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BSU earns national recognition for community service
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Boise State University was one of several hundred schools across the nation chosen for the first President’s Higher Education Honor Roll for Community Service. Nearly 500 schools were honored for their work with neighborhood cleanup programs, hurricane relief, literacy tutoring for preschool children in underserved communities and mentoring programs for foster children.
The President’s Higher Education Honor Roll is a new program intending to increase public awareness of college students who make a difference in their community through community service. This year the program especially wants to recognize schools that contribute to hurricane relief.
This is the first time Boise State has been recognized for its community service at the national level. In the 2005 to 2006 academic year, more than 1,600 students contributed 35,465 hours of community service through the Service Learning program and the Volunteer Services Board at Boise State.
Students served with agencies such as the Idaho State Veteran’s Home, Catholic Charities of Idaho, Meals on Wheels and Head Start, and their projects included promoting literacy, citizenship and immigration, youth development and empowering and valuing older citizens.
“It’s been a wonderful experience for us. The students were very responsible and reliable,” Marcie Wilske, Parish Social Ministry coordinator for Catholic Charities of Idaho said.
Wilske was hopeful that the student’s involvement would open their eyes to social issues present throughout Idaho.
“It was good for them to see the problems- such as hunger and poverty – that face our community and the state as a whole,” Wilske said.
Toward Hurricane Katrina relief, the VSB donated more than 2,500 hours of service, according to VSB Advisor Mahi Takazawa.
“We had over 600 regular volunteers throughout the year,” Takazawa said.
Services toward hurricane relief included Service Saturdays, blood drives and an Alternative Spring Break trip to Houston to help Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
At the Alternative Spring Break trip, 20 students performed 800 hours of community service for non-profit organizations like the Houston Food Bank and the Houston St. Vincent de Paul.
According to the “College Students Helping America” report, full-time college students and students with part-time jobs are the most likely to volunteer.
The Service Learning program and the VSB share similar goals toward helping the community.
Service Learning’s mission is to enhance learning and foster civic responsibility through academically-based service. The VSB focuses more on student involvement.
The VSB’s mission is to provide volunteer opportunities to students and to educate them about issues in the community that need to be addressed through volunteer work.
“Service Learning is a way that faculty, chairs and college
[students] can become active in the community through their
academic course work and resources,” Service Learning
Director Kara Brascia said.
Student involvement is on the rise both at Boise State and on a national level according to the report “College Students Helping America,” released by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
According to Brascia, two years ago only two percent of graduating seniors took Service Learning classes, whereas during the last academic year that percentage increased to 24 percent.
“There’s a growing interest in community involvement,” Brascia said. “A lot of students get their first community service experience through Service Learning and through that get really turned on to service.”
Thirty-four percent of Service Learning students reported that they wanted to continue volunteering even after they finished their required service for their classes.
Volunteering is an important part of Boise State to the VSB.
“From a student’s perspective, it’s a great way to develop leadership skills,” Takazawa said.
“Some students just want to make a difference, so they do something that’s substantial.
“In the big picture, it’s great for Boise State’s public relations and image. Overall, community service is done so we can alleviate problems because of volunteer help.”
Brascia and Takazawa encourage more students to get involved and do more community service.
“Hopefully, this award will be the first of many national awards,” Brascia said.
The honor roll was announced a day after the Corporation for National and Community Service released its report.
The report portrayed facts compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics and showed that student volunteering rose by approximately 20 percent from 2002 to 2005 and that 3.3 million college students serve
their communities and nation.
The study also reported that college students ages 16 to 24 are more likely to volunteer than individuals within that same range who are not enrolled in a post-secondary form of education.
CASSIE GUTIERREZ
News Writer