I was in Atlanta this week for the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service, and one session was hosted by by the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Foundation which is fostering campus-community partnerships for academic service and learning.  On June 3 President and Mrs. Carter presented the 2008 National-Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus Community Collaboration.

In his remarks Carter said "America has some of the best institutions of higher education in the world, yet many are surrounded by slums. " His goal, and the purpose of the foundation and another web site titled Service Book, is to encourage high levels of university engagement with local communities.

I encourage you to use Service Book as a resource. It provides case histories of many examples of university engagment, which are models that could be duplicated in other places, or used to inspire new forms of engagment.  Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection, we seek to focus this form of engagement on comprehensive support for volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring throughout the country. 

If you attended the conference I encourage you to post notes, and add links to other examples of engaged universities.