At this year’s Service Engagement Summit Awards Reception and Ceremony on March 28, 2012, Indiana Campus Compact will honor IUPUI Center for Service and Learning Executive Director Dr. Robert G. Bringle with the Indiana Campus Compact Legacy of Service award for his contributions to the success of Indiana Campus Compact and the field of community and service engagement.  Dr. Bringle, IUPUI Chancellor’s Professor  Psychology and Philanthropic Studies, has been a part of the Indiana Campus Compact network since we opened our doors 19 years ago  He, and colleagues Dean William Plater and Eugene Tempel, were part of the 1993 team who worked with the group of students starting what became the Indiana state office of Campus Compact.  Dr. Bringle has been part of our work from the beginning and through his work, has changed service engagement culture across the nation.

Dr. Bringle’s work as Executive Director of the IUPUI Center for Service and Learning has resulted in numerous local, national, and international recognitions for IUPUI and the Center for Service and Learning as well as personal honors. Under his leadership, IUPUI  was named as one of three winners nationally for the 2006 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service and has been on the Honor Roll three additional times including as a finalist for 2012.  In 2006, IUPUI was one of 62 colleges and universities across the nation to be recognized by The Carnegie Foundation with its new elective Classification for Community Engagement.

Dr. Bringle, a true leader, not only talks about service, he lives it.  He was the Volunteer of the Year in 2001 for Boys and Girls Clubs of Indianapolis. For his scholarly journal articles, chapters, and books on service learning, Dr. Bringle was awarded the national Campus Compact Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service Learning in 1998. He was recognized at the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement conference International Service-Learning Research Conference with the Distinguished Research Award in 2004. Throughout his career, Dr. Bringle has traveled the world and consulted with faculty, staff, and administrators in numerous countries about service learning and community engagement.  In 2004 these efforts were recognized by The University of the Free State in South Africa, when he was awarded with an honorary doctorate for his scholarly work on civic engagement and service learning.

It is fitting as Indiana Campus Compact approaches its 20th anniversary next year, and reflects upon those who have helped the organization develop and be as strong as it is today, that they would recognize Dr. Bringle with the first Legacy of Service Award.   Indiana Campus Compact has grown dramatically over the years and regardless of who was at the helm, or how many campuses were members, Dr. Bringle has been a constant advisor to, advocate for, and supporter of Indiana Campus Compact and the fields of service learning and community engagement.  He helped develop the Faculty Fellows, Indiana Campus Compact’s longest running grant program, and was the Senior Fellow for the inaugural Faculty Fellows class in 1995. The Faculty Fellows program has supported over 100 faculty members across Indiana develop strong service learning and community engagement projects for their students on their campuses and colleagues in their respective disciplines. It was for this dedication and so much more that Dr. Bringle received the inaugural Brian Douglas Hiltunen Award for the Outstanding Contribution to the Scholarship of Engagement in 2000, and it is for his continued and unwavering dedication and support that Indiana Campus Compact is honored to recognize him with Indiana Campus Compact’s inaugural Legacy of Service award.

Indiana Campus Compact supports higher education’s efforts to develop students into well-informed, engaged citizens. By providing programs, services, and resources, ICC serves as a catalyst for campuses and communities to improve people’s lives through service-learning and civic engagement initiatives. For more information, please visit www.indianacampuscompact.org.