STATEN ISLAND, N.Y., Feb. 12, 2008 — The Corporation for National and Community Service on Monday named Wagner College to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth.

            The college was also named to last year’s inaugural Community Service Honor Roll.

            “We’re honored by this kind of recognition from the White House,” said Wagner College President Richard Guarasci. “It highlights our commitment to community service and civic engagement, core values in the Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts.”

            Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees for the award were chosen based on a series of selection factors, including scope and innovativeness of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

            Wagner College students were recognized for investing 80,000 hours each year in a wide variety of general and special-focus community activities, including:

• Up ’Til Dawn, an annual student letter-writing campaign that raises funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital;
• A day-long anti-smoking “teach-in” by nursing students at the George Egbert Intermediate School on Staten Island, and
• Ongoing work with the Liberian community on Staten Island, including tutoring at the Park Hill Liberian Youth Center and a beautification project at the African Refuge Center.

            “College students like those at Wagner College are tackling the toughest problems in America, demonstrating their compassion, commitment, and creativity in by serving as mentors, tutors, health workers, and even engineers,” said David Eisner, chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “They represent a renewed spirit of civic engagement fostered by outstanding leadership on caring campuses.”

            The Honor Roll is jointly sponsored by the Corporation, through its Learn and Serve America program, and the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, USA Freedom Corps, and the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation.

            In congratulating the winners, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said, “Americans rely on our higher education system to prepare students for citizenship and the workforce. 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.”

            “There is no question that the universities and colleges who have made an effort to participate and win the Honor Roll award are themselves being rewarded,” said American Council on Education President David Ward. “Earning this distinction is not easy. But now each of these schools will be able to wear this award like a badge of honor.”

            The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. The corporation administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America, a program that supports service-learning in schools, institutions of higher education and community-based organizations.