Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State is being named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
The Washington, D.C.-based independent federal agency is recognizing "the university's exemplary service efforts and service to America's communities."
Created by Congress through the 1993 National and Community Service Trust Act, the corporation administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America. Launched in 2006, its Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for service-learning and civic engagement. (For more, visit www.nationalservice.gov.)
Honorees are chosen on the basis of various factors, including the scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in such activities, incentives for service, and extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.
"We are truly honored to be named to the Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll," MSU President Mark Keenum said. "This recognition highlights our university's commitment to active involvement in the community and our dedication to making a difference.
"Community service and service-learning play a vital role in developing leadership among our students and helping them forge a sense of responsibility and an awareness of the needs of the greater world around them," Keenum added.
More than 3,000 MSU students, faculty and staff--and some 180 affiliated high school students--have contributed more than 28,400 combined service hours in seven programs.
The seven include: Service Dawgs; War on Hunger--Universities Fighting World Hunger; Academics and Community Service: A Winning Combination; Go Greek Give Community Service; Day One Service Learning Projects for Disadvantaged Youth; Day One Leadership Community: Learning, Living, Leading Together; and Young Guns Summer Leadership Development Camp--Empowering Mississippi High School Students.
"This was our first look at what was going on university-wide in community service," said Cade Smith, director of MSU's Appalachian Leadership Honors Program.
Smith, also an assistant dean of student affairs, and April K. Hieselt, an assistant professor of counseling and educational psychology, worked to identify students, faculty and staff engaged in community service and service learning activities.
"Contributing to something bigger than oneself resonates with students from all walks of life regardless of circumstances," Smith observed. "The desire to make a positive change in the world around them is something they crave. Providing the platform to follow through on that desire through these programs helps fulfill our commitment to develop the whole student and shape them into the leaders of tomorrow."
The CNCS Honor Roll is a collaboration with the U.S. departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, along with the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. The new honor rolls are presented during annual conferences of the American Council on Education.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Dr. Smith at 662-325-0244 or cade@saffairs.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.