Binghamton University was placed on the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll and awarded with distinction.

The annual award recognizes universities and colleges throughout the country for their commitment to, and achievement in, community service. This is the fourth consecutive year that Binghamton has made the Honor Roll, but it is the first time BU has been awarded with distinction.

There are three categories for the award, starting with the presidential award, which is given to six schools. From there schools can be named to the Honor Roll with distinction, and, according to Dr. Elizabeth Carter, executive director for Student Service at BU, only 12 schools in New York fell into the category — BU being the only SUNY.

The third category is the Honor Roll, in which the most colleges are named. Carter filled out an extensive application to receive the award by giving statistics, such as how many students participate in the service and how many hours they put in.

She collected information from various offices on campus and had to nominate six different groups to focus on. Three were nominated for a general community service category, and the other three had a special focus of working with at-risk youth, which was this year’s theme.

Colleges Against Cancer and Relay for Life, Juvenile Urban Multicultural Program (JUMP) Nation and Books for Africa were the programs chosen for the general category.

To help at-risk children, Carter chose a group of social worker students that went to aid in Hurricane Katrina recovery, a group of 40 undergraduate nursing students and two faculty members that conducted an asthma education program in the Binghamton area schools, as well as the Johnson City mentoring program.

Honorees are chosen by The Corporation for National and Community Service based on a series of factors including scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

Carter tried to focus on programs that showed Binghamton’s diversity, effectiveness on the community being helped and uniqueness.

“I’ve never heard of anyone else doing the asthma thing. And in Katrina they focused on children and mental health support and helped over 90 young people,” Carter said. “They want evidence. When the children really understood what asthma was, fewer students reported asthma emergencies.”

At BU, students contribute more than 275,000 volunteer and internship hours, which are equivalent to more than a $7.8 million impact on the Greater Binghamton economy.

“Isn’t part of the scope of education trying to make the world a better place?” Carter said. “We’re not just going to school here and getting degrees, but we’re giving back to the community too.”

Gregory Diller, a graduate assistant with the Center for Civic Engagement and part of Colleges Against Cancer, is constantly focused on new community service events.

“Every month we try to do something for a different type of cancer,” Diller said.

The organization has worked with the athletic department to raise money at sporting events, sold T-shirts to promote breast cancer awareness and organizes Relay for Life, which will be held next month.

“I work with the center for civic engagement and students are always stepping up and getting involved with so many different things,” Diller said. “I think bringing the school and community together is great.”