By Daniel M. Asquino | MWCC President
In December, Mount Wachusett Community College received word from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching that we were one of 119 colleges and universities selected for its 2008 Community Engagement Classification.
This is quite a distinction for our college, and one that could not be possible without the participation and commitment of our students. Therefore, congratulations are in order to all of you who have given so freely of your time and talents to serve others in our communities through volunteerism and through
the service learning projects in your academic courses.
The Carnegie Foundation is an independent policy and research center that was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an Act of Congress, for the purpose of fostering continued improvement in teaching and learning in our country’s schools. The Foundation recently created this new, elective Community Engagement Classification to capture a key component of many institutions’ missions that are not represented in the national data on colleges and universities. In this second round of selection, MWCC was one of just nine community colleges recognized. We were chosen for the combined category of Curriculum Engagement and Outreach and Partnerships, which means we are succeeding in both of the key areas analyzed.
Colleges, like MWCC, elected to participate by submitting documentation describing the nature and extent of our civic engagement. We did not have to look far, for every semester students, faculty and staff are reaching out to help the residents and businesses in our communities in creative and meaningful ways.
Similarly, for the second year in a row, MWCC was has been named to the 2008 President’s Honor Roll, a national honor granted to colleges and universities with exemplary community service activities.
MWCC students are among approximately three million college students who give more than 300 million hours of volunteer service each year in states across the country. It is your efforts that will help lead the way to a brighter future, at a time when the country needs your assistance most.
In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama reiterated his call to service:
“For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies… What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship.”
In the future, whether you are going out on job interviews or applying to transfer to a four-year college or university to continue your education, please emphasize the significance of your involvement. Whether you painted a mural to beautify downtown Gardner, organized a food drive, volunteered at a Habitat for Humanity site, administered flu vaccines to senior citizens or participated in any number of other service projects while a student at MWCC, recognize that it is this type of engagement – this type of initiative – that resulted in your college earning national recognition and answers the call to service being asked of us all.
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