CAMPUS COMPACT HONORS PROFESSOR’S CIVIC WORK
LINKING COMMUNITY SERVICE WITH COURSE WORK
Richard Eberst receives national service-learning award
for building vital partnerships between campus and community
Campus Compact has selected professor Richard Eberst, Professor of Health and Human Ecology at California State University, San Bernadino as the 2004 Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning recipient. A focus of community partnerships is the distinguishing characteristic of this year’s Ehrlich Award recipient. “The primary reason universities exit,” claims Dr. Richard Eberst,” is to partner with community stakeholders to help improve the overall quality of life and health within the university’s service region.” This framework has guided his work at California State University San Bernardino, where he has been a leader in service-learning since his arrival in 1991. The award will be presented at the Educators for Community Engagement National Gathering in Berea, Kentucky, June 18-20, 2004.
Dr. Eberst’s approach to community partnerships embraces their educational value as well as the public purposes of higher education. At his institution, Dr. Eberst has been instrumental in shaping the strategic plan for the university to include a major goal on service-learning and community partnerships and he was asked by his president to direct the Office of Service-Learning at CSUSB. Dr. Eberst work, deepening and expanding the use of service-learning, has made vital contributions not only to his campus, but also across the country. CSUSB’s provost nominated Dr. Eberst for the Ehrlich Award “based upon extensive experience” and “substantial vision as to how and where service-learning can be institutionalized in higher education.”
This is Campus Compact’s tenth year honoring service-learning faculty through the Thomas Ehrlich Award. Campus Compact annually honors faculty members for innovations in engaged scholarship that integrate service into the curriculum and for efforts to institutionalize service-learning at their college or university. The award is named in honor of Thomas Ehrlich, past chair of the Campus Compact executive committee, President Emeritus of Indiana University, and currently a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Dr. Eberst will also be honored at a tenth anniversary celebration of the Thomas Ehrlich Award to be held at Campus Compact’s Presidents Leadership Colloquium in October 2004. This award is made possible in part by support from TIAA-CREF. More information on this event, the Ehrlich Faculty Award, and Campus Compact can be found at http://www.compact.org.
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Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 900 college and university presidents—representing some 5 million students—who are committed to fulfilling the civic purposes of higher education. To support this mission, Campus Compact promotes service initiatives that develop students’ citizenship skills, helps campuses forge effective community partnerships, and provides resources and practical guidance for faculty seeking to integrate civic engagement into their teaching and research.