Gaining National Attention
National Honors for Service Learning |
RVCC included in “Top Ten” List
RVCC Grad Speaks at White House |
Maria Palar
National Honors for Service Learning
This spring RVCC was named to the 2010 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction. RVCC is one of only four community colleges in the country, and the only community college in New Jersey, to receive this prestigious honor.
The Corporation for National and Community Service recognized more than 600 colleges and universities for exemplary, innovative and effective community service programs. The Corporation oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact and the American Council on Education. Honorees are chosen based on a series of selection factors, including scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service and the extent to which the school offers academic service learning courses.
RVCC also received the 2006 Honor with Distinction for General Community Service and Hurricane Relief, the 2007 Honor for Special Achievement, and the 2009 Presidential Award for Community Service.
Annually, RVCC’s Service Learning Program places 1,000 students in service projects with more than 250 community organizations in Somerset and Hunterdon County, the two counties served by the College. More than 65 faculty members offer service learning in over 70 courses offered throughout the nine academic departments. Annually, students provide over 30,000 hours of service donating the economic equivalent of more $600,000 in services to the community.
RVCC included in “Top Ten” List
RVCC is rated among the Top Ten colleges and universities in the country, according to a new book by authors Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus. The book,
Higher Education? (Times Books), highlights RVCC in a chapter on “Schools We Like—Our Top Ten List.” The book has been featured by
Bloomberg Businessweek,
New York Review of Books and
Inside Higher Ed, as well as in national broadcast media.
In the book, Hacker and Dreifus describe their Top Ten list as “a few good places that caught our attention. The list isn’t comprehensive, but rather focuses on a few good colleges that strike the right balance.” According to the authors, “In our view, it [RVCC] provides a better introduction to college work than many four-year schools.”
“For starters, it has no mega-lectures. Its classes don’t exceed forty students, and many are seminar size.” The authors also praise RVCC for its “committed” faculty, note the abundance of student organizations and availability of sports teams, and highlight the low tuition rate compared with four-year institutions. “More than that,” they write, “you can learn with professors who know your name and have an interest in your future.”
Hacker spoke at RVCC for a Charter Day program in fall 2005. During his campus visit he also addressed students as part of a session sponsored by RVCC’s Paul Robeson Institute for Ethics, Leadership and Social Justice.
RVCC Grad Speaks at White House
RVCC graduate Casey Maliszewski was one of five students selected by the Phi Theta Kappa international honor society to speak at the White House’s first-ever Community College Summit, held in October.
The Community College Summit was hosted by Dr. Jill Biden, wife of the vice president and a longtime community college teacher, who was asked by President Obama to chair the event. The purpose of the Summit was to raise awareness of the critical role played by community colleges in providing pathways to completing credentials and degrees for the development of a globally competitive workforce.
The students were chosen to discuss specific challenges and areas of concern to community college students, based on their own experiences. Maliszewski addressed the topic of “Pathway to the Baccalaureate/Transfer/Graduation Rates.”
While at RVCC Maliszewski excelled academically and held several leadership roles. She served as international president of Phi Theta Kappa and received a Guistwhite Scholarship. Maliszewski transferred to Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts where she was named a Frances Perkins Scholar. She founded the campus chapter of the Roosevelt Institute, a student-led public policy research organization, and received the Maurice L. Rabbino Award as the outstanding student leader at Mt. Holyoke. She was a national finalist for the Fulbright Fellowship.
RVCC Grad Receives National Transfer Scholarship
Raritan Valley Community College graduate Maria Palar is one of 60 community college graduates across the country to receive a prestigious Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. The scholarship is valued at up to $30,000 per year for up to three years. Palar, a resident of Somerset, is continuing her education this fall at Sarah Lawrence College where she plans to study sociology. A mother of a teenager, Palar graduated from RVCC in May and served as the College’s student commencement speaker. While at RVCC she was a Galileo Scholar and was active with the Phi Theta Kappa international honor society. Palar served as Chapter President of the honor society and as Phi Theta Kappa Middle States Regional President. This past spring Palar received the Distinguished Regional Officer Award at the honor society’s International Convention in Seattle. Palar currently serves as the alumni representative to the RVCC Board of Trustees.
“Community college gave them a chance to explore their dreams,” Dr. Lawrence Kutner, the Foundation’s executive director, said of the scholarship winners. “We’re helping them take the next step by removing the financial burden of attending a top-quality school.”
All of the Scholars have financial need, have completed their two-year college coursework with honors, and have been involved in service projects both on and off their campuses. Since the program’s founding in 2002, approximately 410 students have received more than $17 million in Undergraduate Transfer Scholarships from the Foundation. RVCC’s main campus is located at 118 Lamington Road in Branchburg, NJ.
Gaining National Attention |
Educating the Community
