Southwest Tennessee Community College Earns Place on National Honor Roll for Community Service

Memphis, TN – Southwest Tennessee Community College was named to the 2013 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. This designation is the highest honor a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning, and civic engagement.

"Southwest has a long history of service-learning and believes strongly in preparing our graduates to be active leaders and participants in an ever changing world," said Southwest President Nathan Essex. "We're honored to receive this prestigious award – and owe much of it to the students themselves. They're the energy driving our commitment and they're the ones who make it all happen."

For the second year, Southwest sent students to provide service and support for the Pink Palace Museum Arts and Crafts Fair, an event attended by an estimated 20,000 people. This year, twenty-two Southwest students volunteered for a total of 66 service hours. Their volunteerism included parking and directing traffic, children's crafts, cooking demonstrations, and artist support. Some of Southwest's other community outreach includes providing volunteer services for Grow Memphis, Junior Achievement, Common Ground, Peer Power Foundation, Empowering Scholars Unlimited, the Veterans Administration and many others.

"Congratulations to Southwest Tennessee Community College, its faculty and students for its commitment to service, both in and out of the classroom," said Wendy Spencer, CEO of CNCS. "Through its work, institutions of higher education are helping improve their local communities and create a new generation of leaders by challenging students to go beyond the traditional college experience and solve local challenges."

Inspired by the thousands of college students who traveled across the country to support relief efforts along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, CNCS has administered the award since 2006 and manages the program in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as the American Council on Education and Campus Compact

More information about the Southwest's service efforts can be found at http://www.southwest.tn.edu/service/. More information on eligibility and the full list of Honor Roll awardees, can be found at nationalservice.gov.

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Southwest Tennessee Community College is the comprehensive, multicultural, public, open-access college whose mission is to anticipate and respond to the educational needs of students, employers, and communities in the Mid-South region. Students benefit from an effective teaching and learning environment designed to raise educational levels, enhance economic development, and enrich personal lives. Southwest is Tennessee's largest community college. It welcomes a diverse student population with a wide variety of backgrounds, abilities, interests, levels of education and economic circumstances. Over 100 associate degrees, certificates, programs, and continuing education opportunities are available. Tuition is affordable in multiple locations throughout the Memphis area.

The President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll honors the nation's leading higher education institutions and their students, faculty and staff for their commitment to bettering their communities through service. These are institutions that reflect the values of exemplary community service and achieve meaningful outcomes in their communities.

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, the Social Innovation Fund and other programs, and leads President Obama's national call to service initiative, United We Serve.