Contact: Harriet Laird
STARKVILLE, Miss.--For the second consecutive year, Mississippi State is a selection for the President's Higher Education Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition for an institution of higher learning's commitment to volunteerism, service learning and civic engagement.
Awarded recently by the Corporation for National and Community Service, an independent Washington, D.C.-based agency, the land-grant university's latest honor recognizes an estimated 123,700 hours of community service clocked by more than 5,200 student, faculty and staff volunteers during the 2008-09 fiscal year.
The contributed work hours also came from high school students in a range of MSU-affiliated programs.
"Being named to the President's Higher Education Honor Roll confirms the wonderful work our students are doing in local communities," observed university President Mark E. Keenum. "They have put forth significant effort to confront social needs and make a difference in the lives of others."
Patrick Covington, CEO of the corporation, extended his congratulations to Keenum and the campus community "for its dedication to service and commitment."
"Our nation's students are a critical part of the equation and vital to our efforts to tackle the most persistent challenges we face," Covington said. "They have achieved impactful results and demonstrated the value of putting knowledge into practice to help renew America through service," he said.
Inclusion on the honor roll is based on a series of factors, including the scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of participating students, service incentives, and the extent to which the institution offers academic service learning courses.
Among major projects by Service DAWGS, the MSU student-led community service organization, was the first-ever Maroon Edition Habitat for Humanity House. The construction project was designed as a service-learning component of Maroon Edition, a campus-wide reading program focusing on new freshmen.
With MSU alumnus John Grisham's book "The Painted House" as the reading component, Service DAWGS participants joined with Starkville Habitat for Humanity volunteers to build a home for a local family.
This was the first major Mississippi State academic project intentionally tied to a service project, said Service DAWGS adviser April Heiselt.
"The project provided a wonderful way for students, as well as the entire university family, to be a part of improving our community, while changing the lives of a needy family," the assistant professor of counseling and educational psychology said.
Last year, more than three million students performed more than 300 million service hours nationally, according to the Volunteering in America study released by the CNCS.
The corporation oversees the annual honor roll, in collaboration with the U.S. departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, along with Campus Compact and the American Council on Education.
With headquarters in Boston, Mass., Campus Compact is a coalition involving more than 1,100 university and colleges. Representing some six million students, it works to promote community service, civic engagement and service-learning in higher education.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information on the MSU program, contact Dr. Heiselt at 662-325-7919 or aheiselt@colleged.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.