Posted: Friday, June 5, 2015

The University of Evansville has been named to the 2014 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service and the U.S. Department of Education. This is the fourth time that the University has received this national recognition for its dedication to community service.

The 2014 Honor Roll reflects community service logged between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014, a period when 1,313 UE students performed 24,880 hours of community service.

“Social responsibility is a core goal in the University of Evansville’s strategic plan, so we’re very proud to once again receive national recognition for our commitment to community service,” said UE president Thomas A. Kazee. “We applaud our students for giving their time and energy to make the community a better place.”

The 2014 Community Service Honor Roll highlights three service projects undertaken by UE students: the General Education Social Responsibility program; Fairfield Reservoir and Dam Engineering Project; and the Guatemala Project at Clinica Medicina.

In 2013, UE introduced a General Education Social Responsibility overlay requirement for incoming students, which can be met through the Social Responsibility Certificate program. This program challenges students to recognize community and world needs, and address those needs by planning and/or participating in service projects. In the 2013-14 academic year, 11 students participated in the certificate program. They helped build a Habitat for Humanity house, assisted at a homeless shelter, and worked at Uncharted International, an organization that provides opportunities to the poor. Overall, 620 individuals in Evansville area benefitted from projects completed as a result of this certificate program.

Ten UE civil engineering students and four faculty members, along with a professional engineer, designed a new dam and reservoir in 2013 to address major flooding in Lakeland Park. Located in Fairfield, Illinois, the park was named in honor of a lake constructed in the late nineteenth century and used for recreational purposes. When its earth dam was declared unsafe in 2007 and ordered breached by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the result was increased flooding downstream into Fairfield. Thousands of people were affected and the park’s aquatic ecosystem transitioned into a low quality wetland. The plans for a new dam and reservoir were designed to fix those problems.

In Spring 2014, a group of 14 UE students partnered with Mission Guatemala, a non-profit organization that supports the needs of the poor and indigenous peoples of Guatemala in health, education, and housing. Mission Guatemala runs a medical facility in Guatemala called Clinica Medicina. For this project, students performed in-depth analyses to identify organizational needs, including a marketing and communications plan and the need for a medication inventory control system. The students participated in a multi-disciplinary project of more than 20 hours of work on campus as well as an eight-day immersion experience in Guatemala. In addition to examining strategic aspects of this Indiana-based organization’s operations abroad, the students researched and designed an educational plan to help future teams as they prepare to work for Mission Guatemala.

The Corporation for National and Community Service, which has administered the Honor Roll since 2006, admitted a total of 690 colleges and universities for their impact on issues from literacy and neighborhood revitalization to supporting at-risk youth. CNCS oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the U.S. Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact, and the American Council on Education. 

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