Emmanuel Earns Mark of Distinction on President’s Community Service Honor Roll
March 13, 2012
Emmanuel College was named to the 2012 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, one of just six Massachusetts colleges/universities to earn the award. The 2012 Honor Roll recipients were announced at the American Council on Education's 94th annual meeting, Ahead of the Curve, on March 12th, in Los Angeles, Calif.
This is the third straight year the College has been recognized with distinction. The President's Honor Roll increases the public's awareness of the contributions that colleges and their students make to local communities and the nation as a whole. It is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement. The Corporation for National and Community Service administers the annual Honor Roll award.
Emmanuel was one of 110 colleges and universities around the country recognized by the Corporation for National and Community Service in its 2012 Honor Roll with Distinction. Honorees were chosen based on a series of selection factors, including the scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers service-related programs.
Throughout the 2010-2011 academic year, Emmanuel students completed 36,067 service hours. These hours included volunteer activities such as New Student Day of Service, America Reads, the Sunday Service Group, toy drives, community clean-ups and many others.
One of Emmanuel's most popular programs, Alternative Spring Break, took place March 4th-10th. This year, 60 members of the College's community gave up their vacations to work in rural south communities still digging out from Katrina, to provide assistance in deeply impoverished communities in West Virginia and Arizona, and to aid children in poverty around the city of Boston along with members of the Colleges of the Fenway.
"Our student volunteers will go anywhere and do anything to help people who are suffering the effects of devastation or who are living in abject poverty," said Deirdre Bradley-Turner, associate director of community service and service learning. "They choose to give up the traditional spring break for the opportunity to serve people in need."
The Corporation for National and Community Service oversees the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact and the American Council on Education. It is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America programs, and leads President Obama's national call to service initiative, United We Serve.
To see the entire list of Honor Roll with Distinction recipients, click here.
