President Flores Interviewed by Texas Campus Compact
By: Mary Ann Cozza
Texas Campus Compact, a non-profit organization promoting service learning and civic engagement on college campuses, recently interviewed UHD President William Flores for its TxCC Member Highlights newsletter. TCC highlights individuals who help develop civic engagement and service learning partnerships between communities, faculty and students all across the state of Texas.
Below is a sample of the Q and A between Dr. Flores and Daniel Miranda, director of communication at TCC:
DM: How do you think your campus embraces the vision and mission of Texas Campus Compact, and how do you, as your institutions president, encourage students to become more involved?
BF: UHD is committed to service learning and civic engagement. We are a Carnegie-classified 'engaged institution, and include engagement in our mission statement.
DM: Why is civic engagement and service learning important to you and your students, both in a collegiate and post-collegiate environment?
BF: Students learn better through application. Their involvement in service learning allows them to learn about community organizations, issues that affect the Houston community, and to apply what they learn in the classroom. Many students actually change majors as a consequence of these experiences. Some volunteer or serve on boards as a result of service learning courses. Moreover, a key component of public education is the development of an educated and engaged citizenry. Service-learning underscores the need for citizens to become involved in local issues and hopefully to be more informed as voters.
