WELCOME HOME

Honors freshmen embody leadership, service

In less than 12 hours, Honors College freshmen went from moving into the residence hall and hugging family members goodbye to providing service in their new community.

The Honors College Service Day dispatches its newly minted students across Pitt County to volunteer at a variety of nonprofit organizations.

“It is so important for our students to become engaged in our community and start figuring out how they can make a positive impact early in their college careers,” said Dr. David White, dean of the Honors College. “The leadership skills that they develop through service permeate to campus and beyond.”

A total of 100 honors freshmen participated in the sixth annual Service Day on Aug. 18 at 10 local nonprofits: Boys and Girls Club of Pitt County, Building Hope, Community Crossroads Center, Food Bank of Eastern North Carolina, GO-Science, Golden Living Center, Habitat for Humanity, Hope Lodge, Humane Society of Eastern Carolina and Sound Rivers.

Leadership through service is a theme that honors students experience in the curriculum and enrichment activities hosted by the college. Service Day is a precursor to the specialized sequence of colloquia courses that begin each fall.

“This event allows students to see the value that the Honors College places on service,” said Dr. Todd Fraley, interim associate dean of academic programs. “Their first colloquia course focuses on service and empowers them to identify how they can make a positive impact in the Greenville community as an engaged citizen.”

At the Boys and Girls Club of Pitt County, students worked on remodeling an area dedicated to preteens.

“The honors students are helping us reimagine the teen center,” said Claude Cannon, director of teen services at the Boys and Girls Club. “This is an opportunity for them to see that they make an impact outside their studies. The world and community needs them.”

Freshman Brooke Palmer, a theater arts major from Wake Forest, volunteered at GO-Science and realized the mutual benefits this event could have on the children participating and ECU students.

“This is a good reminder for us that being involved is just as important as school,” said Palmer. “If these children understand something better about science after today, and they take it to a science fair for example, then they have had a really positive experience.”