Issue link: http://tcnj.uberflip.com/i/577312
10 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT In January, TCNJ received Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching—a distinction shared by only about eight percent of colleges and universities nationally. Community engaged learning is a defining element of a TCNJ education, and the college has worked to infuse its curriculum with activities where students learn by serving and engaging with diverse communities around campus and around the world. These experiences allow TCNJ students to excel academically and to be engaged citizens both locally and globally. 10 YEARS 55+ COMMUNITY PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS 104 CURRENT BONNER SCHOLARS 138 FACULTY COLLABORATORS 173 ALUMNI 190 K HOURS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE SERVICE IN SPAIN Twenty-nine students spent their spring semester at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Madrid, immersed in language and service-learning. A pair of professors—Ann Warner Ault, Spanish, and Chris Ault, interactive multimedia—guided them through project-based courses in technology and culture. Students volunteered at a homeless shelter and soup kitchen, helping them to create a new website, video, and social media campaign to enhance the organization's fundraising efforts. Students also taught Spanish and job-readiness classes to immigrants through CEPI, a local government agency that provides social services. SNACK Smart Nutrition Activity and Conditioning in Kids, or SNACK—made possible by a $50,000 grant from Novo Nordisk—pairs faculty members and students from the School of Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science with elementary schools in Ewing and Trenton to involve kids in forging healthy exercise and nutrition habits. With a big-picture goal of reducing the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes, SNACK's eight-week program in the schools emphasizes fun and challenging activities to improve muscle strength and coordination, and promote healthy eating habits. It provides TCNJ students with the opportunity to apply the knowledge they're gaining in the classroom to an actual classroom. "Students are seeing what can happen when you go in with targeted intervention," said Health and Exercise Science Professor Avery Faigenbaum in an interview with The Times of Trenton. Photo courtesy of The Times of Trenton