Rice in service top 25

By Michelle Jin     9/16/10 7:00pm

Unlike most college rankings out there, Washington Monthly's 2010 ranking of the best national universities rates each school on what it does for the country rather than what it does for each individual student. "We rate schools based on their contribution to the public good in three broad categories," Washington Monthly's website states. Rice came in 25th in this ranking.

The rating is based on evaluations of the three categories of social mobility, research and service. Washington Monthly judges a university's social mobility by how much the school recruits and graduates low-income students. It rates a university's research category by measuring how much the university spends in research, how many students go on to get doctoral degrees and how many significant research awards the faculty accumulates. Finally, the magazine ranks service by looking toward how much the students give back to the country and to local communities, both during their years as college students and after graduation.

One of the categories that Washington Monthly looked for when ranking its service component was the number of students participating in community service and the number of hours performed, relative to school size. Rice ranked 108 out of a list of 258 universities in the U.S. in terms of the proportion of its students who performed service and the amount of hours they contributed.

---

---

Although this ranking may seem relatively low, Assistant Director of the Community Involvement Center at the Center for Civic Engagement Christa Leimbach said she believes students at Rice are very dedicated to serving the local community.

"I've worked at Rice for four years, and I am extremely impressed with the students' dedication and passion for service here," Leimbach said.

Many students who have done community service before coming to Rice continue to contribute after coming to Rice. Because of this, the Center for Civic Engagement sees many students who come forward automatically to volunteer, but it also works proactively at getting the word out on volunteer opportunities, Leimbach said.

"Service is a very powerful learning tool, helping students learn more not only about the community but about themselves," Leimbach said.

Another aspect of the service ranking involves an evaluation of how much of federal work-study grants were spent on community service versus non-community service. Universities are required to spend at least 7 percent of their federal work-study grants on community service.

Rice spends 13 percent of the federal work-study grant money on community service, coming in at 132 in that category. It does this through the America Reads program, which matches Rice students with local at-risk youth to tutor these children in reading.

Additionally, Rice staff and faculty volunteer through the Center for Civic Engagement. They often meet with the staff at the Center for Civic Engagement on an individual basis to discuss possible volunteering opportunities, Leimbach said. Furthermore, the Alternative Spring Break service trips involving groups of students traveling to help out all over the country often have a faculty member going on the trip as well.

---