Wed, 17 Dec 2003 05:00:00 -0500
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A Decade of Learning and Service

This month, the Shriver Center celebrates ten years of service to the UMBC community and beyond. Founded on December 14, 1993, in honor of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the Shriver Center was created to engage the strengths and resources of higher education to find creative solutions to the most pressing of social problems. It has since become a national leader in promoting service-learning, civic engagement, and community-based service delivery.

The following are just a few of the Shriver Center’s many accomplishments over the last ten years:

*The Choice Programs, which have been administered in the Shriver Center since its opening, have served 15,000 youth from across the state of Maryland during its 15-year history. Choice Programs, which include the Choice Program and Choice Jobs, work directly with young people and their families to provide job skills and reduce delinquency. These programs have now been replicated in California and Connecticut.

*Ninety percent of the Shriver Peaceworker Program’s alumni are currently employed full-time and 100 percent continue in careers of public service. More than 80 percent of the participants in this program for returned Peace Corps volunteers came from outside the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, but 74 percent continue to live in the area after graduation as they pursue careers in public service.

*Over the last ten years, the Shriver Center has placed over 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students in internships, cooperative education and service-learning opportunities.

Building upon these accomplishments, the Shriver Center continues to expand its services to UMBC and the surrounding community.

*The Shriver Living Learning Center, now in its fourth year, offers 29 undergraduates with interests in public service the opportunity to live together in Erickson Hall. These students commit to performing five hours of community service per week and taking a practicum class that allows them to reflect on their service experience.

*The Shriver Center collaborates with the Department of Biological Sciences, College of Engineering and five Baltimore areas middle schools in the Teaching Enhancement Partnership Project (TEPP), an effort funded by the National Science Foundation. This program, now in its second year, brings UMBC students into classrooms to provide support to teachers in math, science, engineering and technology education.

*In 2001, the Shriver Center initiated the Kauffman Entrepreneur Internship Program, which provides undergraduates with first-hand learning experience in entrepreneurship. Students in the program work in a semester-long internship with start-up or emerging companies, including some located in techcenter@UMBC.

A ten-year anniversary celebration from 5 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 10 will highlight the accomplishments of the Shriver Center through testimonials of participants and beneficiaries of the many Center initiatives serving the Baltimore area and beyond. Opening remarks will be delivered by President Freeman Hrabowski. Honored guests are Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver. The event will be held in the Skylight Room at The Commons.