Rachel Willis in the College of Arts and Sciences received the 2007 Robert L. Sigmon Award during the ninth-annual North Carolina Campus Compact Service-Learning Conference. The award is presented each year to a faculty or staff member in North Carolina who has made significant contributions toward furthering the practice of service-learning.
The award is named for North Carolinian Robert L. Sigmon, considered one of the pioneers in the national service-learning field.
Willis also was one of seven finalists for the national Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning, also presented by Campus Compact.
Willis, an associate professor of American Studies, began integrating service-learning into her courses in the late 1980s. She was the first faculty adviser to the APPLES Service-Learning Program, a student-led service-learning initiative started at UNC in 1991. In 2000 she won the Bryan Public Service Award for helping to found the Carolina Center for Public Service to engage and support faculty, staff and students at UNC in meeting the needs of North Carolina. Over the years, her research and service-learning efforts have contributed to the passage of Smart Start Legislation to improve child care and to improvements in the sock factory industry, transportation in the Triangle and disability access on the 16 UNC campuses.
Patricia Sullivan, chancellor of UNC-Greensboro and member of the NC Campus Compact Executive Board, presented the award to Willis during a Feb. 21 ceremony.
North Carolina Campus Compact is a coalition of colleges and universities collaborating to increase campus-wide participation in community and public service.
