Palm Beach Atlantic University has been named to the 2009 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction. The Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement.

The Corporation for National and Community Service, which administers the annual Honor Roll award, recognized more than 700 colleges and universities for their impact on issues from poverty and homelessness to environmental justice.

On campuses across the country, thousands of students joined their faculty to develop innovative programs and projects to meet local needs using the skills gained in their classrooms. Business students served as consultants to budget-strapped nonprofits and businesses, law students volunteered at legal clinics and dozens of others organized anti-hunger campaigns.

"Congratulations to Palm Beach Atlantic and its students for their dedication to service and commitment to improving their local communities," said Patrick Corvington, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. "Our nation's students are a critical part of the equation and vital to our efforts to tackle the most persistent challenges we face. They have achieved impactful results and demonstrated the value of putting knowledge into practice to help renew America through service."

Six colleges and universities were listed as Presidential Awardees, and 621 were named to the Honor Roll. PBA is among 115 schools named to the Honor Roll with Distinction list.

Honorees are chosen based on a series of selection factors including the 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.

Palm Beach Atlantic students have volunteered nearly 2 million hours in the community through Workship — a coined term combining work and worship. Instituted when PBA was founded in 1968, each traditional undergraduate student contributes at least 45 hours of community service annually at any of more than 200 non-profit agencies, schools or churches.

However, PBA students don't have to be required to serve, University President Lu Hardin said. For instance, "our students were some of the first to take food, water and to go personally and individually to Haiti to help those devastated by the earthquake," he said.

College students make a significant contribution to the volunteer sector; in 2009, 3.16 million students performed more than 300 million hours of service, according to the Volunteering in America study released by the Corporation.

Each year, the Corporation invests more than $150 million in fostering a culture of service on college campuses through grants awarded by its programs; the education awards that AmeriCorps members receive at the conclusion of their term of service to pay for college; and through support of training, research, recognition and other initiatives to spur college service.

The Corporation oversees the Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact and the American Council on Education.