The Corporation for National and Community Service honored Otterbein College with a place on the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction for outstanding service efforts. This is the third year Otterbein College has been recognized, and last year the College was given the President's Award for General Community Service through the Honor Roll program.

Beginning in 2006, the Honor Roll's Award with Distinction is one of the highest awards a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees for the award were selected based upon numerous factors including scope and innovativeness 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.

Otterbein's Center for Community Engagement's (CCE) dedicated students and faculty improves the level of participation, programs and civic issues it covers each year. The Center for Community Engagement brings together volunteerism, service-learning and community-based action research for interested students, giving them a plethora of service activities to choose from. For example, during the 2007-2008 school year, 83 service-learning courses enrolled more than 1,100 students, serving the community with approximately 22,320 service hours.

In addition to the 11 weekly service programs the Center for Community Engagement organizes for Otterbein students, it also coordinates three community plunges annually for students, faculty and alumni and it hosts several projects benefiting Otterbein's campus and the Westerville community. Otterbein students even have the opportunity to volunteer internationally through the Senior Year Experience (SYE) classes. Students have recently traveled to Rwanda and Mexico to volunteer their time and services. Last year Otterbein students dedicated more than 23,355 hours through participation in these programs.

Overall, the Corporation honored six schools with Presidential Awards. In addition, 83 were named as Honor Roll With Distinction members and 546 schools as Honor Roll members. In total, 635 schools were recognized. A full list is available at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll.

The Honor Roll is a program of the Corporation, in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. The President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is presented during the annual conference of the American Council on Education.

For more information regarding service-learning courses and community service programs at Otterbein College, visit www.otterbein.edu/academics/cce.