IUPUI Named to Presidential Honor Roll For Community Service

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

“Throughout our history, IUPUI has been an engaged university—engaged in delivering academic programs to meet community needs, engaged in practice-based education around the city, engaged in partnerships for economic development, engaged in research that translates into solutions—not only for our city but for cities around the world confronting the same issues and concerns,” said IUPUI Chancellor Charles R. Bantz. “We are very proud of being recognized for a second time by the Corporation for National and Community Service.”

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.
“IUPUI continues to distinguish itself as a campus that enriches student learning through educationally meaningful community service,” said Robert G. Bringle, Chancellor's Professor of Psychology and Philanthropic Studies and Director, Center for Service and Learning. “The 2009 Presidential Honor Roll again recognizes the breadth and depth of the opportunities that IUPUI students have to be civically engaged in ways that develop habits of the heart as well as the mind.”

The exemplary services recognized by the Corporation for National and Community Service fall into two general categories. They are:
General Community Service: 
•         Office of Service Learning (service learning courses)
•         Office of Neighborhood Partnerships and Westside Cooperative Organization (partnership)
•         Community Service Scholarship Program (Sam H. Jones Scholarships, etc.)
•         Office of Community Service (campus-wide events)
•         Fit for Life Program (Dept. of Physical Education)
 
Special Focus Area—Youth from Disadvantaged Circumstances: lowering dropout rates, preparing for college
•         Partnership with George Washington Community School
•         Pathways to Engineering (Schools of Engineering, Science, Education)
•         America Reads/America Counts (Office of Community Work Study)
•         Early College Initiative with Crispus Attucks Medical Magnet High School (University College and others)
•         Aftercare for Indiana through Mentoring (AIM) (SPEA)

 “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  [School Name}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.