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USF Makes President's Honor Roll For Service
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USF student Joeline Navarro (right) helps St. Anthony Foundation staff member Stephanie Wong prepare food in the homeless shelter's dining room. |
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For the second year running, the University of San Francisco has been named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll With Distinction for exemplary service and assistance to disadvantaged youth.
Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal distinction that a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees are chosen based on a series of factors, including the scope and innovativeness of service projects, percentage of students participating in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.
"College students like those at the University of San Francisco are tackling the toughest problems in America, demonstrating their compassion, commitment, and creativity by serving as mentors, tutors, health workers, and even engineers," said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, an independent federal agency under the president's purview.
The Honor Roll is jointly sponsored by the Corporation, the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, USA Freedom Corps, and the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation.
USF was again among the top 127 schools to be cited as an Honor Roll With Distinction winner, chosen from among a total 528 schools recognized for service learning. "This external validation of USF's long standing efforts to link academic excellence with service to the larger community is a source of pride for faculty and staff who have worked to implement the service-learning requirement of our core curriculum as well as promote immersion learning experiences in developing countries," said USF President Stephen A. Privett. S.J.
Singled out for the same distinction a year ago, USF had 3,428 students participate in service learning in both 2005-06 and 2006-07. Overall USF student participation in community service per hour has increased about eight percent to about 199,900 service hours since 2001-2002, said Alan Ziajka, USF special assistant to the president.
USF's service programs go beyond helping to feed the homeless and tutor children in school, to include law faculty and students working with developing nations to restructure their legal systems, computer science faculty and students striving to bridge the digital divide by funding and setting up computer labs in disadvantaged schools at home and abroad, and nursing instructors and students working to reduce infant mortality rates in Guatemala.
Being recognized along side such high achievers as Stanford and Georgetown universities means USF must continue to invest in these programs to keep pace, said Julie Reed, director for the Office of Service Learning and Community Action. "It's a tremendous honor and, I think, appropriate recognition of the work we're doing in service-learning and university wide," she said. "But, we can't rest on our laurels, because the company we're keeping is so impressive." 
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