NU honored for community service

Lewiston Porter Sentinel, November 4, 2006

Niagara University has been named to the first President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for distinguished community service. The university was among 141 colleges and universities nationwide selected for the honor either in recognition of extraordinary volunteer efforts to serve area neighborhoods or for their efforts to assist Gulf Coast communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Of the nearly 500 schools named to the honor roll, only 141 were cited for distinguished service.

“Much of the voluntary service our students perform is done quietly and out of public view, so I am pleased to see their efforts rewarded by this prestigious national recognition,” said Dr. Marilynn Fleckenstein, director of the Learn and Serve Niagara, the program that coordinates NU’s service-learning placements.

Last year, approximately 2,100 NU students performed 60,000 hours of community service in schools and other community settings. NU education majors served as tutors in eight different school districts and other students provided voluntary assistance to approximately 50 agencies that provide a variety of human services.

Nationally, 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. A total of 492 institutions, including private and public schools, four-year institutions, professional schools, and community colleges, were named to the first honor roll. Those schools chronicled a broad variety of service programs and activities that have strengthened neighborhoods around them and in the Gulf region.

The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is co-sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service, 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, and supported by all the major national higher education associations.

The Corporation for National and Community Service is working with other federal agencies, higher education and student associations, and nonprofit organizations to encourage even greater levels of service and civic engagement by college students. Their goal is to increase the number of college student participating in volunteer service to 5 million college students annually by 2010.