 of the CAOs responded. Key findings include community engagement is important to public regional universities and their leaders, finances are becoming a greater challenge at public regional universities, and a well-trained workforce is important to future economic development opportunities. Key conclusions include public regional universities are committed to Stewardship of Place, but lack the financial resources to do so and regional university leaders lack sufficient knowledge to be effectively involved in economic and community development. The responses of the CEOs indicated that 9 out of 10 CEOs learn about economic development of the job. Another key conclusion is that the deficiencies in the existing Carnegie Basic Classification as they pertain to rural institution are well documented that 130 institutions that are members of AASCU not in the Carnegie public MCU universe limits is effective use. Key recommendations for further study include further research is needed to flush out suburban and urban classified institutions to combine the suburban small and large institutions and the urban small and large institutions for a total of five categories in the modified Carnegie Classification scheme. A key recommendation for policy is that stewardship of place means providing access, which is needed to improve college success rates, and a key recommendation for practice includes funding should be allocated by federal agencies charged with regional economic development to provide regional university leaders with the tools (research, leadership, and networking skills) needed to do the job.