Adventist University among Top Five in U.S. President’s Community Service Awards
by Adventist Today News Team
Five universities and colleges across the United States were named to the 2013 United States President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll and one is a Seventh-day Adventist institution, La Sierra University in Riverside, California. This is the highest honor a college or university in the United States can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and humanitarian engagement.
La Sierra received the award for its efforts to improve educational and developmental outcomes for children in low-income communities. At a ceremony in Washington DC last week, university president Dr. Randal Wisbey received the 2013 Presidential Award from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) during the annual meeting of the American Council on Education.
“Service to others is a key part of La Sierra’s mission and indicative of the Christian ethos that drives our work as a learning community,” Wisbey said. “I am humbled by the way in which students, faculty and staff daily live out this value through formal and informal outreach efforts to help people in local and global communities.” The award was presented by Jonathan Greenblatt, special assistant to President Barack Obama, and Wendy Spencer, CEO of CNCS.
Projects in La Sierra’s Promise Neighborhoods initiative included tutoring and mentoring elementary students, fundraising for afterschool programs in the surrounding public school district, and interactive learning experiences created by biology and communication students in the university’s natural history museum. Total service hours, including all local volunteering and overseas student missionary work, included nearly 1,900 students putting in some 85,000 hours last year. For academic Service-Learning classes alone, about 900 La Sierra students provided more than 14,000 hours of service.
The four other 2013 Presidential Award winners were Perimeter College in Georgia, Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, the University of Connecticut, and Nazareth College in New York. A total of 690 higher educational institutions were named this year to the organization’s honor roll.
CNCS, an independent federal agency, has administered the award since 2006 and manages the program in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the American Council on Education and Campus Compact.
This report is based on a story distributed by the Adventist News Network, the official news service of the denomination.
My daughter is a student at La Sierra University and it truly has an ethos of service. How nice to be recognized for this. Could this be a mark of not only orthodoxy, but also orthopraxis?
Not only does the Universit have a strong ethos of service, it also has a strong ethos for academic excellence. What a powerful way to represent our Lord!
Many La Sierra students are undoubtedly children or relatives of medical professionals in the Loma Linda area. How very fine that recent upheavals at the faculty and curriculum levels at La Sierra have not unduly detracted from that culture of service for which the school is now nationally applauded.
Let's not allow the glory of a worldly acclaim blind us to the serious problems that have been unearthed at La Sierra. Good works are not a substitute for a Creationist environment nor for spiritual excellence.
Almost seems to me that while liberals preach against legalism, which is entirely appropriate when warranted, they have their own brand of legalism which appears to indicate service to others is the key to salvation while ignoring obedience to a thus saith the Lord.
Maranatha
How interesting that in the judgment hr., the "sheep" who have reached out to those in need will be praised and rewarded by the king beyond all expectation (and let us pray it does not go to their heads!).
Meanwhile the "goats" who have failed to help others are relegated to a land of abundant climate change and poor dentistry (hell and gnashing teeth) perhaps because they had been too occupied trying to cast out others' demons?
John 12:43 For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
"Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." (Jesus)
Congratulations to LaSierra.
At the same time I am dismayed at how critics of LaSierra take any occasion to put down this institution. It seems whatever LaSierra does – it is wrong. If they adjust the curriculum, they don't mean it; if they accept public funds, they compromise; if they are serving, they do it for the honour they might receive;…. Outrageous allegations – and quite revealing (of what kind of spirit such critics uphold).