UW-Superior earns high rankings in 2014 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) recently announced the 2014 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, honoring colleges and universities for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning, and civic engagement and the University of Wisconsin-Superior was among a select group of schools honored on the Honor Roll.
“Service and higher education go hand in hand,” said Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “These schools are inspiring young leaders to roll up their sleeves and work alongside community members to solve problems. By recognizing the institutions who are leading the way to achieve meaningful, measurable results for the communities they serve, we also highlight the vital role all colleges and universities play in addressing community challenges and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement.”
UW-Superior was the only university or college in the region that earned this achievement and it marked the first time the university was honored.
Jenice Meyer is the coordinator for the Center for Academic Service-Learning program at UW-Superior and is proud the program has been recognized with this prestigious honor for helping both the students and the community. “Receiving the Presidents Higher Education Community Service Honor recognition reflects UW-Superior’s deep commitment to achieving meaningful outcomes in our community. As our new mission, vision, and values statement express, we are committed to community partnerships and meeting the needs of our region.”
AS-L DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE
According to Meyer, during the 2012-13 service period, recognized in the award, CAS-L involvement included 75 course sections, 1,388 students, 42 professors, and 90 community service partners. When paired with other forms of community service, such as volunteering and internships, a total of 2,263 students donated 58,996 hours of involvement in the Twin Ports area.
UW-Superior Chancellor Renee Wachter said enriching opportunities for students and the community is at the core of what the university has been about since starting back in 1893. “Academic Service-Learning demonstrates our goal of sustaining partnerships with community members.” She added that AS-L is a key part of the new strategic plan. “UW-Superior has renewed its commitment to building awareness of and contributing to local community initiatives and strives to the community’s “university of choice” for knowledge, resources and support.”
UW-Superior uses academic strengths to meet the plethora of Superior and Douglas County’s community-identified needs. CAS-L now partners with over 140 agencies (including school districts, non-profits, after-school programs, government agencies, small businesses, and advocacy groups) to help live their missions and meet their most urgent needs. In the 2012-13 academic year, UW-Superior students gave 58,996 hours of community service, an economic contribution of over $1 million. Beyond this, the value added to the community and students’ lives is unquantifiable. To ensure that UW-Superior provides high quality and necessary services, CAS-L assesses the effectiveness of partnerships from both the student and agency perspective at the end of each semester.
UW-Superior Distance Learning students throughout the country also take part in community service programs in their respective areas. Robert MacKenzie is a AS-L student in the Distance Learning class with professor Beth Austin and he said about his project, “This experience showed me that when there are several students that are working together for a common goal of improving their community and simultaneously supporting their learning through group work, there is a very deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.”
CAMPUS INVOLVEMENT WITH CAS-L
Founded in 2009, CAS-L fosters a culture of service and is the touchstone for community engagement on campus. CAS-L enriches UW-Superior’s mission and provides opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to engage in community service. All of UW-Superior’s academic departments, representing 25 disciplines, utilize AS-L within their course offerings. The breadth of offerings means that, annually, over 40 percent of UW-Superior’s student body participates in community service.
UW-Superior’s commitment to community service extends beyond the classroom through a myriad of opportunities offered as extracurricular activities, and the university’s commitment to community needs fosters a campus culture of service among students, faculty, and staff. For example, every January the campus mobilizes to improve childhood literacy and to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Students, faculty, staff, and community members unaffiliated with UW-Superior unite to instill an appreciation of a diverse and peaceful community through reading.
AS-L is a credit bearing, educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and reflects on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility. AS-L is not only a form of experiential learning, but community-based learning. The AS-L initiative aims to make UW-Superior a regional leader in Academic Service-Learning, thus providing a distinctively public quality to UW-Superior’s liberal arts mission.
The three AS-L projects that were spotlighted in the Honor Roll were:
- Early childhood literacy in Superior
- Douglas County Health needs
- How UW-Superior is integrating AS-L throughout the curriculum to meet varied community needs
Meyer said the commitment to community is the key to the project. “Equally important, the mutually beneficial partnerships that we develop with the community provide real-world, hands-on learning experiences for our students-experiences that will set them apart: as citizens within their communities, in graduate school applications, and from their peers within their career.”
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS BENEFIT
One of the many partners that benefit from the UW-Superior CAS-L program is the United Way of Superior-Douglas-County. Kathleen Madsen is the executive director of the organization and said her agency is committed to working with UW-Superior into the future. “As a community partner, I am amazed at the strength, diversity and knowledge that UW-Superior students bring to the United Way.” Madsen has a limited staff and budget but working with UW-Superior allows her organization to expand their reach. “The students are able to practice what they are learning in the classroom in a real-life situation and it greatly benefits our organization-this is truly a win-win partnership I would recommend to anyone.”
One of the projects that is a priority between the United Way and UW-Superior is Early Childhood Literacy. The Superior Childhood Literacy Alliance (SCLA) is a community-driven early childhood literacy and kindergarten readiness project that seeks to ensure all students in Superior read at grade-level. SCLA collaborates with elementary schools, daycares, nonprofits, after school programs, parent-teacher organizations, and libraries. SCLA programming runs throughout the calendar year to improve childhood literacy in Superior and Douglas County for Pre-Kindergarten and elementary children from low-income families. The goal of the SCLA is ambitious: to eliminate the current regional literacy gap.
Meyer is passionate about the AS-L program and wants to make sure it continues to make a difference in the lives of the college students. “We believe in those learning experiences where our students are applying what they are learning in the classroom to meet genuine needs in the community. It is part of our liberal arts mission of the university and a great demonstration of what we do as a campus and sets us apart from other schools.” This progressive learning approach makes Superior a special place to learn she said. “This is part of who we are and is something we actually do and take very seriously.”
To learn more, or find out how your organization can connect with the UW-Superior Center for AS-Learning contact: (715) 394-8518 or email at casl@uwsuper.edu
CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
In addition to the Presidential Award winners, a total of 766 higher education institutions were named to the 2014 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. Of this number, 16 were named as finalists with four in each category. Inspired by the thousands of college students who traveled across the country to support relief efforts along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community challenges. As a result, more students are likely to pursue a lifelong path of civic engagement that achieves meaningful and measurable outcomes in their communities. Learn more here:
President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll
CNCS, the federal agency for volunteering and service, has administered the award since 2006 in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as the American Council on Education, Campus Compact, and the Interfaith Youth Core.
College students make a significant contribution to their communities through volunteering and service, according to the most recent Volunteering and Civic Life in America report. In 2012, 3.1 million college students dedicated more than 118 million hours of service across the country -a contribution valued at $2.5 billion.
The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Social Innovation Fund, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, and leads the President’s national call to service initiative, United We Serve. For more information, visit: NationalService.gov
News Contact: Tom Hansen | 715-394-8260 | thansen7@uwsuper.edu
