Carson-Newman Tops U.S. in Community Service; 2nd in Most Service-Oriented

Carson-Newman has been ranked as America’s leading higher education institution in community service, and second overall among Most-Service Oriented schools, by Newsweek/The Daily Beast. C-N was the first college or university to host Operation Inasmuch, a one-day service blitz. In just five years, C-N students have provided more than 10,000 hours to the Lakeway region through Operation Inasmuch.

Carson-Newman College is America’s leading community service-dedicated higher education institution, according to Newsweek/The Daily Beast’s 2011 College Rankings. The publication ranks C-N second overall in “Most Service-Oriented” schools, one of 25 categories it chooses to rank.Newsweek partnered with Washington Monthly, which uses “an exhaustive amount of data to rank universities based on ‘their contribution to the public good.’” The methodology considers colleges and universities based on student commitment to service (including number of students and hours invested), faculty, number of students in ROTC programs relative to the school’s size, proportion of alumni who have served in the Peace Corps, incorporation of service in classes, percentage of federal work-study money given to community-service projects and service-based scholarships.

“I’m pleased that news organizations appreciate what our students are doing,” said C-N President Randall O’Brien, “but we are all the more pleased by the reason they serve – because Christ called us to matter and we matter most in doing for others. As we commemorate 160 years of Christian higher education, it’s great to see that our tradition of active compassion continues to be celebrated at the national level.”

C-N students perform more than 300,000 hours of community service and missions projects per year. In addition, the school offers 67 courses that include a service learning component.

“The average C-N student serves 134 hours, or about 4 hours per week during the academic year,” said Dr. Nicole Saylor, of the College’s Bonner Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement. “Our students complete some 187,000 hours of various types of community service during the academic year. An additional 68,000 hours are served at Campus Ministry events such as spring and fall break trips and as a part of the campus-wide day of service, Operation Inasmuch. Finally, service-learning courses contribute an additional 50,000 hours to the total.”

Read the Newsweek online rankings here