Messiah College earns place on President’s Honor Roll Award for Service due to its commitment to community engagement and service
February 29th, 2008
GRANTHAM, Pa. (Feb. 29, 2008) — The Corporation for National and Community Service named Messiah College to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll With Distinction for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth. Messiah College is one of only seven colleges in Pennsylvania recognized with this honor.
“Messiah College is deeply committed to engaging its students in the transformative experiences of service-learning,” says President Kim S. Phipps. “Placement on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll recognizes the many hours that more than 400 Messiah College students spend in local community service each week.”
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.
In addition to an increasing number of service-learning classes offered across the curriculum, more than one quarter of Messiah College’s student body participates in some form of local community service through various programs in area after school programming, urban farming, tutoring, mentoring, creative arts teams and special needs outreach. Students have the opportunity to serve alongside faculty and staff of the college three times a year through Into the Streets, Dr. King Community Engagement Day, and Service Day. Many students are inspired to continue their service past these one-time events to partner longer term with nearly 40 partnering organizations in the community throughout the academic year.
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.
In congratulating the winners, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said, “Americans rely on our higher education system to prepare students for citizenship and the workforce. We look to institutions like Messiah College to provide leadership in partnering with local schools to shape the civic, democratic and economic future of our country.”
Overall, the Community Service Honor Roll awarded six schools with Presidential Awards. In addition, four schools were 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. A full list is available at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll.
Messiah College, a private Christian college of the liberal and applied arts and sciences, enrolls 2,800 undergraduate students in 55 majors. Established in 1909, the primary campus is located in Grantham, Pa., near the state capital of Harrisburg. A satellite campus affiliated with Temple University is located in Philadelphia.