I think just recently NC State was recognized with a pretty significant award.
We were recognized by the President of the United States. There's an honor roll
that the Corporation for National Community Service has
and every year institutions apply to be on this honor roll for their commitment to community service,
and this year there were about fourteen hundred institutions that applied
and the category that we were recognized in, the general community service, there were about seven hundred and fifty-one,
to be exact,
institutions that applied and NC State was selected as one of two.
They don't rank those two institutions so in theory we were the top two submissions out of those seven hundred and fifty-one.
The award talks about community service but it's really broader than that.
It's the service learning that exists in the classroom,
it's the extracurricular activities that students are doing to mentor children
or to work with military families in their time of need,
it's the philanthropy projects that we talk about, the Krispy Kreme Challenge
and the blood drives and the meal packaging events,
and all the different ways that our extension faculty engage with the local communities throughout North Carolina.
So it's a recognition of all the ways that NC State is relevant to our communities,
so to be recognized as one of the top two in the country, we're very proud of that.
Again, that will just be another way that we say to students: This is part of the NC State experience,
that when you come here you will be engaged in communities,
that you will be provided challenging opportunities to make a difference and we expect that you'll rise to that challenge,
and that's the long legacy of student leadership, and leadership for the institution on this campus.