Athens, Ga. – The Georgia College Advising Corps, launched under the auspices of the University of Georgia Institute of Higher Education in 2009 with funding from the Watson-Brown Foundation, is sharing a national service award.
UGA and 17 other partner institutions that comprise the National College Advising Corps received the 2012 National Service Impact Award from the Corporation for National and Community Service. The award recognizes the institutions’ commitment to providing disadvantaged high school students with resources and support to pursue higher education opportunities. It was presented at a June awards ceremony held at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in Chicago, the world’s largest annual meeting of volunteer and service leaders from the public and private sector.
“The Institute of Higher Education has a long-standing commitment to public service as well as instruction and research, and one of the areas where we’ve conducted research is into access to higher education,” said Libby Morris, vice provost for academic affairs, who also serves as director of the Institute of Higher Education and director of the Georgia College Advising Corps program.
“We’re interested in the pipeline of students moving from high school to college,” Morris said, “and we thought this program would be a good opportunity for us to provide a service in an area that we know something about and where we could make a difference in college-going among underserved students in the state.”
Members of the university’s Georgia College Advising Corps are recent graduates of UGA who work as full-time advisers at four high schools around the state. They meet with students one-on-one to discuss the college admissions process and how to apply for scholarships and financial aid.
For the 2012-2013 academic year, the advisers are Briane Davis, a 2010 graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree in family financial planning; Lawrence Harris, a 2012 graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology; LaShon Leggett, a 2011 graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree in digital and broadcast journalism; and Lauren Rice, a 2011 graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree in communication science and disorders.
The advisers will be working with students at Westside High School in Augusta, Clarke Central High School in Athens, Thomson High School in Thomson and Meadowcreek High School in Norcross.
“Hopefully the impact the advisers are making in their schools will allow us one day to have a Georgia College Advising Corps adviser in every Georgia high school,” said Regina Thompson, guidance counselor at Westside High School. “They are greatly needed in the guidance departments.”
The National Service Impact Awards are given annually by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency whose various programs engage more than five million people nationwide in volunteerism and service. The awards honor groundbreaking programs and best practices that highlight one of the six areas of the agency’s strategic plan: healthy futures, economic opportunity, disaster services, environmental stewardship, education, and veterans and military families.
For more information on the Georgia College Advising Corps, see http://ihe.uga.edu/programs/georgia-college-advising-corps.
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