TCNJ named to Presidential Honor Roll for Community Service

The Corporation for National and Community Service honored The College of New Jersey today with a place on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service efforts and service to America’s communities.

Words by TCNJ's editorial staff

The Corporation for National and Community Service honored The College of New Jersey last month with a place on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service efforts and service to America’s communities.

“TCNJ’s placement on the Presidential Honor Roll for Community Service for the second consecutive year is a testament of the College’s long-standing commitment to community engagement,” said R. Barbara Gitenstein, president of The College of New Jersey. “TCNJ students develop into leaders who make a positive impact on our college and in the communities in which they live and work.”

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 school offers academic service-learning courses.

TCNJ’s commitment to promoting a culture of service is illustrated on campus, in the Trenton area and throughout the country. Locally, the cornerstone of TCNJ’s efforts is an innovative approach to sustaining campus-community partnerships. It begins with the Bonner Community Scholars Corps, a diverse team of 65 students who receive four-year scholarships ($360,000 annually), organized into 13 issue-based teams (e.g. hunger, urban education). Each Bonner completes 300 hours of service annually and each team collaboratively establishes a Site-Plan with a local community partner. These teams meet regularly and the plans go beyond addressing the agency’s immediate service needs. They aim to build capacity (e.g. research) while providing opportunities for Bonners — as well as other students, professors, and residents — to deepen their learning and teaching. One example is the First Year (FY) Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) program.

Last year, Bonners and their community partners led 97 percent of all FY students through an eight-hour multi-phase experience. These CEL Days include an educational introduction to a social issue, a brief lesson in democracy, a hands-on service project, a guided reflection, and an invitation to stay involved. The Bonners also network with faculty to develop more advanced projects. For example, students from eight courses created workshops for 150 Trenton youth during the Youth Development Institute. Since 2006, the number of FY seminar courses with a service-learning component has more than tripled. TCNJ is also a national leader. In partnership with the Bonner Foundation, it administers AmeriCorps programs involving 900 students from 63 other universities in 22 states.

“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 TCNJ 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 Department of Education, the 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.

“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 American Council on Education President Molly Corbett Broad.

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.