Southern New Hampshire University was selected by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for its 2010 Community Engagement Classification. Colleges and universities with an institutional focus on community engagement were invited to apply for the classification, first offered in 2006 as part of an extensive restructuring of The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
SNHUs civic engagement includes service-learning with Manchester school children, raising unprecedented funds for United Way agencies, providing accounting and technical assistance to fledgling not-for-profits, and continuing to assist the Haitian community in the wake of that countrys disasters. University community members have volunteered for several years on Gulf Region rebuilding projects, working in orphanages, as well as bringing technology into township schools in South Africa.
Our learning has local and global impact when we recognize that the community is a living textbook with so much to teach us. Public scholarship and service make education significant, said SNHU Provost, Dr. Patricia Lynott. We are proud that our faculty has, to date, engaged more than 700 students in this kind of active learning. The Carnegie Classification makes us aspire to even greater accomplishments.
SNHUs efforts are led by the collaboration of the universitys Student and Academic Affairs divisions. Sarah Jacobs, representing Student Affairs, is founder and director of the Center for Service and Community Involvement where members of the SNHU community embrace civic engagement, volunteerism and service. University professor Eleanor Dunfey-Freiburger, representing Academic Affairs has, for decades, been a champion for community engagement and works with faculty to shape course work to meet community needs. By creating reciprocal partnerships with the Manchester and the global community we offer students, faculty and staff the opportunity for engaged learning that fosters active citizenship.
In order to be selected, institutions had to provide descriptions and examples of institutionalized practices of community engagement that showed alignment among mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices. SNHU was one of 115 colleges and universities selected.
Carnegie stated that SNHUs application documented excellent alignment among mission, culture, leadership, resources, and practices that support dynamic and noteworthy community engagement, and it was able to respond to the classification framework with both descriptions and examples of exemplary institutionalized practices of community engagement. SNHU also documented and coordinated evidence of community engagement in a coherent and compelling response to the frameworks inquiry.
About Southern New Hampshire University
The university has approximately 2,200 traditional, full-time undergraduate day students and a total annual enrollment in all divisions of 13,000. Programs are offered on campus, online and on location at our centers in New Hampshire and Maine. The university offers programs in business, community economic development, culinary arts, teacher education, hospitality management and liberal arts.
Contact: Gregg Mazzola
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