BGSU’s name added to community service honor roll

BOWLING GREEN, O.—While BGSU students pursue their own education, they are involved in many ways to ensure that others also have opportunities to learn and succeed. The University’s commitment to both community service and to learning from it has earned BGSU a place on the 2010 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, published annually by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

BGSU was named to the Ohio “Honor Roll with Distinction,” along with other state institutions Ohio State and Wright State universities. The corporation oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact (of which BGSU is a member) and the American Council on Education.

More than 600 colleges and universities nationally were recognized for exemplary, innovative and effective community service programs this year. Ohio made a strong showing, said Dr. Jane Rosser, director of BGSU’s Office of Service-Learning.

“BGSU is in good company. Making the ‘with distinction’ category speaks to the kind of impact our programs have on the community. This is a national recognition for a campus that takes seriously engagement in community service and service-learning.”

The numbers of BGSU students participating and the hours they spent are impressive —nearly 9,000 students gave 252,066 hours from July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010 — but the numbers alone do not convey the breadth of service and the personal growth they represent.

The three programs BGSU submitted to the committee as expressive of its service philosophy were:

• Access BG, an arts-enrichment collaboration among the Chapman Learning Community, the Department of Theatre and Film and Toledo’s Libbey High School designed to encourage students to stay in school;

• The America Reads Program in the Martha Gesling Weber Reading Center of the College of Education and Human Development, which brings BGSU student reading tutors to 11 locations in Wood and Lucas counties and served almost 650 children last year;

• EDHD 2010, a course representing a partnership between the college and the Literacy Serve and Learn program that brings education majors into Toledo Public Schools classrooms.

The last two programs are both first-year experiences and “very labor-intensive,” Rosser said. They also represent strong partnerships between faculty and staff members.

BGSU defines curriculum-based service-learning as a "credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs, and reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of curricular content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of personal values and civic responsibility."

###



(Posted June 08, 2011 )