Millikin named to President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll

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[January 05, 2015]  DECATUR  – The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) has named Millikin University to the 2014 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll in the General Community Service category. The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll honors the nation’s leading higher education institutions and their students, faculty and staff for their commitment to bettering their communities through service.

The Honor Roll is part of the Corporation for National and Community Service’s strategic commitment to engage millions of college students in service and celebrate the critical role of higher education in strengthening communities.

“Millikin University has long been committed to community service as an essential component of our educational mission,” said Millikin University President Dr. Patrick E. White. “As our mission states, Millikin students, faculty, staff, and alumni are committed to performing democratic citizenship in a global environment and acting out lives of meaning and value. Millikin is proud to be named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.”

More than 760 higher education institutions were named to the 2014 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. CNCS 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.

During the 2012-2013 academic year, Millikin students engaged in 148,416 hours of service to the community, this includes service from curricular and co-curricular programs. Millikin was recognized for the following initiatives.

This past academic year, approximately 500 Millikin first-year students completed a variety of service projects, beginning with participation in the local United Way’s Day of Action during Millikin’s First Week program.

Many classes developed a semester project that related to a course topic and collaborated with a community partner. Projects included: tutoring at after school programs and in elementary schools, working with seniors in nursing homes, a theatre production for kindergarten students, serving the Illinois Raptor Center, participating in the Decatur Community Food Drive, increasing the adoptability of dogs at an animal shelter, and many more.

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One of the standout service-learning projects this past year was with Dennis Elementary School, a Decatur Public School near Millikin’s campus which is now a Millikin Lab School. Millikin provided land to help the school start an organic garden. The “learning garden” has become a great opportunity for Millikin students to work alongside students in grades K-6 to make the garden a success.

Numerous Millikin traditions and events include service components such as Homecoming, Greek Week, and Fall Family Weekend. Service components are also included in Millikin’s residential learning communities where students participate in at least 10 hours of service a semester. Millikin’s athletic teams also volunteer in the Decatur community, primarily working with Special Olympics and the Good Samaritan Inn soup kitchen, and also serving in other ways that meet community needs.

President White added, “This recognition affirms what we long have performed. Millikin faculty, staff, alumni and students are committed to serving the Decatur and Macon County community, the vitality of which depends on imagination, service, and hard work by all of us.”

The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, the Social Innovation Fund, and Volunteer Generation Fund, and leads President Obama’s national call to service initiative, United We Serve. Through the agency’s Segal AmeriCorps Education Award Matching Program, CNCS gives education institutions access to tens of thousands of AmeriCorps alumni with millions of dollars in Segal Education Awards for tuitions and fees.

For more information, visit NationalService.gov. 

[Millikin University]

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