Jesuit Commons Program Receives 2012 Distinguished Program Award from the Association for Continuing Higher Education

JC:HEM students in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

The Regis University (Denver, Colo.) College for Professional Studies (CPS) has received national recognition for the second time this year for its Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins (JC:HEM) initiative, which brings higher education to refugees. For this innovative program, CPS is being honored with the 2012 Distinguished Program Award from the Association for Continuing Higher Education, an organization dedicated to the promotion of lifelong learning and excellence in continuing higher education.

The Distinguished Program Award recognizes a program that is original or innovative in its audience, delivery system, partnering arrangements and resources, as well as successful in meeting its objectives.

JC:HEM, an initiative of the Society of Jesus, works in collaboration with the Jesuit Refugee Service to offer online higher education courses to more than 500 refugees. Regis was the first credentialing university for JC:HEM when the program began in fall 2010, and the first group of refugees will complete their diplomas in August 2013.

Regis’s JC:HEM program allows adult learners in refugee camps to earn a diploma in liberal studies. CPS faculty members are teaching online courses in Kenya and Malawi, according to Marie Friedemann, CPS associate dean.

Regis collaborates with 15 other Jesuit universities to provide undergraduate online courses to students from ten different countries in six different languages. A team of educators from six Jesuit schools developed the curriculum.

Earlier in 2012, the CPS JC:HEM program won the national-level University Professional and Continuing Education Association’s Outstanding Credit Program Award. In addition, Regis hosted the first international JC:HEM “Think Tank” in March 2012, where 120 Jesuit Catholic higher education leaders and innovators and staff from Jesuit Refugee Service collaborated to chart the future of the program. [Regis University, JC:HEM]