TCNJ News
For Immediate Release
February 25, 2010
TCNJ receives national recognition for community service, named to President’s Honor Roll
EWING, NJ ... The College of New Jersey has been named to the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, 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, which administers the annual Honor Roll award, recognized more than 700 colleges and universities for their impact on issues from poverty and homelessness to environmental justice. On campuses across the country, thousands of students joined their faculty to develop innovative programs and projects to meet local needs using the skills gained in their classrooms. Business students served as consultants to budget-strapped nonprofits and businesses, law students volunteered at legal clinics, and dozens of others organized anti-hunger campaigns.
“Congratulations to TCNJ and its students for their dedication to service and commitment to improving their local communities,” said Patrick Corvington, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “Our nation’s students are a critical part of the equation and vital to our efforts to tackle the most persistent challenges we face. They have achieved impactful results and demonstrated the value of putting knowledge into practice to help renew America through service.”
The Honor Roll includes six colleges and universities that are recognized as Presidential Awardees, with an additional 115 named to the Distinction List and 621 schools named as Honor Roll members. Honorees are 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 academic service-learning courses.
“The College of New Jersey has maintained a service-learning requirement of its students for more than a decade, and our Bonner Community Scholars program rewards students for excellence in community service,” said R. Barbara Gitenstein, president of The College of New Jersey. “TCNJ's commitment to community engagement is helping students develop into leaders who make a positive impact on our college as well as those beyond our campus who are less fortunate in many ways.”
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.
College students make a significant contribution to the volunteer sector; in 2009, 3.16 million students performed more than 300 million hours of service, according to the Volunteering in America study released by the Corporation. Each year, the Corporation invests more than $150 million in fostering a culture of service on college campuses through grants awarded by its programs; the education awards that AmeriCorps members receive at the conclusion of their term of service to pay for college; and through support of training, research, recognition, and other initiatives to spur college service.
The Corporation oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact and the American Council on Education.
