Schools
Montco Community College Wins 4th Straight National Higher Ed Honor
"Learn and Serve America" honors colleges across the country for community service.
For continued excellence in community service, Montgomery County Community College has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, an honor given annually by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
It was the fourth consecutive year MCCC made this list. Two other Montgomery County colleges—Ursinus and Gwynedd-Mercy—were also honored.
In 2010, 2,385 MCCC students engaged in more than 6,154 hours of curricular and
co-curricular service-learning initiatives, with 56 students engaged in 20 hours or
more of service each, according to MCCC. Throughout the year, members of student clubs and organizations worked with dozens of community partners, including the American Red Cross, Impact Thrift Stores, Manna on Main Street and the American Cancer Society.
Community service is “threaded throughout institutional framework, it’s incorporated into academics, co-curricular opportunities, athletics and in our strategic goals, in particular our goal to ‘Extend Community and Strategic Partnerships,’” said Jenna M. Meehan-Klaus, MCCC's coordinator of civic engagement and student leadership, in an email.
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Instilling the importance of students giving their time and talents to volunteer in the community where they live was especially important, Meehan-Klaus added, noting that most MCCC students remain living and working in Montgomery County after graduating.
Medical lab technicians and nursing students providing free health screenings and assisting with a weekend dental hygiene program are typical of some of the students work, Meehan-Klaus said.
Other projects throughout the year included service during National
Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of
Service, “Think Pink” for Breast Cancer, and the National Campus Sustainability
and Earth days. Seven students and staff spent a combined 210 hours
working with Habitat for Humanity in Virginia during spring break.
According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, college
students make a significant contribution to the volunteer sector. In 2009, 3.2
million students performed more than 307 million hours of service.
The corporation oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of
Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact
and the American Council on Education.
