For the second year in a row, Catawba College is included on the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The institution is one of more than 700 colleges and universities nationwide recognized for exemplary, innovative, and effective community service programs.
Senior Vice President and Catawba's Director of the Lilly Center for Vocation and Values, Dr. Ken Clapp expressed his pleasure in the College's inclusion in the 2009 Honor Roll. "Getting members of our college community, especially students, to make a commitment to community service is a campus-wide effort," Clapp said. "Our office of Volunteer Catawba helps coordinate volunteer opportunities and provides a central location to match those who are willing to give of themselves with needs in the community. It is especially significant that we have received this recognition for a second year running as that indicates that we are making progress toward our goal of making service a part of our institutional culture."
Clapp pointed out some long-term community service projects of which he was particularly proud, including the annual Harvest Moon Ball where college students spend an evening each fall dancing and socializing with senior adults at a local retirement home. "The students who have been involved in the Harvest Moon Ball are surprised at just how much fun they can have spending an evening with elderly persons with whom they assume they have little in common." Other service projects include work on local Habitat for Humanity builds; volunteering at Rowan Helping Ministries' soup kitchen and overnight shelter; work with the Special Olympics; the annual Duck Draw and its subsequent distribution of Thanksgiving meals to needy families (coordinated by the Office of Student Affairs); participation in creation and collection of the Samaritan Purse shoeboxes which provide Christmas gifts to children in poverty in other countries; and the involvement of many of the college's athletic teams in projects that benefit the community.
Launched in 2006, the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll annually recognizes institutions of higher education for their commitment to and achievement in community service. Inclusion in the Honor Roll is one way to increase public awareness of the contributions that colleges and their students make to local communities and the nation as a whole. Honorees are chosen based on a series of selection factors, including scope and innovation of service project, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning course.
The Corporation for National and Community Service oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact and the American Council on Education. View a complete listing of institutions included on the 2009 Honor Roll.
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