McKendree Receives $8,000 Grant to Survey Civic Engagement

3/14/2011


Lebanon, Ill. — An $8,000 Strategic Civic Leader Fellows Grant (SCLF) awarded to McKendree University by the Illinois Campus Compact (ILCC) will fund a survey on student organizations’ community involvement.

The ILCC, a coalition of 39 colleges and universities based at DePaul University, received funding from the McCormick Foundation to offer various grants to its member institutions.

The purpose of this grant is to review the current level of civic engagement on campus and to assess the role of the Lyn Huxford Center for Community Service, explained Dr. Lyn Huxford, professor of sociology and coordinator for the center. “We intend to collect data from students, staff and faculty regarding their civic involvement. We will also survey other Illinois Campus Compact schools to learn more about the various programs available on their campuses with the goal of further institutionalizing our program. We hope to be able to make suggestions to the Strategic Planning Committee being formed by the president.”

“In addition to our Lyn Huxford Center for Community Service, we have so many organizations doing volunteer work—athletics, Alpha Phi Omega, Wonders of Wellness, for example—that we need to have a better understanding of what our level of civic engagement is within the community,” said Dr. Joni Bastian, vice president for student affairs. Leading the grant-funded project with Dr's. Huxford and Bastian will be Dr. Christine Bahr, provost; and Mark Whalen, a junior history education major from Coffeen.

According to a press release issued by the ILCC, “the goal of the grant is for academic affairs and student affairs to create a campus model of the infrastructure and effects that civic engagement and student involvement can make. The models will highlight how co-curricular service, leadership character-building initiatives and the curricular development of service-learning contribute to the common good.”

 

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McKendree University ranks among the top 13 percent of the Midwest’s Best Regional Colleges in the 2011 edition of U.S. News Media Group’s Best Colleges report.

The Illinois Campus Compact is a coalition of 39 colleges and universities that bond together to actively engage presidents, faculty, staff and students to promote a renewed vision of higher education. ILCC is an affiliate state office of Campus Compact, a national organization comprised of more than 1,100 institutions committed to the civic and public purposes of higher education.

The McCormick Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to strengthening our free, democratic society by investing in children, communities and country. It was established as a charitable trust in 1955, upon the death of Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the longtime editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune.