February 11, 2008
The Corporation for National and Community Service named Rollins College to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll With Distinction for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth.
“We are proud that Rollins faculty and staff have worked together to offer these service opportunities for our students and that our students have responded so enthusiastically,” said Rollins President Lewis Duncan. “This recognition affirms our efforts to help students connect what they learn in the classroom to applications in everyday life.”
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 for the award 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.
Rollins has developed a variety of projects which have helped the community:
- SPARC (Service, Philanthropy, Activism, Rollins College) was developed to connect first-year students in sustainable, purpose-driven, collaborative scholarship through curricular methods and means.
- Student organization Rollins Relief has continued its efforts in New Orleans to help rebuild St. Bernard Parish following Hurricane Katrina.
- Rollins offered an intensive week-long course for students on hunger and homelessness.
- Over the past year, the College has developed a program called “Loneliness in America: Connecting Rollins College students with Central Florida Seniors.”
- During Pathways to College Day, local elementary school students visit Rollins to learn what college is about.
- Rollins developed the Winter Park Community Fellows program to benefit the Winter Park Community Center.
“College students like those at Rollins are tackling the toughest problems in America, demonstrating their compassion, commitment and creativity by serving as mentors, tutors, health workers and even engineers,” said David Eisner, chief executive officer for the Corporation for National and Community Service. “They represent a renewed spirit of civic engagement fostered by outstanding leadership on caring campuses.”
The Honor Roll is jointly sponsored by the Corporation, through its Learn and Serve America program, and the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, USA Freedom Corps, and the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation.
Overall, the Community Service Honor Roll awarded six schools with Presidential Awards. Four schools were also recognized as Special Achievement Award winners, 127 as Honor Roll With Distinction members and 391 schools as Honor Roll members. In total, 528 schools were recognized. Only five schools in Florida received this distinction. A full list is available at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll.
