Annual Awards

2011 awards recipients Lauren Brown, Ron Strauss, Della Pollock and Peter White (representing the North Carolina Botanical Garden).

Service-Learning Award | Community Partner Excellence Award Teaching Excellence Award | Undergraduate Excellence Award

 
APPLES provides annual awards to faculty, community partners, students, alumni and supporters who have made outstanding and significant contributions to service-learning at UNC.

Service-Learning Award in Honor of Ned Brooks
Established in 2001, the APPLES Service-Learning Award recognizes the sustained and on-going commitment of a student, faculty member, staff, or community partner who has addressed the concerns and needs of North Carolina communities. Recipients of the APPLES Service-Learning Award have been involved with the APPLES Program for a minimum of two years, have demonstrated a sustained commitment to service-learning, and are dedicated to positive community impact through service.

2011 Recipient
Dr. Ron Strauss

A true advocate for service-learning and community service, Dr. Strauss is constantly looking for ways the University can benefit the North Carolina community. Through his involvement in the Carolina Center for Public Service and the AIDS service-learning course over the years, he has helped provide students with meaningful service opportunities. Dr. Strauss is above all a mentor, a guide and role model to many students who choose career paths in service. He sees their potential and helps their dreams grow and become reality.

Meet former Service-Learning Award recipients

APPLES Partner Excellence Award
Established in 2004, the Community Partner Excellence Award honors the vital contribution of a community partner who provides unique and valuable service experiences for students. Recipients of the Community Partner Excellence Award have been involved with the APPLES Service-Learning Program for a minimum of two years, have demonstrated a sustained commitment to service-learning, and are dedicated to enhancing student learning in both the academic and community setting.

2011 Recipient
North Carolina Botanical Garden

The North Carolina Botanical Garden (NCBG) has been a truly committed and amazing partner to APPLES over the last decade. Different departments have utilized courses for more than nine years, had interns every year for seven years and even been a regular recipient of Service-Learning Initiative volunteers. Staff from NCBG have supervised APPLES volunteers and interns and have served as co-educators in service-learning. This award is a celebration of those staff who have given so much to APPLES and its students. The students who have worked with the NCBG leave with valuable knowledge as a result of their experiences and are inspired by the work of the Botanical Garden.

Meet former Community Partner Excellence recipients

APPLES Teaching Excellence Award
Established in 2004, the Teaching Excellence Award honors a faculty member who thoroughly integrates service experiences into academic curriculum while inspiring students to make significant contributions in the community and the classroom. Recipients of the Teaching Excellence Award have been involved with the APPLES Service-Learning Program for a minimum of two years, have demonstrated a sustained commitment to service-learning, and are dedicated to positive community impact through service.

2011 Recipient
Della Pollock

Since 2005, Dr. Pollock has been regularly teaching four courses involving significant service-learning experiences. In 2006, she was awarded a prestigious Ueltschi Service-Learning Course Development Grant and she is currently one of 23 Faculty Engaged Scholars at UNC, selected through a very competitive process. Central to this recognition is the work she and her students have done over the past five years in the Northside neighborhood and the subsequent establishment of UNC NOW (United with the Northside Community Now). UNC NOW, established in 2008 as a community-university organization and informed by the legacy or desegregation, engages oral history, local activism, performance, development and more in efforts to build partnerships between the University and local communities.

Meet former Teaching Excellence recipients

APPLES Undergraduate Excellence Award
Established in 2008, the Undergraduate Service-Learning Excellence Award honors the significant contributions to service by participants of the APPLES program who make undeniably profound impacts on the campus, regional, and global communities they serve.

2011 Recipient
Lauren Brown

Lauren first visited the Methodist Orphanage and AIDS Clinic in Lawra, Ghana with Project HEAL in the summer of 2008. While there she saw a need for sustainable crop growth and decided to do something about it. In 2010, Lauren returned to Lawra as a Social Entrepreneur Fellow to work with setting up drip irrigation systems at the orphanage. The women and children in this clinic were taught how to use the system, what the benefits of the system were, and how to make the excess yields of produce profitable. Profits from the produce grown and sold are being used to pay for the antiretroviral treatments for the women and children at the clinic who are infected with HIV/AIDS. Since Lauren’s return to UNC, she has remained in contact with the orphanage and seen impressive results with the quality of produce grown. Lauren graduated in May 2011 as a Buckley Public Service Scholar and plans to attend medical school.

Meet former Undergraduate Service-Learning Excellence Award recipients