30 Years of Campus Compact!

This is an important week for those of us that work in higher education: just thirty years ago, three campuses came together to for the first higher ed. consortium dedicated to educating students for civic and social responsibility, and advancing the public purposes of colleges and universities. Thirty years on here in 2016 this movement is strong. Over 1100 campuses nationally are part of Campus Compact, including seventeen great Montana campuses. From Flathead Valley Community College, to Fort Peck Community College, and MSU Billings, Carroll College, Rocky, Little Big Horn College and a dozen more.

Each of these institutions, at the CEO level, have made a formal commitment to the importance of community engagement, service learning, and public service from higher education. From the most episodic of volunteer experience, to the most embedded of service learning, our campuses walk that walk! Students don’t go to school with the expectation of being leaders at some later point in time, they come in with the expectation that their education will be immediately relevant, that they will be challenged to apply what they learn, and that while in college, they will be called upon to make their communities, and broader world a better place.

In addition to the robust national support for the work of Campus Compact, here in Montana we’re proud to have a strong network office whose charge is to support the campus-level work with everything at our disposal. This summer, we’ll convene our advisory committee for its first in-person Network Meeting June 8 and 9. Currently, we’re seeking proposals to place Montana college students in summer service positions with MTCC’s AmeriCorps and VISTA programs.

If you’re staff or faculty member, or campus administrator, or a student at a Compact institution, please take a minute this week to consider what you’re part of! It’s an amazing thing, and we are humbled to work with you.

Sincerely,

The MTCC Network Office Staff