MURFREESBORO — Middle
Tennessee State University has again been recognized for its community service
efforts with inclusion on the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community
Service Honor Roll.
The Honor Roll, launched in 2006, annually highlights the
role colleges and universities throughout the nation play in solving community
problems and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement by
recognizing institutions that achieve meaningful, measureable outcomes in the
communities they serve.
Dr. Rosemary Owens, strategic partnership coordinator in
MTSU's provost office, said the accolade is a reflection of campus-wide support
for public service. This is the third time MTSU has made the honor roll.
“This is an additional representation of the kinds of things
we do out in the community with our students, faculty and staff,” Owens said.
“Every division participates in this.”
The 2013 recipients were announced earlier this spring at
the American Council on Education’s 95th annual meeting Leading Change in Washington, D.C.
Owens said MTSU’s designation reflects the university’s work
via partnerships within the local community and throughout the region as well
as internationally.
Among the initiatives highlighted is MTSU’s Experiential
Learning Scholars Program, which encourages students to participate in
service-learning activities such as Habitat for Humanity Blitz Builds and
after-school tutoring at area schools. During 2011-12, almost 198,000 hours of
community service work was done.
MTSU faculty, staff and student volunteers broke ground on a
Habitat for Humanity home, their third home for a Rutherford County resident,
in January 2012. The project was unique in that the only onsite volunteers were
members of the MTSU community.
The home marked Rutherford County Habitat’s 109th
and was built in the university’s surrounding neighborhood. Organizers said it
honored MTSU’s commitment “to being a good neighbor and its recognition that it
takes good neighbors to build a house.”
MTSU students, faculty and staff pitched in with their labor
and by gathering donations. The house was completed and was dedicated to its
new owner, Yvonne Summers, on April 26, 2012.
“The MTSU volunteers were ecstatic to be able to participate
in an event so life-altering for Ms. Summers and her family,” stated Dr. Danny
Kelley, assistant vice president for student affairs at MTSU, in the honor roll
application. “The partnership that MTSU has with Rutherford County Habitat for
Humanity is recognized as one of the best the university has with any entity or
organization.”
The Honor Roll designation process is overseen by the
Corporation of National and Community Service and is supported by a U.S.
Department of Education, American Council of Education, Campus Compact and U.S.
Department of Housing collaborative.
The full honor roll can be found at http://www.nationalservice.gov/special-initiatives/honor-roll.
Established in 1993, the Corporation for National and
Community Service is a federal agency that engages more than 5 million
Americans in service through its core programs — Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and
the Social Innovation Fund — and leads President Obama’s national call to
service initiative, United We Serve.
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