To celebrate 100 Years of Honors Education in the United States, NCHC highlighted a core feature of honors pedagogy: service learning. Service learning programs bring campuses and communities together to share resources, meet real-world needs, and educate students in becoming change agents for the future. This page serves as a collective of service learning concepts from institutions across the nation, seeking to inspire others as they invest in their own local communities. Thank you to all NCHC members who contributed their stories!
Hilltop Scholars Service Showcase
Hilltop Scholars Program, Southern Methodist University
The Hilltop Scholars Service Showcase is an annual evening of service for the Hilltop Scholars Program (HSP), an honors community at SMU for students interested in service and leadership. While building community, students learn about the HSP culture of service and make a considerable impact on local nonprofit organizations. At our most recent event, 185 Hilltop Scholars created 100 school supply bags for Give a Pencil DFW, 100 feminine hygiene packages for Period Project, 100 meal kits for Vogel Alcove, 500 coloring books for Children's Health, 250 cards for Senior Source, and 50 dog toys for Operation Kindness.
Shuck and Share: Lagoon Restoration through Oyster Recycling
Valencia College
The recycling project is a collaboration between the Marine Discovery Center in New Smyrna Beach, FL and several local seafood restaurants. Shucked oyster shells from the restaurants are converted into new reef-building materials through volunteer efforts. The shells are kept out of the landfill and recycled back into the natural system. The oyster bags and mats are placed into the lagoon to help stabilize shorelines and provide a foundation for oyster communities to rebuild. The bags provide a place for tiny floating oysters to grow, and the cumulative weight of the new oyster growth helps build and strengthen the reef.
Joint Transcribe-a-thon with UTA Honors College
Youngstown State University & University of Texas at Arlington
The Sokolov Honors College Transcribing Club held a joint transcribe-a-thon with honors students at University of Texas at Arlington in February 2022. In all, 61 students from both schools transcribed about 400 documents in two hours. The joint service event resulted from the NCHC conference last fall. YSU student Julie Centofanti led the event along with four team leaders - Hannah Shively, Fatima Wasim, Natalie Dando and Emma Dang. Since August 2020, the Transcribing Club has transcribed more than 16,000 documents through the Smithsonian and Library of Congress. Transcribing has allowed students to volunteer virtually while building community.
Holiday Hustle
Honors Student Association, Eastern Illinois University
This is a student planned and run annual 5K that recruits runners and walkers to raise money for One Stop Community Christmas, a local charity. The event started as a class project ten years ago. Each year it raises in excess of $2000 to help local families in need. Students plan, fundraise, publicize, and organize the event, recruiting student volunteers from across campus. In addition to the service it provides to the community, this event builds student experience in a variety of transferable skills and increases the visibility of our amazing Honors students.
Open Doors
Hicks Honors College, University of North Florida
Over the last 12 years about 2100 students have offered over 51,000 service hours to benefit the refugee community in Jacksonville. We established youth soccer programs at three locations, offered one-on-one tutoring for children in two YMCA reading programs and tutored adults learning English. We created holiday programming to help children acculturate. We donated winter clothing and soccer balls to over 100 children every year. We distributed micro-grants to refugee-related nonprofits over the last 5 years. We produced many short films for different organizations to raise awareness of the value and the needs of the refugee population in our community.
Spring into Service
Utah State University Honors Program
In collaboration with Utah State University's Queer Student Alliance, the University Honors Program gathered 34 volunteers and made 20 fleece blankets to be donated to the Little Lambs Foundation for Kids. Little Lambs is a nonprofit organization in northern Utah that provides diapers and baby supplies to low-income families and children in distress. The blankets will be included in "comfort kits" for children who are transitioning into foster care or emergency shelters.
Honors College Bayless Elementary Mentoring Program
Texas Tech University Honors College
Our project is actually a program where nearly 100 current Honors College students mentor at a Title I elementary school in the Lubbock Independent School District. The needs at Bayless are great, but our students work to meet those needs by providing mentoring, positive behavior reinforcement, and academic support weekly, while also meeting the needs of Bayless through after-school programs and supply drives.
SCHC 481 (Revitalizing Columbia: Developing Sustainable Urban Waterways)
South Carolina Honors College
Created in collaboration with the City of Columbia, this course is taught by Drs. John Ferry and Geoffrey Scott, wherein students participate in classroom discussions, lab work, and fieldwork with the goal of introducing a native shellfish population to local waterways to naturally clean them of pollutants. With Dr. Ferry's expertise in chemistry and Dr. Scott's expertise in public health, students gain a holistic perspective on creating ecologically safe and healthy environments while gaining extensive hands-on experience in the field. This is a multi-year commitment between the professors and the city, and will be offered consistently.
Calhoun Honors Discovery Program Freshman Mentor Program
Calhoun Honors Discovery Program at Virginia Tech
The Calhoun Honors Discovery Program (CHDP) Freshman Mentoring Program is designed to help the incoming freshmen transition into CHDP life through mentoring by older students. Potential mentors will apply between early and mid-April, and Mentees will be assigned soon after mentor matching decisions have been made. The program will include twenty to thirty mentors. Mentor teams are preferable so that mentors can learn from each other and provide mentees more than one source of guidance. Additionally, mentor teams will be composed of multiple cohorts. By giving incoming freshman access to multiple cohorts, we hope to increase interaction within the cohorts.
Honors College Coat Drive
William Paterson University Honors College
The Honors College at William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ conducted their 16th annual coat drive during the fall 2021 semester, collecting over 600 coats and 566 winter accessories (hats, gloves, scarves, and socks). The Honors students sorted, counted, and packed the donations into over 50 bags before delivering them to the Father English Community Center in Paterson, NJ just prior to Thanksgiving. This annual coat drive helps to fulfill a meaningful learning outcome for Honors College students, civic engagement, while providing those less fortunate within the community with warm clothing and accessories.
New Song Re-development Project
Loyola University Maryland/Sellinger Scholars Business Honors
Loyola's 1st-year Sellinger Scholars, as part of their Financial Accounting course, were asked to develop budgeting proposals for spaces recently vacated by the New Song Academy, a Baltimore City charter school. The goal is to create profitable enterprises that contribute to workforce development, education and wellness opportunities in the community. Students worked with tBoard members of the Academy to learn about their needs and presented proposals in a pitch type competition. Ideas included a community garden with sales of produce to benefit the school, and utilizing a kitchen space to provide healthy meals to the community.
Bed Build - Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Virginia Tech
In their second annual bed build with Sleep In Heavenly Peace, a national organization dedicated to providing beds for children in need, Stamps Scholars in the Virginia Tech Honors College helped the New River Valley (NRV) achieve one of its biggest builds yet. Child bedlessness is a national problem, and as a national nonprofit with chapters spread across the country, Sleep In Heavenly Peace has the solution. Through partnering with 13 other organizations across the NRV, the Stamps Scholars helped to build 70 beds for local children. https://vtx.vt.edu/articles/2022/06/honorscollege_stamps-SHP.html
Honors Day of Service
Wood Honors College, Shippensburg University
The Honors Day of Service is an annual event where Shippensburg University Honors students contribute to multiple service projects. In 2022, the students participated in four community service projects, including boxing up food for the Hound Packs Program, which provides food to students in need; collecting school supplies for the Honors College's partner school in the Dominican Republic; cleaning up a local park; and planting trees.
Grocery Shopping Network for the Elderly in Fairfield County
Southern Connecticut State University
I think that the most important thing that I have learned from this experience is finding something that I am passionate about. The elderly community needed easy access to grocery shopping. The easiest way to address this need through the church is by posting fliers in the church bulletin so that they can have easy access to someone who is able to come help when they need it. This is also the best way for my community partner to distribute and let their parishioners know they can have this service available to them.
EC Scholars Community Outreach
East Carolina University EC Scholars Program
East Carolina University's EC Scholar program has been partnered with the East Carolina University Community School to create and lead classroom activities for underserved elementary school children. These classes include art, dance, theater, music. Along with creating lesson plans and activities the scholars also host an annual fundraiser to support disadvantaged children in eastern North Carolina. The 2020 Books That Embrace Race fundraiser raised $4,500 to purchase and deliver books that feature people of color as protagonists to promote positive identity development among youth. The Toys for Joy Fundraiser in 2021 raised over $3,300 to buy presents for lower-income students.
Monthly Volunteer Days
Texas A&M University Honors Program
HHC has partnered with the Brazos Valley Food Bank for the past three years, with our students serving during monthly volunteer days sorting and distributing food fundraising through the annual Hair and Beard Auction. This year, we are expanding to other organizations around the Brazos Valley so that students can learn more about volunteer opportunities and the different impacts they can have on the communities we serve.
Appalachian Trail Bog Bridge Build
Partners in the Parks Appalachian Trail project
On the Mnt Rogers section of the Appalachian Trail in southwest Virginia we partnered with the Mount Rogers Appalachian Trail Club to build a 90 yard bog bridge. A full day working along side ATC, MRATC, and USFS, we prepared base logs by stripping off the bark, drilling, nailing, laying plank boards. The sky opened up and there rain came down just as we finished. This will help prevent further damage to the delicate bog ecosystem and created a new section of the AT.
Save Our Beach!
University Honors Program CSULB
CSULB University Honors Program students spent a few Saturdays in Seal Beach, California cleaning up the area.
Synagogue Painting Event
Angelo State University Honors Program
Our students were able to partner with a local Jewish community to repaint a historic Jewish Synagogue. This event allowed the students to learn more about Jewish history and customs, particularly about the Jewish community's influence on our own city. The part of the building that the students painted had not been updated in over 50 years, but it remained a central part of their religious community. Through the students' hard work, they were able to create a new, exciting space for the members of the community.
Honors Easter Egg-stravaganza
Angelo State University Honors Program
After two years of waiting, our program was finally able to continue its annual Easter egg hunt! This event was completely planned and carried out by our hard-working student leaders. Our students led in the making of games and crafts, along with stuffing over eight thousand eggs to create this event. The hunt was open to the community and many young children were able to participate in the activities and also the hunt itself. The students were able to interact with the community and bring some light back into it after two long years lost in the pandemic.
The Huneebee Project: Helping Birds and Pollinators with Audubon CT
Southern Connecticut State University Honors College
Students worked with faculty Suzanne Huminski and Dr. Sara Baker-Bailey to assisted Audubon CT with a major marsh restoration ($4M) revitalizing CT's largest marsh to adapt to sea level rise. Great Marsh provides important nursery habitat for marine life and birds as part of the Northeast flyway, Long Island Sound estuary. We planted over 2,000 plugs of spartina (native marsh grass) as part of the larger project. With HBP, we expanded the campus garden pollinator pathway to attract birds and community birdwatchers. Students prepared the campus garden growing season-- the annual harvest is donated to local soup kitchens.
Midnight Run
Adelphi University
This is an annual event. The students in the Honors College at Adelphi university partner with the campus chapter of Global Medical Brigades every November to coordinate a Midnight Run to bring food, toiletries, and warm clothing to homeless individuals in NYC. There is significant overlap of the membership in the two organizations because many honors students are interested in pursuing careers in healthcare. The goal of this event is to connect future doctors, nurses, and medical providers with vulnerable populations in need to support.
Stewarding Urban Streams and Fresh Water:
Southern Connecticut State University Honors College
Instructors Suzanne Huminski and Dr. Sara Baker-Bailey teamed with Neighborhood Housing Services and were awarded $25,000 subgrant from CT Inland Water Resouces Commission to expand service-learning opportunities at Southern. Students in four courses are revitalizing local greenspace in underserved neighborhoods and building rain gardens to divert storm water from sewers and improve groundwater recharge and local stream water quality. Honors students are planting a rain garden for Southern's campus and creating a podcast to increase awareness of water stewardship as a pathway to ensure environmental and community wellbeing.
Walk of the Darkness Walk (Suicide Prevention)
Clarke Honors College
Clarke Honors College students organized and facilitated a campus walk, and raised over $1200 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Women's Resource Center: Treasure bags for children
Virginia Tech
The Virginia Tech and Wake Forest Stamps Scholars had a fall retreat and integrated a service learning project to provide slack bags with essentials (hair brush, toothpaste, toothbrush, notepad and pens) and toys for children. These bags are provided to children when the resource center is working with their family to ensure they are in a safe place and may have had to leave home without essentials.
Service-learning on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
University of Central Arkansas Honors College
The UCA Honors College partnered with Community Collaborations International in May 2022 for several days of work on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Twelve students worked with local partners, the 34th Street Community Garden Project and the Mississippi Land Trust. Our students assisted the community garden with their rebuilding efforts after a damaging hurricane and worked on trail restoration with the Mississippi Land Trust. Overall, the students stretched themselves to do work outside their typical experiences and gained an appreciation for the never ending cycle of maintaining public spaces. Spending some time on the beach was a nice bonus!
Trilogy Soaps and Candles
Honors College, Arkansas State University Three Rivers
At ASU Three Rivers, Honors Seminar III students select, design, and complete service project each fall. Most recently, students (under the direction of Biology instructor Bob Starkey and Seminar instructor Ronna Pennington) hand-crafted small-batch soaps and candles to sell in support of the Arkansas Summer Cereal Drive initiative. With the proceeds from product sales, the class was able to contribute 190 boxes toward the College's donation to the drive benefiting the Arkansas Food Bank. The students loved crafting the soaps and candles, designing labels, and -- especially -- making that donation to such a worthwhile cause.
Microplastics in our drinking water
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences
The plastic products we use, plastic wrappings, soda bottles, house hold containers, clothes we wear, every item contributes to microplastics in the environment. With special filters made out of ferrofluids, combined with the natural acid of orange peel and other citrus fruits, we hope to break down microplastics before they end up in our environment. We showed that citrus oils have the capacity to degrade microplastics over de course of 4 months. The question in this research project is how to speed up this process and put this to a daily use to clear our rivers, oceans and drinking water.
Immokalee Immersion Experience
Honors College, Florida Gulf Coast University
Established in 2016, the Immokalee Immersion Experience is a multi-day excursion that provides FGCU Honors College students the opportunity to engage with community members in Immokalee, Florida, through site tours, service learning, and other City as Text™ and reflective activities that address pressing social, humanitarian, and fair-trade issues. Immokalee is a rural community disproportionately impacted by cyclical poverty, farmworker exploitation, and inequitable access to healthcare, employment, and education. Through the lens of different community stakeholders, students learn what's being done to rectify the economic, cultural, and educational disparities that have stunted the community's growth since the 1800s.
Zombie Fun Run: 5K Run for Salisbury University's Student United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore
United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore and Clarke Honors College
We work with the Student United Way of the Lower Eastern Shore to facilitate a 5k fun on our campus. Our students dress up as zombies, work the water stations and registrations, and monitor runners' safety at the first aid stations. This is our 3rd year collaborating.
Trails for Tails
Honors College, Florida Gulf Coast University
"Trails for Tails" was a course in which students ran to Key West and back to bring attention to the loss of the Florida Panthers' habitat, hence its name. It is still taught today and empowers students to take the lead on service projects, but now works in partnership with one organization, Lovers Key State Park. Each semester, students meet with park leaders to understand the park's needs and then collaboratively develop projects such as educational signage, native gardens, fundraising events, and a 7-foot-tall butterfly. Students gain knowledge and skills such as leadership, communication, and teamwork! And it's FUN!
Inclusive Halloween
University of Michigan-Flint
UM-Flint Honors co-hosted Inclusive Halloween. Inclusive Halloween is an event designed for individuals with disabilities, their families, friends, and allies. It is a judgement free space where everyone is welcomed. Inclusive Halloween featured happy and spooky trick-or-treat rooms, accessible games and crafts, food, a calm sensory room for individuals who were overstimulated, an incontinence changing area, outdoor sensory play including ribbon dancing, chalk, bubbles, and digging, and a silent dance party. Over 400 community members attended and 170 volunteers. Being inclusive makes a big difference and the Honors Students at UM-Flint are passionate about inclusion.
Service Day Project: Animal Rescue League of Boston
Suffolk University, College of Arts & Science's Honors Program
As part of a University-wide Service Day on April 1, 2022, our Honors Council members teamed up with our Center for Community Engagement to lead a blanket-making service project for the Animal Rescue League of Boston. The Animal Rescue League of Boston provides outstanding veterinary care, adoption, and field services. Volunteers made over ten fleece blankets to donate to the Boston animal care and adoption center. Our Honors Council puts on a service project every semester, so they will plan to go out into the Boston community this fall. Last year, they did a neighborhood clean-up project.
Painting for Survivors
Kent State University at Stark
Presentation and painting activity focused on Anti-Human trafficking. Will paint tiles with inspirational sayings to be incorporated into new housing for survivors aged 14-19. Will be open to whole campus and community. Speaker will focus on human trafficking 101 and this new project-Safe Harbor.
Community Garden
Redwine Honors Program Midwestern State University
During the fall of 2020 the Redwine Honors Program started a community garden. We produce both winter and summer crops and then donate them to our campus food pantry for the food insecure students. The garden is fully supported by the students who secured the seeds for planting, location, mulch, and conduct regular maintenance, planting, and harvesting. Last year we donated 69.34 kg of produce valued at $242.01. To date the garden has been an amazing success and has become a social focal point as well as a point of pride for the program.
PITP Director's Retreat Service Project
Partners in the Parks
In partnership with the Rocky Mountain Conservancy and the National Park Service, the Directors Retreat participants spent a morning working in Rocky Mountain National Park. Work included building a "culturally significant ditch" that would help in historical and natural conservation efforts and repairing lakeshore that had been damaged in floods. This work had been planned for years, but it was the first time they had a volunteer group able to complete it.
Leadership Retreat Service Activities
Cormier Honors College, Longwood University
220 first year honors students and 50 upperclassmen mentors did a variety of service projects -painting a barn for Heartland Horse Heroes, beautifying their new home, blazing trails at Twin Lakes State Park, helping with some farming at Bright Eyes Alpaca Farm or performing a river clean up with Clean Virginia Waterways. Within their first 3 days on campus, they were already giving back to the community!
Galilee CDC Helping Hands House Fix-Up
Angelo State University Honors Program
This project had a small group of Honors students help an underprivileged family make repairs to the home they have had for generations. Students helped with indoor and outdoor painting, yard work, appliance installation, and repairs.
Global Day of Service
Youngstown State University Sokolov Honors College
Global Day of Service is a tradition within honors where new residential students donate their time to the Youngstown community. Set at the beginning of fall semester every year, Global Day of Service is a way to have a positive start to the academic year, introduce freshman students to the Honors College community, and show them the value of community engagement. In Fall 2022, 126 students served with organizations like the OH WOW! Children's Center for Science & Technology, the United Way of Youngstown, and the Mahoning Valley, and virtually with the Smithsonian and Library of Congress.
Edith Carrier Arboretum Service Project
James Madison University - Hillcrest Club Advisors
Members of the JMU Honors College young alumni network and current students are joining together during Homecoming 2022 weekend to assist the Edith Carrier Arboretum in preparing for their community Harvest Festival.
Natural Ties
Pittsburg State University - Honors College Association
Natural Ties is an organization that facilitates friendships among college students and adults with developmental disabilities from the community. Natural Ties first began at the University of Kansas in 1988, and PSU's Natural Ties group started in 2009. Some activities that Natural Ties has done include bowling, arts and crafts, trips to the park, holiday-themed parties, and so much more.
Creating Curriculum for Vista Life Innovations
Southern Connecticut State University Honors College
Over the course of the 2022 spring semester, I worked with the Discover Program Team at Vista Life Innovations to write curriculum for their students. Vista Life Innovations is a program for adults with developmental disabilities. While in the Discover program, students take classes to develop their life skills, social-emotional skills, vocational skills, and overall independent living skills. I created a series of lesson plans for each of these categories that also aligned with Vista's 9 core values. I was even lucky enough to teach a number of these lessons during my weekly meetings with the students.
Kenan Scholars Program
Macaulay Honors College
In New York there are almost 56,000 people sleeping nightly in the city's shelters. Faced with this housing crisis, we have created a new program at Macaulay Honors College to serve our city's most vulnerable population. The program is broken into two separate components. In the first semester, students will partner with the Xavier Mission to prepare meals, distribute clothing, and converse with housing-insecure individuals. Students will carry these interactions forward into their second semester, where they'll engage the housing crisis from a policy perspective. They will partner with the Mission's Director to become advocates for the people they've met.
Book Buddies
Western Carolina University's Brinson Honors College
Honors Students from the Brinson Honors College volunteer at Smoky Mountain Elementary Schools on a weekly basis in fall and spring to read with children and support teachers. Honors provides over 40 hours of support at SME on a weekly basis!
Making it Work With What You Don't Have: The Effects of Underfunding and Poverty in a Public Preschool
Bucks Hill Elementary School/ HON 461-02
For my project, I decided to focus on how the underfunding of public education affected the staff, students, and parents of a public school system in an impoverished area. My community partner was Bucks Hill Elementary Pre-K in Waterbury, CT, where I observed what it meant to truly experience the constant and continuous challenges that underfunding presents on a daily basis. While there, I worked as an intern for both the administrative staff as well as in the classrooms, and ultimately helped to highlight and outline the school's opportunity for an open intern position.
Tackling Food Insecurity in Connecticut during COVID-19
Southern Connecticut State University
During the pandemic, Dr. Chelsea Harry's Honors 300-Introduction to Service-Learning class worked to tackle food insecurity. Before we were forced into quarantine, we intended to work with a local organic farm that gives excess produce to area food banks and soup kitchens. When we couldn't work with them in person, we each found opportunities in our communities to make a difference while also staying safe. We delivered donated food to those in need, grocery shopped for the elderly, created our own gardens to learn about sustainability, made PPE for frontline workers in grocery stores, and more.
Welcome Home: A Community for Veterans
University of Missouri Honors College
Welcome Home: A Community for Veterans Kitchen Patrol Duty. MU Honors students will volunteer for a dinner shift in the Welcome Home kitchen to prepare and serve a meal. Welcome Home is a transitional living program for homeless and at-risk veterans that facilitates recovery through social responsibility, personal engagement, and individualized programming based upon the needs and goals of the veteran.
Twin Lakes State Park Service Retreat
Cormier Honors College for Citizen Scholars at Longwood University
Over the course of a chilly weekend in March 2022, Cormier honors scholars traveled to Twin Lakes State Park just outside Farmville, Virginia, for two days of park beautification and community building. First hosted by the Honors Student Association (HSA) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to supplement the park's skeletal staff, this biannual camping retreat is now a beloved tradition open to all honors scholars.
Annual Honors Stream Cleaning at Willowdale Park
Hood College and Frederick Community College
Hood College and Frederick Community College Honors students partnered to clean a local stream at Willowdale Park in Frederick, Maryland. Students gathered 1300 pounds of trash, including multiple shopping carts during the annual stream cleaning event. People from the community also began helping when they saw the students' efforts! Following the event, students built community through a cookout and reflected on the difference they made through working together for a common good.
National Trust for Historic Preservation This Place Matters! Marietta Pennsylvania National Historic District
Elizabethtown College
Using City As Text™, Honors students from Elizabethtown College are launching a National Trust for Historic Preservation This Place Matters campaign for the National Historic District of Marietta, Pennsylvania. This service learning project involves student scholarship being used to inform public policy and asset-based planning for economic development and historic preservation in the local community. U. S Congress designated Marietta as the Susquehanna National Heritage Area based on Elizabethtown College honors students' community-based learning and civic engagement.
Motivational Cards for Children of Incarcerated Parents
Virginia Commonwealth University/VCU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi
The VCU Honors College offers weekly seminars designed to engage students in discussions around research, current events, and community engagement. In conjunction with a seminar led by Assisting Families of Inmates, a non-profit organization, dedicated to serving the needs of families and children impacted by incarceration, a service project was included. After the seminar, students created motivational cards for 80 elementary students attending Richmond Public Schools who participate in a trauma-informed support program dedicated to their unique needs. The learning goals were to inform VCU students about mass incarceration and the often unknown impact on families, especially children.
Westside Neighborhood Assessment
Mount Vernon Nazarene University Honors Seminar Group
A group of 20 Honors students, as part of a Spring 2022 Honors Seminar at MVNU, completed a neighborhood assessment of an area in Mount Vernon, OH at the request of the Knox County Area Development Foundation (ADF). The group investigated the history of the area, demographic information, crime stats, and commercial/residential investment, assessed the local parks and neighborhood conditions, and conducted a survey of local residents. In the end, the group produced a report of their findings, including recommendations for area improvement, and presented this to the ADF board for next steps.
Building Investment in Lifelong Leadership & Service (BILL'S Trip)
Dorothy and Bill Cohen Honors College, Wichita State University
BILL'S Trip brought together students, faculty, and the National Park Service in a service-learning course focused on stewardship of place/ stories and servant leadership. We partnered with Chickasaw National Recreation Area for a park clean-up, engaged with ranger lead programs at Oklahoma City National Memorial, and visited the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City. This immersive service-learning experience went through significant change due to pandemic related issues preventing the original plan of serving at Grand Canyon National Park. Students and faculty rallied and created BILL'S Trip 2.0. The experience was capped off by our presentation at NCHC in Dallas, Texas.
Writers Harvest Reading
St. Mary's College of Maryland
The Writers Harvest Reading is a collaboration with the Kate Chandler Campus Community Farm at St. Mary's College of Maryland--the National Honors College--to raise awareness about, and funding for, a local nonprofit called Farming4Hunger. Prof. Jennfer Cognard-Black's "Books that Cook" literatures of food students read their original Recipe Recollection essays at the Harvest, which was held out at the Kate Farm. The students also cooked food out of the recipes embedded within their essays. This event raised $700 to support Farming4Hunger, a group that grows and distributes fresh produce to those who are food insecure in Souther Maryland.
Food Forward
University of MN - Duluth University Honors Program/ Duluth Center for Women and Children
Designed around theories of systems thinking, entrepreneurship, and intersectionality for social change, University Honors faculty, Drs. Aparna Katre and Molly Harney developed an honors course that immerses students in collaborative work with community organizations designed to provide disadvantaged neighborhoods access to healthy foods. Leveraging a civic engagement framework in collaboration with a Duluth social enterprise called Food Forward, this service work supports community members to exercise agency in solving issues. Through this honors course, students learn about theories of social change through direct engagement in their community.
Little Free Library and Butterfly Garden
Lincoln Memorial University Honors Scholars Program
Freshmen members are continuing our award-winning Little Free Library project in the community and expect to finish this third installation in the spring of '23. The newest LFL will be built at Gap Creek Coffeehouse, a favorite LMU-student study locale nestled beside Pinnacle Mountain in historic Cumberland Gap, TN. Meanwhile, our upperclassmen are planning a Butterfly Garden with children at a local elementary school, to teach them healthful benefits of gardening, as well as the importance of caring for pollinators in our environment. From seeds to blooms, larvae to wings, we'll follow the life in the garden throughout 2023.
Credits:
Created with an image by Zoran Zeremski - "low angle shot of multiethnic group of volunteers after cleaning city park."