The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry was recently named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for 2007.

This is the second year in a row ESF was honored for its community service, according to a press release from the college.

‘The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, launched in 2006, recognizes colleges and universities nationwide that support innovative and effective community service and service-learning programs,’ according to the organization’s Web site.

ESF students logged more than 65,000 hours of community service in the past year according to the press release. That’s approximately 2,708 days, or 7.4 years, worth of service.

ESF President Cornelius Murphy said the service options at the school are diverse.

First, there is ‘straight’ community service, which usually happens outside of the classroom on weekends, he said.

And what Murphy called ‘service learning’ allows students to work with professors on community service projects embedded into approximately 45 courses’ curriculums.

Mark Fabian is a graduate student in hydrology and former Peace Corps member who helps facilitate a program named Engineers Without Borders, an organization that travels outside the country to participate in service projects all over the world. This year, the group is traveling to Honduras for community service.

People who are involved with environmental and international issues, as well as people who are concerned with social justice, would be interested in the organization, he said.

One of the factors that accounts for the heavy involvement of ESF students in community service is many of the available programs relate directly to their majors.

‘This is the case of a very practitioner-oriented program,’ Fabian said. ‘We have people who are interested in reaching out and also getting to see other parts of the world.’

Mitch Robinson, a senior in environmental resource engineering, is in Engineers Without Borders and has vast experience with the program.

‘We also went to New Orleans and helped do the demolition stuff to help rebuild New Orleans,’ he said. ‘I’ve also volunteered on behalf of the ESF Honors Society. We’re required to volunteer for that, and I did stuff like working for the Special Olympics, help keep score and stuff and with things they were doing.’

One of the program’s most extensive tasks will be during Spring Break in Honduras.

‘We’re going to Honduras again over Spring Break to do more stuff with the water distribution system, which we’re hopefully going to be implementing soon.’

Murphy said he was impressed with his students’ performance last year.

‘I’m just very proud of what they do,’ he said. ‘It’s incredible, and I think they are exampling very well of how to be engaged in what a responsible citizen should do.’

wfmcmill@syr.edu

The Honor Roll is a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and is sponsored by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, the USA Freedom Corps, and the U.S. Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development according to its website.

Honorees are chosen based on numerous factors, including the scope and innovativeness of service projects, percentage of student participation in those projects, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service learning courses.

Published on February 26, 2008 at 12:00 pm