ACU made the honor roll. For the third consecutive year, ACU was included on the Corporation for National and Community Service’s President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
Nancy Coburn, director of Service-Learning and Volunteer Resources in the Center for Christian Service and Leadership, said the honor roll is the CNCS’s way of recognizing service and service learning in higher education. This year, it honored more than 700 universities across the country.
“It’s really an acknowledgement to higher education’s commitment to making a difference in community,” Coburn said.
For decades, many institutions of higher education strayed from their original goal of partnering with their local community to make a difference, she said, but during the last 15-20 years, they have started returning to their original purpose.
ACU was not honored for one specific service but for all the service it does throughout the world, Coburn said. ACU students are involved in international missions during breaks; study abroad programs and on-campus courses with a service-learning component; and a full range of volunteer opportunities such as Habitat for Humanity, International Justice Mission, Service Action Leadership Team, social club service projects and departmental student organizations that engage in service.
“There’s more than we even have a handle on or a list of in this office,” Coburn said. “There is just so much that happens.”
Involvement in service is important not only by worldly standards; it is at the core of the Christian identity, she said.
“Our role in higher education is to really help students figure out who they are as a whole – not just to provide education they need for a vocation,” Coburn said. “For us to not do that as a Christian institution would be wrong.”
Kate Huggins, SALT officer and junior biochemistry major from Abilene, said service was immensely beneficial in teaching people to put others first.
“By serving people, we’re able to learn we aren’t the only people in the world,” Huggins said.
Service has been an important part of ACU students’ lives since the university was founded, and Coburn said it is an important part of a Christian education.
“If we aren’t doing it, we aren’t living up to our middle name, that’s for sure,” Coburn said.
