North Central College named to Presidential Honor Roll for Community Service

North Central College has been named to the 2014 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) recognizes higher education institutions that reflect the values of exemplary community service and achieve significant outcomes. North Central College was honored for engaging students, faculty and staff in meaningful service that achieves measurable results in the community.

“The College’s ongoing commitment to community service continues to reinforce our mission by teaching our students the invaluable lessons of considering and serving others,” says Brian Rainville, North Central College’s director of ministry and service. “The practice of becoming informed, involved, principled and productive citizens in their educational endeavors finds incredible relevance and significant points of application in these service experiences. These opportunities can truly be life-changing.”
 
North Central College’s community service opportunities are coordinated by the College’s Office of Ministry and Service. Last year, 1,060 students, staff and faculty contributed nearly 26,000 hours of community service. The projects included:

·    Junior/Senior Scholars, which directly serves more than 200 K-12 students and indirectly serves an additional 4,000 low-income students at schools in Chicago and Aurora through tutoring, after-school study groups, field trips, weekend retreats and summer programs.
·    Enactus, an international organization that connects student, academic and business leaders through entrepreneurial-based projects.
·    BreakAway, a student organization that coordinates national and international service trips where students serve orphans, build and repair homes and engage in meaningful cultural dialogue during college breaks.

Additional organizations benefiting from the service of North Central College students include World Relief Tutoring, Circle K International and Naperville-based Little Friends. Service hours also were spent gathering food for distribution centers, teaching English as a second language to refugee students and visiting residents in an assisted living community.

The President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll was launched in 2006 and annually highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community problems and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement by recognizing institutions that achieve meaningful, measureable outcomes in the communities they serve. Institutions are recognized in four categories: General Community Service, Interfaith Community Service, Economic Opportunity and Education. North Central College was recognized in the General Community Service category, which acknowledges institutions that have made a commitment to improving the quality of life of off-campus community residents, particularly low-income individuals.

CNCS oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the U.S. Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact and the American Council on Education. Honorees are chosen based on a series of selection factors, including the scope and innovation of service projects, the extent to which service-learning is embedded in the curriculum, the school’s commitment to long-term campus-community partnerships, and measurable community outcomes as a result of the service. Visit NationalService.gov/HonorRoll to learn more.