The center’s mission is to lead the University’s engagement efforts and service to the state of North Carolina and beyond by linking the expertise and energy of faculty, staff, and students to the needs of the people.

In all our work, the Carolina Center for Public Service seeks to build partnerships throughout the University and the state as we:

– Advance the quality and sustainability of efforts through effective practices
– Recognize and celebrate exemplary service
– Share information, strategies, and outcomes of UNC s service endeavors
– Facilitate community-based scholarship in addressing community issues

As the first public university, Carolina has a proud history of changing lives through educating scholars and leaders dedicated to forging a brighter future for our state, nation and the world. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is committed to expanding its tradition of engagement and responsiveness through the Carolina Center for Public Service.

The center provides a number of programs and services for students, faculty, staff, and the public, including: awards, service fellowships, trainings, and enrichment programs for students; grants and awards for student organizations; trainings, awards, and grants for faculty; an online searchable database of University engagement activities; a weekly listserv of service opportunities; an annual volunteer fair of community agencies; and an annual “”Bus Tour”" of the state for new faculty and administrators.

For more information, visit our webpage: www.unc.edu/cps/

Contact:
Lynn Blanchard, Director
Carolina Center for Public Service
(919)843-7568, ccps {at} unc(.)edu

This is an example of a true community partnership. In Fall 1999, outgoing President Randolph asked the college to identify a project that would involve our “”GateWay Family”" (our entire campus community). About that time, we received a call from the principal of our neighboring elementary school asking us to consider becoming community consultants to deliver the Junior Achievement curriculum to all classrooms at her school. Junior Achievement s mission of teaching children to value themselves, others, their education, and the American free enterprise system aligned perfectly with the the goals of our service-learning program. A representative from Junior Achievement met with our Service-learning Committee, a interdisciplinary group charged with overseeing service-learning activities on our campus and making related recommendations to the administration, to explain the program. The committee embraced the project and recommended to President Randolph that this would be our all campus spring project.

In January, President Randolph was reassigned to the MCCD District office as Acting Vice-Chancellor for Quality and Employee Development. Acting President Gaudet made the suggestion that we form teams of GWCC personnel and service-learning students. The call went out from President Gaudet and volunteers from all divisions came forward. While all volunteers saw the project as a way to fill an unmet need for an inner city school, faculty viewed it as an opportunity to partner with their students, students saw the project as a way to interact more informally with campus personnel and administrators had an opportunity to interact more with students. In less than two weeks, all 24 classes were assigned. President Gaudet volunteered to be consultant to an 8th grade class. (As an extension activity, he and the nursing faculty member who was the consultant to the other grade class, sponsored Career Awareness visit to the campus for the 8th grade students and their parents. Thirty-five participants spent three hours at the campus completing computer based career assessments and touring the campus.)

A core team with faculty representation from each instructional division and the Director of Community Partnership Programs participated in a training workshop with the teachers from the elementary school and went through a Junior Achievement provided train-the-consultant workshop. Team members in turn provided training to campus volunteers. During the next three months, teams made 6-8 visits to their assigned classrooms to deliver the citizenship lessons. The evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive and about 75% of the consultants have asked to participate next year.

Our campus has decided to continue the project. Ideally, children who spend their K-8 years at Crockett Elementary will have nine years of citizenship and stay in school messages. We also see it as an opportunity to informally mentor our future civic leaders and our future GateWay students. We are certain that there will be additional related service-learning opportunities at the school.

Website: www.gwc.maricopa.edu/partnerships

Faculty, Student, Community Involvement in Service-Learning:
Service-learning has become an integral and widespread teaching-learning strategy at the college that involves more than 100 faculty and 3,000 students each year. These students contribute, on average, more than 60,000 hours of service to several hundred community agencies. Extensive training is offered to both college faculty and community partners to ensure program effectiveness.

Contact: Joshua Young, College-Wide Director, Center for Community Involvement, jyoung {at} mdcc(.)edu

CCI web site: www.mdcc.edu/cci/

For many years FSU has worked well with the school district to achieve their mutual agenda. The new agreement sets forth a “”professional development schools network”" with the intent of reforming schools, developing exemplary models for teacher and administrator preservice and inservice education, and achieving the highest quality educational results. Through the implementation of this partnership special attention and resources will be focused on the southside schools, most of which are in neighborhoods nearby the campus and most of which are lower achieving than other schools in the district.

The collaboration is managed by a highly experienced former principal reporting to the provost and is overseen by a steering committee comprised of the university presidents, superintendent, education and arts and science deans. Advice is provided by two committees broadly representing interests and disciplines: the professional development school committee and the outreach advisory committee. A needs assessment undertaken among the southside school administrators provided important guidance for the new initiative.

Early projects include establishing professional development school relationships among the College of Arts and Science, the Colleges of Education, and several “”high needs”" elementary and middle schools which focus on reading and literacy. Technology training is being provided by the university this summer to support these efforts. Several joint proposals have been written to provide resources to support the work of the partnership.

One visible example of the partnership is the mentoring program through which faculty and staff have committed to working with youngsters in southside schools. Both the FSU president and the LCS superintendent have chosen to mentor to demonstrate their support for the program.

For further information contact Dr. Laura Hassler, K-12 Initiatives Director or go to http://www.fsu.edu/~k12.

Now is the time to extend these prodigious benefits of community service to another key constituent of the college – its employees! Several businesses and organizations have developed creative and far-reaching projects to help the community and their employees through systemic efforts for service to the community. Chrysler Corporation, Levi-Strauss, the former NCNB Bank, Timberland, and the Body Shop are good examples of business commitments to helping surrounding communities and workforces.

Brevard Community College is in an advantageous position to do likewise. Our name is community; our students are models of citizen participation; our closeness to community is evident through many initiatives across the institution. We have the apparatus in place to logistically coordinate and support a significant project. BCC employees have the opportunity to volunteer at Center for Service-Learning specified service sites for 1 1/2 hours per week in lieu of the 1 1/2 hours presently allowed for exercise. All sites would be selected by the CSL, taking into consideration city need and possible positive impact on the employee. Service hours would be documented on appropriate forms, and all employees would inform their direct supervisors when they would be serving their community.

This opportunity is a real catalyst to demonstrate that BCC cares enough to commit resources to the most important resources that we have – our community and its citizens. The project would be a definitive statement of the seamless web of mutuality, which binds all of us. If the community becomes healthier, the College benefits likewise!

During a time when colleges and universities across the country are pondering about what an engaged institution should be, and are talking about becoming community citizens. Brevard Community College will be a more committed institution for civic and personal development.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Contact person: Annie Cahill, Director, Community Partnerships and Service Learning, Annie.Cahill.19 {at} nd(.)edu

Web site: <""http://centerforsocialconcerns.nd.edu/sub_community.html"" target=""_Model"">http://centerforsocialconcerns.nd.edu/sub_community.html

The mayor obliged this unusual request, and identified twelve Brainerd residents. Central Lakes staff promptly contacted these residents and invited them onto campus, where they met and watched a brief film about asset-based community development. That night, inspired by the film and the discussion that followed, the group of twelve voted unanimously to form a residents association. With that, SEBRA South-East Brainerd Residents Association was born.

South-East Brainerd is the oldest part of Brainerd. Few residents own their own homes, incomes are low, and crime is high. In 1995, most neighbors didn t know one another, and there was little communal activity. Working with the college, SEBRA set out to change all that. The result is a neighborhood transformed not in grand ways that will put Brainerd on the map, but in small ways that highlight the vitality of human relationships. SEBRA began holding monthly meetings, which now bring together 65 or more community members each month. The association began printing a quarterly community newsletter, which Central Lakes work-study students help to write and distribute. They established an annual neighborhood clean-up day, which brings the whole neighborhood together once a year.

Students in a sociology class helped the neighborhood to develop an asset map, documenting residents skills and talents, which they can use to exchange services. The association brought in the local police to conduct crime prevention workshops in the neighborhood, and residents have volunteered their homes as safe houses for youth on the way home from school. Students from Central Lakes published oral histories of the community based on interviews with elderly residents.

Community members report that since the founding of the association three years ago, they know more of their neighbors, speak out more frequently, and find the town cleaner and safer. Indeed, since 1995 crime in the neighborhood is down 40%. Since that pivotal day three years ago, Central Lakes has played an integral role in the community. It has furnished Brainerd residents with the tools for reform, and manpower in the form of students and faculty to help facilitate their efforts. But perhaps the greatest contribution of college constituents has been their insistence that the association set its own agenda, and mine the resources of its own community, so that residents can accomplish change on their own. We know we ve done our job well, staff at the college s community service office explain, when we re no longer needed. Even if they say they are no longer needed, Central Lakes students, faculty, and staff continue to share ideas, advice, and work with the neighborhood. Through the relationships they have built, they have done more than serve South-East Brainerd; they have become a part of it.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Nominations
1) To nominate an individual, completion of a nomination form is required. The nomination form asks for the following information:

Nominee s Name and Dept./Address.
Volunteer Service: Community/State/Regional/National level
Describe Nominee s active involvement in:
- Professional Organizations
- MSU-Billings
- Community Organizations

Describe how this volunteer service and/or involvement benefits the Community.
Describe how nominee s service and/or involvement has enhanced the image of MSU-Billings public relations.
Describe, if applicable, any honors received on behalf of nominee s community service.

2) A maximum of three single-page letters of support per nominee will be accepted.

3) The nominee will be notified and asked to complete an information form. The information form asks for a description of the following items:

A list of community service activities for the last three years (minimum).
Length of participation in each activity.
Type of involvement (i.e., office held, committee involvement, description of speaking engagement, etc.).

The nominee must indicate if remuneration has been received for community service activity.

Selection of Award Recipient
A Recommendation Committee consisting of six MSU-Billings staff employees representing the six Campus units will evaluate each nomination. The six Campus units include: Administrative Services, Student Affairs, College of Arts & Sciences, College of Technology, College of Education & Human Services, and the College of Business.

All criteria will be addressed, reflecting the outstanding characteristics displayed by the nominee. Significant activities, accomplishments, achievements, and contributions, which are worthy of recognition, should be identified. The committee reviews the letters of support submitted with the nomination.

Staff Appreciation Reception
All staff recognition awards are presented at an annual reception that also honors staff for years of service. The recipient for the Community Service Award receives a plaque and a cash award. The cash award amount varies each year depending on the total number of award recipients across all categories.

See their web site for more information.

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