Bunker Hill Community College Earns National Recognition for Service Work
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) students and faculty who “give back” to the community have won national recognition for the College. BHCC was among the higher education institutions named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for their volunteer and service work. The list of Massachusetts winners included Boston University, Brandeis University, Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The Service Honor Roll was established in 2006 by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), inspired by the thousands of college students who traveled across the country to support relief efforts along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. The award highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community problems and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement.
“At BHCC, our faculty brings a community perspective into the classroom, allowing students to think about and take action on real-life challenges facing their neighborhoods,” said Meghan Callaghan, BHCC Coordinator of Community Engagement and Student Volunteerism. “Through BHCC’s Service Learning projects, our students become passionate about volunteering to help others.”
In 2012, more than 600 BHCC students contributed direct service to nonprofit organizations in Greater Boston and 50 faculty members integrated service learning into 75 courses involving approximately 1,800 students. From 2011 to 2012, BHCC students contributed more than 33,000 hours of their time at community centers, food pantries, after-school programs, hospitals, homeless shelters and other nonprofit organizations.
In congratulating the winners, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, “Civic engagement should be a key component of every student’s education experience.
The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through AmeriCorps, SeniorCorps, the Social Innovation Fund and the Volunteer Generation Fund. Other partners include the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Education, the Campus Compact and the American Council on Education.
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About Bunker Hill Community College
Bunker Hill Community College is the largest community college in Massachusetts, enrolling approximately 18,000 students annually. BHCC has two campuses in Charlestown and Chelsea, and a number of other locations throughout the Greater Boston area. BHCC is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in Massachusetts. Sixty-five percent of the students are people of color and more than half of BHCC's students are women. The College also enrolls nearly 600 international students who come from 94 countries and speak more than 75 languages.