NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Jan Fiderio 603.283.2107 jfidero@antioch.edu

March 28, 2011 for Immediate Release

Campus Compact Presidents' Awards Given for Community Service

Organizations and faculty honored by Antioch University New England (AUNE)

(Keene, New Hampshire) - The 2011 Campus Compact for New Hampshire Presidents' Awards for excellence in community service have been announced by President David Caruso of Antioch University New England (AUNE). Award winners are the Support Group for Ethnic and Racial Diversity (SERD), Dr. Elizabeth McCann and Working Families Win.

Recipients will be honored at a luncheon on April 12 at the Courtyard Marriott in Nashua, New Hampshire. Here are the awards and their recipients:

Presidents' Leadership Award: Support Group for Ethnic and Racial Diversity (SERD)

The Leadership Award is given to a student or student organization that has made outstanding contributions to community service, service learning and/or civic engagement efforts on their campus.

SERD is a student organization of AUNE's Department of Clinical Psychology. An arm of the Multicultural Center for Research and Practice, SERD was founded to promote multiculturalism locally and disaster volunteer outreach internationally.

On January 17, 2011, SERD organized the Martin Luther King/Jonathan Daniels Day of Service for the second consecutive year. In addition to collaborating with the MLK/JD Committee of the City of Keene and RSVP Monadnock Volunteer Service, SERD connected to numerous community agencies to provide volunteer opportunities at ten sites for more than eighty Monadnock Region residents, many of whom engaged in community service for the first time.

SERD is also involved in Disaster Shakti, a volunteer team of doctoral clinical psychology students at AUNE who work with survivors of disasters such as the hurricane in Haiti and Hurricane Katrina. SERD also organizes fundraising events to support its disaster volunteer outreach.

Presidents' Good Steward Award: Libby McCann

The Good Steward Award honors a faculty, administration or staff member who has contributed professional expertise to serve the wider community and who has significantly advanced public service on the campus.

Elizabeth (Libby) McCann, a core faculty member in AUNE's Department of Environmental Studies and the director of the Environmental Education Program, is passionate about her work, her students and issues of community food security and sustainable agriculture. Service learning plays a central role in the courses she teaches. She is actively engaged in the community and has created many opportunities for AUNE students to volunteer.

Dr. McCann contributes her professional expertise to the region through her involvement in the Keene Community Garden Connections. This community-based environmental education effort will establish five gardens throughout the Keene area, conservatively reaching 250 community members and involving eight community nonprofits and social service agencies and twenty-five Antioch students.

She also served on the City of Keene's Master Planning Committee, where she guided discussions about local food security issues and their impact on the health of the community.

Presidents' Community Partner Award: Working Families Win

The Presidents' Community Partner Award is given to a nonprofit organization that has improved the quality of life in the community in meaningful and measurable ways and is engaged in sustained, reciprocal partnerships with a college or university.

Working Families Win-New Hampshire is a state-wide advocacy organization that collaborates with AUNE on social justice initiatives in the city, region and state. It has been a practicum site for AUNE students, an employer of AUNE graduates, an Advocacy Clinic client and an ongoing partner on social justice issues. It worked closely with AUNE to bring the distinguished speaker Dr. Vincent Harding to Keene in the fall of 2010.

Working Families Win conducts community organizing around the issues of guaranteed health care, living wages, green jobs, fair trade, affordable housing and sound energy policy. It works to change the economy in favor of working families, provides education about economic decisions made in Washington and the impacts within local communities, and engages individuals through neighbor-to-neighbor communication to hold elected officials accountable. The state director of Working Families Win is Jaime Contois, (ED'03), an AUNE alumna.

Find out more about the Presidents' Campus Compact Awards.

The Campus Compact for New Hampshire is a consortium of college and university presidents and private-sector partners committed to the civic purposes of higher education. Its mission is to be a catalyst to integrate community service and civic responsibility through the academic and student life goals of its member institutions.

About Antioch University New England (AUNE)
This is Antioch University New England's forty-seventh year as an institution of higher education. Located in Keene, New Hampshire, AUNE offers rigorous, practice-oriented, values-based master's, doctoral and certificate. Degrees in education, leadership and management, environmental studies and psychology reflect a dedication to activism, social justice, community service and sustainability. Antioch University New England is the oldest and largest of Antioch University's graduate campuses. For more information about Antioch University New England, visit our web site at: www.antiochne.edu.

About Antioch University
Antioch University is a five-campus university located in four states. Each campus has its own distinct academic programs, community life and regional or national identity. Antioch University is founded on principles of rigorous liberal arts education, innovative experiential learning and socially engaged citizenship. The multiple campuses of the University nurture in their students the knowledge, skills and habits of reflection to excel as lifelong learners, democratic leaders and global citizens who live lives of meaning and purpose. For more information about Antioch University's campuses, its university-wide PhD program, or the Antioch Education Abroad program, visit www.antioch.edu.

Last Updated: 4/10/11