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The Corporation for National and Community Service has named Defiance College to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll With Distinction for the second year in a row. Defiance was recognized for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth.
“We have again been honored by the recognition of those colleges and universities who are national leaders engaging our students in working for their communities,” said Defiance College president Dr. Gerald Wood. “To be on the President's Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction is another outside recognition of what this college is doing. What makes this most significant is that we are doing what we say we do.”
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 innovativeness of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.
Defiance College has received national recognition numerous times for its programs of engagement and responsible citizenship.
In the past year, Defiance College students were actively involved in serving communities both at home and abroad. Students worked to address the problem of homelessness in the Defiance community through hosting the annual Empty Bowls dinner to raise funds for a local homeless shelter and through conducting a survey on rural homelessness. More than 40 students and faculty traveled to New Orleans to assist in the ongoing rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina and to study the problem of poverty and justice. Students worked internationally on a number of important projects including raising funds to purchase sewing machines for Cambodian women to promote economic independence and raising environmental awareness in Belize through the creation of a bilingual book about the endangered yellow-headed parrot.
In the category of service to youth in disadvantaged circumstances, Defiance College participated in the reading programs AmericaReads and Project MORE; partnered with Boy Scouts for a leadership program designed for disadvantaged high school students; partnered with a rural Guatemala school to address illiteracy by opening a library and acquiring books to fill the library; addressed youth fitness through an athletic outreach program; and conducted an outreach program to increase the number of low-income minority students pursuing higher education.
Defiance College continues to do ongoing projects within the local community and reaches out on a global scale through its McMaster School for Advancing Humanity.
“College students like those at Defiance College are tackling the toughest problems in America, demonstrating their compassion, commitment, and creativity in by serving as mentors, tutors, health workers, and even engineers,” said David Eisner, chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “They represent a renewed spirit of civic engagement fostered by outstanding leadership on caring campuses.”
The Honor Roll is jointly sponsored by the Corporation, through its Learn and Serve America program, and the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, USA Freedom Corps, and the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation.
In congratulating the winners, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said, “Americans rely on our higher education system to prepare students for citizenship and the workforce. We look to institutions like these to provide leadership in partnering with local schools to shape the civic, democratic and economic future of our country.”
Overall, the Community Service Honor Roll awarded six schools with Presidential Awards. In addition, four schools were recognized as Special Achievement Award winners, 127 as Honor Roll With Distinction members and 391 schools as Honor Roll members. In total, 528 schools were recognized. A full list is available at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll.
“There is no question that the universities and colleges who have made an effort to participate and win the Honor Roll award are themselves being rewarded,” said American Council on Education President David Ward. “Earning this distinction is not easy. But now each of these schools will be able to wear this award like a badge of honor.”
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 http://www.nationalservice.gov. |
