Western Carolina University has been recognized by the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars for the “extraordinary strength” of its civic engagement initiatives.

WCU is one of five colleges and universities nationwide chosen for honorable mention among 67 institutions recently nominated for the Washington Center’s Higher Education Civic Engagement Award. WCU will be recognized at a fall event in Washington, D.C., along with five award winners and four other schools that received honorable mention.

“We warmly congratulate you and your colleagues on this especially noteworthy work you’re doing,” said Michael B. Smith, president of the Washington Center, in a letter to WCU Chancellor John W. Bardo.

Smith said the efforts of institutions such as WCU “tell an inspirational story of effort and accomplishment ... and demonstrate compellingly how central service learning and community engagement have become to our colleges and universities and to the educations they provide.”

The national recognition underscores the important strides made in implementing “Synthesis: A Pathway to Intentional Learning,” WCU’s enhanced learning plan that features civic engagement as a key component, said Carol Burton, assistant vice chancellor for undergraduate studies. “Students need multiple, concrete opportunities to synthesize their entire undergraduate experiences in a holistic, integrated way,” Burton said. “Practicing civic engagement is one method for accomplishing that.”

Other civic engagement efforts outlined in WCU’s award nomination included the university’s recent implementation of a new tenure and promotion system that rewards faculty for combining teaching and research, for integrating knowledge across the disciplines and for applying research to remedy social problems; the Chancellor’s Engaged Teaching Awards, designed to recognize faculty who promote civic engagement in their teaching; community service and service learning that is developed with projects such as the Tuckaseigee River Cleanup and Homecoming Day of Service; and WCU’s participation in the American Association of State Colleges and Universities-sponsored Civic Agency Initiative, created to develop civic leadership skills among students and prepare them for active citizenship.

WCU recently became an affiliate of the Washington Center, an organization that provides an integrated academic and work experience to prepare college students and professionals for lives of achievement and civic engagement.

The honorable mention designation is not the first recognition WCU has received for its civic engagement efforts. Earlier this year, WCU was selected as a community-engaged university by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

For more information, contact Glenn Bowen, WCU’s director of service learning, at (828) 227-7184 or gbowen@email.wcu.edu.

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Last Modified: Wednesday, July 15, 2009