Sandra Steele, Educational Consultant

Stetson University Students' Community Service Recognized Nationally

Friday, October 17, 2006

Stetson University has been named to the first President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for distinguished community service. The award is in recognition of extraordinary volunteer efforts by the school and its students to serve area neighborhoods and Gulf Coast communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Stetson and 140 other institutions of higher education were recognized for distinguished service among the nearly 500 schools named to the President’s Honor Roll today during educational coalition Campus Compact’s 20th anniversary celebration in Chicago. Schools receiving distinguished service recognition provided exceptional community service over the past year, contributing their time, resources, energy, skills – and intellect – to serve others.

“Stetson University has a distinguished tradition for supporting grass roots community service, the empowerment of disadvantaged communities and social responsibility,” said Stetson President H. Douglas Lee. “We are delighted to be recognized by the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll program.”

Three groups of students, faculty and staff from the Stetson community volunteered their time and effort during Spring Break 2006 to help people devastated by hurricanes. Two additional endeavors raised funds and supplies for hurricane victims.

Nearly 50 people from Stetson’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry built on the organization’s ongoing commitment to alternative Spring Break service by traveling to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and helping build houses for people who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina.

Another Stetson group went to New Orleans to assist efforts of the volunteer grassroots collective Common Ground in the poorest section of the city’s Ninth Ward. The 14 members from the Stetson community donned contamination gear and gutted ruined houses. They also helped clean and organize community accommodations for incoming volunteers. The trip was sponsored by the philanthropic Bonner Foundation and a Stetson service group called Into the Streets.

A third group from Stetson went to Guatemala to help villagers who lost homes in mudslides caused by Hurricane Stan, reports of whose devastation were largely overshadowed by the destruction caused by Katrina. The five-person trip was sponsored by the Bonner Foundation.

Closer to home, the community youth members of a Stetson-led youth empowerment initiative named Youth As Resources created books and bought backpacks and sent them to youth in need in New Orleans. The Stetson community also partnered with local musicians to present a hurricane-relief concert that raised money and more than 1,500 pounds of donations for hurricane victims.

“Stetson has set a strong example for college-level civic engagement,” said Stephen Goldsmith, chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that works to foster a culture of volunteering and service in America. “Many people and communities have been improved because Stetson and its students identified some of society’s most pressing needs and got involved.”

The President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is co-sponsored by the corporation, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, USA Freedom Corps, and the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. The recognition is presented in cooperation with Campus Compact, a national coalition of nearly 1,000 college and university presidents.

Today’s award presentations come a day after the Corporation for National and Community Service released a comprehensive study showing college student civic engagement has risen significantly in recent years. The study, which used data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that student volunteering increased approximately 20 percent from 2002 to 2005, and that 3.3 million college students serve their communities and nation. The study showed that college students between ages 16 to 24 are more likely to volunteer than cohorts in that age group who are not enrolled.

Observers have attributed the growth in student service to several causes: the proliferation of high-school and college service-learning classes; an increase in the number of campus offices that link students to volunteer opportunities; and the lingering impact of the September 11 and Hurricane Katrina catastrophes.

The Honor Roll provides more new evidence that the nation is beginning to move toward that level of student civic engagement. More than 1.1 million students from Honor Roll schools participated in local community service activities, and more than 219,000 Honor Roll students provided hurricane relief.