Students UNC named to presidential honor roll for community service
| UNC named to presidential honor roll for community service |
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| Friday, February 13, 2009 | |
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The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency, has honored the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a place on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll With Distinction for exemplary service efforts and service to America’s communities. Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees for the award were chosen based on a series of selection factors, including scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service and the extent to which the college or university offers academic service-learning courses. UNC was honored for its overall commitment to public service. More than 18,000 students at Carolina engaged in community service or in a community service course during the 2007-2008 academic year. Carolina students contributed a total of 1,131,302 service hours during that same period. In addition to this tremendous effort, the following five programs played a major role in UNC obtaining the honor of Distinction:
“In this time of economic distress, we need volunteers more than ever. College students represent an enormous pool of idealism and energy to help tackle some of our toughest challenges,” said Stephen Goldsmith, vice chair of the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the Honor Roll. “We salute UNC for making community service a campus priority, and thank the millions of college students who are helping to renew America through service to others.” Overall, the corporation honored six schools with Presidential Awards. In addition, 83 were named as Honor Roll With Distinction members and 546 schools as Honor Roll members. In total, 635 schools were recognized. A full list is available at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll. The Honor Roll is a program of the corporation, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is presented during the annual conference of the American Council on Education (ACE). “I offer heartfelt congratulations to those institutions named to the 2008 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. College and university students across the country are making a difference in the lives of others every day – as are the institutions that encourage their students to serve others,” said ACE President Molly Corbett Broad, former president of the UNC system. Recent studies have underlined the importance of service-learning and volunteering to college students. In 2006, 2.8 million college students gave more than 297 million hours of volunteer service, according to the Corporation’s Volunteering in America 2007 study. Expanding campus incentives for service is part of a larger initiative to spur higher levels of volunteering by America’s college students. The corporation is working with a coalition of federal agencies, higher education and student associations, and nonprofit organizations to achieve this goal. The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. The corporation administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America, a program that supports service-learning in schools, institutions of higher education and community-based organizations. For more information, go to www.nationalservice.gov. Service Learning contact: Jenny Huq, (919) 962-0902,
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