This editorial was published in The Brunswick News on Wednesday, April 26.
A degree from College of Coastal Georgia comes with so much more than a classroom education.
That was on full display Monday at this year’s Service-Learning Symposium.
It was a showcase of the projects and ideas students at the college pursued through the school’s service-learning initiative. The initiative is an effort to ensure coastal graduates are well-rounded adults, ready to enter the next stage of their lives with an understanding of the importance of giving back to the communities in which they live.
A new high mark was set this past fall when 29 service-learning courses were offered across subject areas including psychology, nursing, English, history, health informatics, public administration, teacher preparation, business and radiology.
For the fifth year in a row, the fruits of those courses were there for the community to see at the symposium. One in particular offered a perfect example of the kind of impact these projects can have. Nursing students Krystle Binion, Lauren Booth, Erica Gillespie and Alphie Henry collaborated with Brunswick High School to boost the self-esteem of a group of high school girls and to teach them about peer-pressure and alcohol and drug awareness ahead of the annual prom. The group selected two girls who did not have the means to buy dresses and attend prom, found them dresses and make-up and other accessories and helped the girls attend the big dance.
“They really responded well to it, and they felt beautiful and they felt important,” Binion told The News this week.
Prom has nothing to do with nursing, but a project like this shows that these students were thinking outside of the bubble of campus. It is a lesson that will be applicable as they pursue their careers as well.
Whether they stay in the Golden Isles or find a job after graduation in another community, the education they received at CCGA has instilled the generous and thoughtful nature of our community in its students to take with them to the rest of the world.