Giving back to our community

Throughout the holidays and as we start a new year, we all look for ways to give back to the community. We're living in terrible economic times and giving, when you are to receive nothing in return, is especially important.

That got me thinking about how we give at the College of Southern Nevada as individual employees or students and as an institution and how we could do more to help Nevadans.

There are three major ways CSN gives.

CSN is your community's college and we provide a lot of volunteers. For instance, in spring 2009, the CSN Department of Education adopted the Field Experience/Service Learning program for students working to become teachers. In the last two years, these students have contributed more than 20,000 hours of volunteer service in the community.

In addition, students in the Ralph & Betty Engelstad School of Health Sciences contribute more than a million hours of uncompensated health care to patients throughout the valley each year.

We also have CSN Serves, which works with faculty to incorporate volunteer opportunities into the curriculum of a class so that students learn academic concepts through their service to the community. This concept is called service learning and it's a great example of how public colleges and universities can support their communities.

CSN Serves began in 2010 and has grown substantially since. This fall, college faculty, staff and students provided more than 2,100 volunteer hours through CSN Serves to different organizations including Nevada Partners, Hermandad Mexicana and Opportunity Village.

Then there are a number of more traditional initiatives throughout the year to collect clothing, food or funds to give to nonprofits from our 38,500 students and 2,000 plus employees. One recent CSN food drive raised more than 800 pounds of nonperishable food items for Three Square in one night.

But we need to do more.

Educating Nevada

In this issue of the College of Southern Nevada's Foundation newsletter, you'll notice a number of stories that demonstrate how CSN has improved people's lives.

We need more stories like that of Henderson Municipal Judge Diana Hampton, whose life was turned around through education. She is working to improve the community from the bench and brought about programs such as Life of Crime and Advance Interactive Driver's Education to help keep the streets of Henderson safer.

Good public policy in education can ensure more Nevadans reap the benefits of a college education.

That is why Nevada is taking part in the exciting national initiative to focus on improving student success and increasing the number of college graduates. Through a joint initiative of Complete College America and the National Governors Association, CSN and all of Nevada's colleges and universities are more engaged than ever in building the state's skilled workforce and graduating more students.

The national goal is that six out of every 10 young adults will have a college degree or credential of value by 2020. Currently in Nevada, only 30 percent of adults age 25-64 have a college degree.

Each Nevada System of Higher Education college and university has received a target number of completers to annually strive for until 2020. I am proud to say that in this first year, CSN students exceeded our institution's goal by more than 50 degrees.

There are positive results that show CSN is making an impact in the number of Nevadans educated. Through initiatives such as Complete College America, CSN is looking at innovative ways we can improve students' experience and help them achieve their goals so they can give back more to you and our community.

Michael Richards, Ph.D., is president of the College of Southern Nevada, the state's largest and most diverse higher education institution.