Virginia Tech is being recognized for its commitment to community service, a commitment that was prevalent even before the university launched its VT Engage initiative last fall.
Earlier this month, Tech was named to the 2006-2007 President's Honor Roll with Distinction for the school's service efforts by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The award is also handed out in conjunction with several other government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education.
"Americans rely on our higher education system to prepare students for citizenship and the workforce," said U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling in a statement announcing the awards. "We look to institutions like these to provide leadership in partnering with local schools to shape the civic, democratic, and economic future of our country."
The community service honor roll was begun in 2006 as a way as a way for the federal organization to recognize university achievements in service efforts and civic engagement. Those schools given the honor were judged based on a series of criteria involving everything from the integration of service into the community to service-learning.
"We showed a high number of service hours completed," said Michele James-Deramo, director of Tech's Service-Learning Center, who submitted Tech's application to the corporation. "In our application, we indicated that 11,021 students were engaged in service of any kind, almost 50 percent of the student body. That is a really good percentage of service."
Besides a large participation from the student body, James-Deramo estimated based on surveying different groups around campus that the total number of service hours completed by Tech was close to 142,893 hours. However, James-Deramo said that estimation may even be far less than the total.
The selection process involves schools submitting applications that are based on a standard set of criteria, along with one particular area that is highlighted every year.
"What you do is that you have some basic questions they give you, then they ask you to give up to five examples of general community service, and five in a specific area," Deramo said.
This year, the committee in charge of the honor roll chose to highlight the service area of at-risk students. Deramo said the application she submitted detailed Tech's work with Big Brothers/ Big Sisters: Crossing the Border, an outreach program that works with local Latino families and their children to offer assistance with teaching and learning, and Engineers without Borders.
James-Deramo said that Tech's application was submitted before the initiation of the VT Engage program.
Tech's award is the second-highest offered by the Corporation, falling in the Honor Roll with Distinction category. Annually, six universities will be named to with Presidential Honors, the highest award given by the Corporation.
"I'm hoping that next year, since we instituted VT Engage, we'll be one of the school that get a Presidential Award, we'll get even higher honors," James-Deramo said. "This award demonstrates that we have an infrastructure in place that supports student engagement and student volunteerism."
Aside from VT Engage, Tech's Service-Learning Center strives to make it easy for students to integrate service into their busy schedules.
"Students don't have to give up volunteering because they have a heavy course load, or need to put other priorities first," James-Deramo said of the service-learning program.