TCNJ News
For Immediate Release
October 19, 2006
Bonner Center and TCNJ Students Collaborate on Beach Preservation
EWING, NJ…The College of New Jersey’s Bonner Center for Civic and Community Engagement will be bringing a team of student volunteers to the 21st Annual Fall Beach Sweeps on Saturday, October 21 at Sandy Hook Beach. For the center’s first community engaged learning day, TCNJ students will be cleaning up the beach and planting dune grass to help preserve one of New Jersey’s most prized treasures. The Bonner Scholars and TCNJ students who organized the event are Michael Brower (Berlin), Lauren Stenstennagel (North Haledon), Elsa Salazar (Beach Haven), Colleen Fisher (Parlin), Kathleen Davis (Red Bank), Morgan Reil (Hamilton), and Jonathan Waltz (Mechanicsburg, PA).
An environmental expert from the American Littoral Society, headquartered in Sandy Hook, will speak to the students about the importance of coast preservation. Additionally, students will engage in reflection and guided discussion after the service is performed to help them make connections to their private lives and the larger world.
As part of the First-Year Experience program at the College, students are required to engage in such community service activities. The Bonner Center has stepped in to help students satisfy these requirements through special community engaged learning days.
By mobilizing small communities of students from every floor in the freshmen dorms, 18 different service events have been arranged to allow students to learn, serve and reflect together. The events focus on a range of themes including environment, homelessness, and diversity issues.
Each event has four main components: learning, hands-on service, reflection, and visions for future service.
"Our whole goal with our community engagement days is to create positive and productive experiences for students, so they’re inspired to continue to volunteer," says the Bonner Center’s Pat Donohue.
About The College of New Jersey
TCNJ currently is ranked as one of the 75 "Most Competitive" schools in the nation by Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, is rated the No. 1 public institution in the northern region of the country by U.S. News & World Report, and is one of Kiplinger's Personal Finance's top educational values in the country. In 2006, the College joined an elite group of institutions when it was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Fewer than 10 percent of the nation's colleges and universities share this honor.
