Campus earns service learning honor

The Corporation for National and Community Service recently named UM to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth.

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 were chosen based on a series of selection factors including: scope and innovativeness 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.

“We are honored to have our campus recognized by this important national distinction,” said Andrea Vernon, director of the UM civic engagement office. “It brings to the forefront the important work (UM) does in this area and the valuable relationship we have with the community.”

The honor roll is jointly sponsored by the corporation’s Learn and Serve America program, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, USA Freedom Corps and the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation.

UM’s Office for Civic Engagement is the University’s primary agent of community activism. The office’s mission is to challenge and improve lives with an ethic of service and investment in community.

The office will hold a Service Learning Colloquium on Thursday, April 3, to introduce interested faculty to the concept of service learning and expand upon related aspects and initiatives.