Parkside honored for focus on volunteering, community-based learning

By Journal Times staff

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:55 PM CST

SOMERS - The University of Wisconsin-Parkside has received recognition from the Corporation for National and Community Service for its strong commitment to volunteering and community-based learning. UW-Parkside was named to the 2006 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll announced in October in Washington, D.C.

UW-Parkside had more than 1,300 students participate in community service projects between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006. Fifty-one of these students worked on hurricane relief-related projects, a special focus of the CNCS during the past year. Students contributed in excess of 1,100 hours including organizing the Hurricane Relief Run through Associate Lecturer Mary Waid's Group Communication class and collecting pet supplies to help displaced animals at Racine's HOPE Safehouse through one of Assistant Professor Theresa Castor's classes. Two separate groups of students, one sponsored by Habitat For Humanity and led by Student Support Services Director Chris Zanowski, and one from IMPACT NOW, a national Christian organization, spent spring break 2006 in New Orleans clearing debris and building new housing there.

The university, which serves as headquarters for the Wisconsin Campus Compact, a statewide service organization with more than 30 member universities and colleges, also was honored for five other community service and service-learning projects. These included helping establish the Midwest Campus Compact Citizen-Scholar Fellows program, enabling low-income and/or first generation college students to respond to community issues. The Always Reaching Upward Mentoring Program, run by UW-Parkside's Office of Multicultural Student Affairs and directed by Damian Evans, helped guide first-year college students through the academic year.

Other UW-Parkside programs included in the honor were the Volunteer Center for its coordination of Make a Difference Day and Hunger Cleanup Day. The university ranked fifth in the nation for total student participation in Hunger Cleanup Day. The campus' numerous community-based learning and research projects and its participation in the Upper Midwest Student Civic Leadership program also led to this national honor for UW-Parkside.

"This award recognizes the outstanding efforts by our faculty and staff to ensure that when students leave UW-Parkside they understand their obligation to larger public purposes," said Tom Schnaubelt, the university's Dean for Community Engagement and Civic Learning.

For more information on UW-Parkside's community outreach programs, call Tom Schnaubelt at (262) 595-3340.

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