FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Bill Caldwell, Office of Public Information, Pace University, 212-346-1597, wcaldwell@pace.edu
Note: photos are available of Pace service activities
For Third Year, Pace University is Named to Presidential Honor Roll For Community Service
Raising reading, modifying mice, monitoring munificence
New York, NY, February 23 – For the third year in a row, the Corporation for National and Community Service has honored Pace University with a place on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
The Honor Roll is “the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement,” according to the corporation.
Pace was honored for the scope and innovation of its service projects, the percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent of its academic service-learning courses.
Explaining the University’s commitment, Mary Ann Murphy, Ph.D., the professor of communication studies who directs the Pace Center for Community Outreach, said “We believe thinking about larger social issues benefits the future professionals we educate.”
For example:
• The Pace core curriculum has required public service by all undergraduates since the fall of 2003, earlier than universities like Columbia and Tulane, which the New York Times recently reported are now considering it. In 2008, 1,742 Pace students contributed over 14,000 hours of community work through more than 80 three-credit courses in “Civic Engagement and Public Values.”
• With support from the federal AmeriCorps program, in 2008 72 people, most of them students from Pace and other city colleges, devoted more than 34,000 hours to programs Pace coordinates near its campus in downtown Manhattan. Those in the Community and Volunteer Mobilization program taught English to immigrants and provided training in disaster preparedness, public health and safety, and the use of computers for basic communication; Jumpstart members worked with underprivileged preschoolers to develop literacy and language skills.
• Pace’s School of Education since 2007 has trained nearly 3,860 Teach for America teachers and New York City Teaching Fellows for their work with at-risk students in “high-need” schools.
• The best first-time showing by any higher education institution in the country was turned in last year when Pace student volunteers raised more than $70,000 for the American Cancer Society’s “Relay for Life” event. Dozens of other volunteer activities by Pace student organizations, teams, fraternities, and sororities, some required by their organizational charters, included fielding over 100 students for the “Paint a School” project in New York City and Westchester County.
• Three Pace students recently were chosen for the Lipper Internship Program at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, in which they help public middle and high school students learn about the Holocaust.
• Two Pace double majors, in adolescent education and English and adolescent education and math, modified a computer mouse so it can be used by people with limited sight and limited hand and arm mobility. They were one of four New York State winners of the award for “Academic Service Entrepreneurship” created by the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Foundation, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and administered by the New York state chapter of Campus Compact.
• Because of its activities in the curriculum, outreach, and partnerships, Pace is one of 119 higher education institutions in the US that meet the criteria of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s for classification as a “community engagement” institution.
• Pace is the only multi-campus, comprehensive university participating in Project Pericles, a national organization of 22colleges and universities committed to making socially responsible citizenship an essential part of a college education.
• Pace recently became one of the first US colleges and universities to participate in the Jefferson Awards for public service, annually recognizing not only students but staff and faculty members who do public service.
Red Cross. The Civic Engagement and Public Values courses are one of the strongest components of Pace’s service orientation. This fall they included an economics course in which students evaluated 20 years of trends in giving to the Westchester Chapter of the American Red Cross, a calculus course where student tutored their subject in local schools, and a psychology course in which students and the local Salvation Army created a conference for several hundred people to raise awareness of human trafficking.
The goals of such courses and students who are “involved and responsible” in the community, who “act with informed awareness of contemporary issues in their historical contexts,” who develop leadership abilities, and who “understand and value diversity within American culture.”
Energy pool. “In this time of economic distress… college students represent an enormous pool of idealism and energy to help tackle some of our toughest challenges,” said Stephen Goldsmith, vice chair of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the Honor Roll.
The Corporation collaborates on the Honor Roll project with the federal departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, and the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. The Honor Roll is presented during the annual conference of the American Council on Education. Overall, the Corporation recognized 635 schools in various categories. A full list is at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll
In 2006, 2.8 million college students gave more than 297 million hours of volunteer service, according to a 2007 study of volunteering in America by the Corporation.
The Corporation is a federal agency that administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America. www.nationalservice.gov.
Thinking professionals. For 102 years Pace University has produced thinking professionals by providing high quality professional education resting on a firm base of liberal learning amid the advantages of the New York metropolitan area. A private university, Pace has campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, enrolling nearly 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in its Lubin School of Business, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lienhard School of Nursing, School of Education, School of Law, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. www.pace.edu