Calvin English prof receives MCC award

Summary: Calvin College English professor Gerard Fondse will be honored with a Michigan Campus Compact (MCC) Faculty/Staff Community Service-Learning Award on Tuesday, February 9, 2010.

Gerard Fondse has been selected as Calvin's recipient of the 2010 MCC Faculty/Staff Community Service-Learning Award. This annual award is the highest MCC bestows on faculty and staff in the State of Michigan.

Fondse will be formally honored at the 14th-annual Institute: Service-Learning and Community Service Awards Ceremony and Dinner at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at the Grand Traverse Resort in Acme, Michigan.

Calvin peers designated Fondse as the faculty/staff person on campus who has made the most outstanding contributions in service-learning and community service. This award recognizes his influence on and his ability to encourage students to be involved in community service or service-learning through modeling, influencing or instruction.

Since 1999, Fondse has integrated service-learning into his English courses. He has actively involved his students in after-school tutoring programs and has facilitated the careful orientation of his students to a variety of school communities that present challenges. He has forged a strong partnership between Calvin and the United Church Outreach Ministry Homework House program, and has enabled his students in English 101 to develop their voices on urgent contemporary social issues.

"Jerry's English 101 (Written Rhetoric) courses are some of the best examples I know of at Calvin where our students seamlessly combine their academic learning with community service," said Jeff Bouman, director of the service-learning center at Calvin.

MCC is a coalition of college and university presidents who are committed to fulfilling the public purpose of higher education. We promote the education and commitment of Michigan college students to be civically engaged citizens, through creating and expanding academic, co-curricular and campus-wide opportunities for community service, service-learning and civic engagement.

For more information, contact Fondse at jfondse@calvin.edu or 616-669-0622.

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Received on Tue Feb 9 08:47:16 2010