SUNY Oneonta honored for service

SUNY Oneonta honored for service
By Jake Palmateer
Staff Writer-Daily Star

ONEONTA -- SUNY Oneonta's record of community service was recognized for the sixth year in a row.

The college was recently named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The recognition program is administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service and has been active since 2006.

The State University College at Oneonta was one of 31 New York colleges or universities named to the list. SUNY Delhi and SUNY Cobleskill also made the honor roll for the 2010-11 academic year.

"Together, service and learning increase civic engagement while fostering social innovation among students, empowering them to solve challenges within their communities," CNCS Acting Chief Executive Officer Robert Velasco said in a media release.

Mayor Dick Miller said SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College students do much in the area of community service, and because of the large number of groups and individuals, that sometimes goes unrecognized by the greater community.

"They add an enormous amount and in a lot of very invisible ways," Miller said Sunday night.

The college's Center for Social Responsibility and Community helps manage much of the volunteerism at SUNY Oneonta. The center is directed by Linda Drake.

SUNY Oneonta students recorded more than 55,000 hours of community service during the 2010-11 academic year, according to CSRC data.

Organizations assisted by SUNY Oneonta students in the past have included The Greater Oneonta Historical Society, Catskill Area Hospice and Palliative Care Inc., the Community Arts Network of Oneonta (formerly the Upper Catskill Community Council of the Arts), the Foothills Performing Arts and Civic Center, several Oneonta-area elementary schools; the Smithy-Pioneer Gallery, Cooperstown Farmers' Market and The Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown; the Milford and Delaware County historical societies; Hanford Mills in East Meredith; and Gilbert Lake State Park in Laurens.

"There is a lot going on. There can't be too much," Miller said.

The college's Into the Streets event is a major initiative that places hundreds of students into the community for a one-day volunteer effort near the end of the spring semester.

This year, students will be paired up with Main Street Oneonta -- a downtown merchants and business group that works with City Hall on improving the Main Street area.

"The students are going to clean downtown this year," Miller said.

CNCS is a federal agency that engages more than 5 million Americans in service through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, the Social Innovation Fund and other programs, and leads President Obama's national call-to-service initiative, United We Serve, according to a media release from SUNY Oneonta.

In overseeing the Honor Roll, CNCS assesses the scope and innovation of applicant institutions' service projects, the integration of service-learning into their curricula, and the quality, longevity and productivity of their campus-community partnerships, the college indicated.