Sewanee’s flourishing civic engagement program reaches beyond the Domain to prove that a crucial part of preparing students for success is giving them opportunities to interact meaningfully with the communities and people around them.
Stetson Hatters Against Homelessness
Note: This article appears in the Summer 2018 issue of Stetson University Magazine — the Adventure and Discovery Issue (in mailboxes soon).
Members of the Stetson community helped to establish The Neighborhood Center of West Volusia, which serves the area’s homeless.
Bonner Campus, Edgewood College, Receives Best in Class Award for "All In Challenge"
At the first-ever ALL IN Challenge Awards ceremony to recognize colleges and universities committed to increasing college student voting rates, Edgewood College received two Best in Class Awards.
The College is recognized for having the highest student voting rate among four-year, private institutions category, as well as within the four-year, small, private institution category. Edgewood College also earned a Silver Seal for achieving a student voting rate between 60 and 69 percent.
More than 30 awards were announced at the event that took place at the Knight Conference Center at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
New Bonner Program at University of Nevada - Reno
The University of Nevada, Reno Honors Program has implemented a Bonner Leader Program, developed by the Bonner Foundation, to provide students with financial support and opportunities to engage with their community. The program aims to allow first-generation, underrepresented, and/or low-income students the option of going to college and giving back to their community through service initiatives.
Guilford Attends N.C. Heritage Awards Ceremony
The 2016 North Carolina Heritage Awards recognized traditional backstrap weavers H Ju Nie and H Ngach Rahlan, who are Bonner Center community partners.
Since both Greensboro weavers are elderly, Bonner Center Volunteer Training Coordinator Andrew Young and his wife, Betsy Renfrew, herself a weaving expert, accompanied the artists to the North Carolina Executive Mansion for dinner May 24 with Gov. Pat McCrory, N.C. Department of Natural & Cultural Resources Secretary Susan Kluttz, and N.C. Arts Council Executive Director Wayne Martin.
A Hunger to Help
Not long after Helen Mandalinic ’14 arrived at Guilford in 2010, she began volunteering with the Community Kitchens Project, a program that packages cafeteria leftovers into meals and delivers those meals to the area’s needy.
She quickly realized her passion for service didn’t need to be put on hold for her studies, and her education at Guilford would extend beyond the classroom and the campus.
Public Policy Site Debuts as Resource for Community
People in the Davidson area and beyond who are interested in public policy now have a great new resource, thanks to the college's Bonner Scholars. The Bonner Scholars recently unveiled their latest project–a comprehensive website called PolicyOptions.org focused on bringing together in one place information regarding public policy, policy changes and social services.
Naomi Coffman '16 and Rashaun Bennett '16 are the Bonners primarily responsible for keeping the website up to date.
The project began at Davidson in the fall of 2013. Kristin Booher of the Center for Civic Engagement office encouraged Coffman, along with Zoe Williams '14 and Philip Yu '16, to get involved, and Coffman immediately saw the potential.
Bonner Scholar Develops Saturday Reading Program
Kindergarten student Quentin Larkey rarely missed an opportunity to read books each Saturday morning this semester with Emory & Henry students who volunteered at a children’s reading program at the Glade Spring Library.
His mother, Rachel Larkey, said her son was very excited to attend the reading program each week. “Toward the end of the semester, he was already reading easy readers. It helped him tremendously with his skills.”
Centre's Bonner Program Places First-Year Students
Among the typical fall-term conversations about mid-terms and the upcoming fall break, other important conversations are being had by first-year Bonner students: in particular, where they will be performing up to 2,000 hours of community service in the years ahead.
Centre currently hosts up to 60 Bonner students on campus, each of whom have a specific service site they work at every week. Bonners are dedicated to addressing a variety of social issues, including poverty, diversity, access to education and/or healthcare and community development. Bonners work to solve these problems in the Danville and Boyle County community through eight to 10 hours of community service per week—a hefty commitment when added to demanding course loads and extracurricular activities.
Stetson's VITA Program Celebrates $1 Million in Tax Refunds
Stetson University students who volunteer as income tax preparers for local families, reached a major milestone on the evening of Wednesday, March 9, 2016: $1 million in total tax refunds.
Through the Internal Revenue Service’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program, Stetson students are trained to become IRS-certified tax preparation agents who help prepare and file tax returns for families with an income limit up to $54,000.
After six years of operation, the VITA Program just reached its one-millionth dollar in total tax refunds during the Wednesday night session.
Washington Monthly Rankings Showcase Centre's Commitment to Service
Centre continues to climb the Washington Monthly’s annual rankings of the nation’s top 255 liberal arts colleges, ascending from #36 to #35 and marking its fourth year in a row holding a top-50 spot.
Unlike other ranking systems, which often focus on campus life or academic rigor, Washington Monthly magazine analyzes a college’s “contribution to the public good” in three different categories; as its website states, overall rankings “reflect excellence across the full breadth of our measures” rather than excellence in one category alone.
Students Donate 7,000 Service Hours to Downtown Danville
Service is a major component of the Centre experience, and many students went out of their way recently to give back to the local community.
Students in the Bonner Scholars Program and Centre Action Reaches Everyone (CARE) donated 7,000 hours of service to the downtown area of Danville alone in the calendar year of 2012. With many students eager to give their time and several important agencies just minutes from campus, things come together naturally.
Excavating Community Knowledge
How can you empower racially, ethnically, and linguistically marginalized kids? By teaching them how to research compelling questions in their own communities, says educational studies professor Brian Lozenski.
For five years, Lozenski has been working with youth at a community organization called Network for the Development of Children of African Descent. Each year through a NdCAD program called the Uhuru Youth Scholars Program, about a dozen high school juniors and seniors receive academic credit for conducting research on issues prevalent in their communities.
This semester, for instance, the high school researchers—along with several Macalester Bonner scholars—are exploring ethnic studies programs in Twin Cities schools. Past projects have included policy briefs sent to school districts detailing ways in which they could educate guidance counselors about historically black colleges, and a youth summit looking at the experiences of African American students in Twin Cities schools.
Berea College Selected by Carnegie for 2015 Community Engagement Classification
Full Circle: Guilford Connections with Refugee Communities
Experiential learning through community engagement is a long term investment. Sometimes the payoff takes decades because Guilford College's stewardship is built on the idea that some good things can't be measured by quarterly returns or academic semesters. Bonner Center for Community Service and Learning and its student coordinators and teams of student volunteers have run some community sites for years, long enough for refugee and immigrant children who were tutored by Guilfordians to have grown up ready for college themselves.
Berea College Receives National Recognition
For the fourth consecutive year, Berea College has been selected for the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for engaging its students, faculty and staff in meaningful service that achieves measurable results in the community...CELTS is home to ten student-led community service programs, a Bonner Scholars Program and the academic Service-Learning Program. All of these programs are based on a model of leadership development that provides students with opportunities for training, mentoring fellow students and managing programs themselves. The service programs include mentoring and tutoring programs, Habitat for Humanity, an environmental advocacy program, and a program that serves the Spanish-speaking community, among others. Service-learning courses are taught in more than twenty disciplines across campus. Community partners include non-profit agencies, community-based organizations, and schools.
Lindsey Wilson Bonners Awarded Appalachian Leaders in Education (AppLE Award)
E&H Bonner Scholar Pilots New Study Abroad Program in Ireland
This semester, I have served.
I have served myself by traveling to Ireland, a country I could only dream of before this experience. I have served Emory & Henry College by piloting a new program in partnership with International Partnership for Service Learning (IPSL) that incorporates service-learning into study abroad experiences. More importantly, though, I have been able to serve the Dublin, Ireland, community.
