JSC Student Honored by VT Campus Compact

March 23, 2010

Jasmine Yuris is Johnson State College’s winner of the 2010 Commitment to Service and Engagement Award from the Vermont Campus Compact (VCC). Jasmine received the award at the Vermont Campus Compact (VCC) annual Statewide Recognition Reception and Ceremony on April 14. The awards celebration concluded the 2010 New England Regional Campus Compact Conference, “Higher Education and the Greater Good: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century,” in Burlington, VT.

The award acknowledges one student per VCC campus for both the breadth and depth of his/her community involvement. Jasmine Yuris has been a Bonner Leader/ AmeriCorps member and interned at the Lamoille County Natural Resource Conservation District. She worked with local schools to create environmental educational opportunities and programs for school-aged children. On the JSC campus, Jasmine has been a member of the campus’ Eco-Rep Team and focused on composting, recycling, and “big green dreams” for the college that are still in the planning stages. She is a SERVE student leader, working with the SERVE staff to support event planning. She recruits volunteers from the JSC community, recognizes volunteer efforts, encourages reflection, and program evaluation. Jasmine was a lead organizer for JSC’s Hike for Hunger and the Coral Reef Run, and participated in numerous other SERVE activities, including helping to weatherize a local senior’s home, setting up for the Morrisville Rotary’s Polar Plunge and for the Green Mountain Club’s Snowshoe Festival, putting the JSC community garden to bed, and performing stewardship tasks at the Babcock Nature Preserve. Jasmine has also served as secretary to JSC’s Green Solutions and the director of clubs for the Student Government Association. She participated in the alternative break program for two years, and will venture to Oregon to volunteer with a sustainable urban farm in the spring of 2010.

The Vermont Campus Compact is a consortium of Vermont colleges and universities and non-academic partners committed to the civic purposes of higher education. It works with members to strengthen communities and educate for informed and active citizenship. VCC presidents believe that through sustained student, faculty, and institutional engagement with communities, higher education can help prepare tomorrow’s civic and social leaders while improving the lives of Vermonters. Providing training, networking, grants, resources, awards and more, VCC advances civic engagement on campuses and in communities, through service, integrating service into teaching (“service-learning”), campus/community partnerships, activism, dialogue, and socially responsible lifestyles. VCC is affiliated with national Campus Compact and 32 state affiliates, more than 1,200 members realizing the public good of higher education.