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More University Students are
Volunteers
By MARTHA PALUCH
The number of American university students who volunteer for community
service projects in the United States has risen nearly 20 percent since
2002, according to a new study.
University students "represent a large and growing source of the nation's
volunteers," according to the Corporation for National and Community
Service, an independent federal agency that provides grants and other
support to volunteer organizations throughout the United States. The
agency's latest study found that three in 10 university students, or 3.3
million people, volunteered in 2005-a gain of 600,000 students above the
2.7 million reported in 2002.
On campuses and in the community, university students are participating in
a range of volunteer service activities such as tutoring and mentoring
children, raising funds for worthy causes and helping their fellow
citizens recover from natural disasters, including hurricanes Katrina and
Rita in 2005.
Community-based research and service learning
Universities in the United States were founded with the principle of civic
engagement in mind in addition to their academic missions. To continue
this civic service tradition, universities have embraced new ways of
engaging students, such as through community-based research and service
learning.
Community-based research involves students in projects that address social
issues. Service learning integrates community service projects with
classroom learning, and students often receive academic credit for their
projects.
In October 2006, for the first time, six colleges and universities
received the President's Higher Education Community Service Award for
encouraging and supporting noteworthy student community service projects.
Three awards were for excellence in general community service and three
were for Gulf Coast hurricane relief efforts.
Tutoring and mentoring
One honoree was California State University, Monterey Bay, which has a
service-learning requirement for all undergraduates. Some students serve
as tutors and mentors in underperforming local schools, while others
assist homeless and other marginalized people by preparing meals at the
local soup kitchen, teaching at a computer lab in the neighborhood,
working on neighborhood beautification and other projects.
"I enjoy mentoring because it makes me feel like I'm part of the
community. The kids are all really eager to participate," says Allison
Stoddart, 19, an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore,
Maryland.
"I enjoy this opportunity to be a role model for these girls during a
tumultuous period in their lives," says Kristen Ward, 20, a student at
Middlebury College in Vermont, talking about her experience mentoring
middle school girls through a program called Sister-to-Sister, sponsored
by the American Association of University Women.
Tutoring and mentoring are the most popular volunteer activities on
university campuses, followed by fundraising and preparing, distributing
and serving food. In 2005, nearly 32 percent of university student
volunteers worked at educational or youth services organizations, and 24
percent worked at religious organizations. Other students volunteered with
sports and cultural groups and organizations specializing in international
issues, public safety, environment and health care.
Raising funds and baking cookies
More universities are creating programs to help match students to
volunteer opportunities and to link community work with academic programs.
Some service-learning programs are entirely student-run.
One example of a student-run program is National Student Partnerships. Its
Web site is http://www.nspnet.org/. Started by two undergraduate students
at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1998, the program
operates a national network of drop-in resource centers, staffed by
student volunteers from area universities.
Volunteers provide on-site and referral services to low-income people.
National Student Partnerships has mobilized more than 2,500 trained
student volunteers in 12 cities.
Religious groups engage in community service on university campuses. At
Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, for example, members of the Muslim
Students Association tutor refugee children at a local primary school and
raise funds for earthquake and famine relief. The Emory Christian
Fellowship is working to help revitalize a park in downtown Atlanta and
members bake cookies for the patients at the Children's Hospital of
Atlanta.
Another growing trend among college students is the "alternative spring
break" movement, in which university students perform community service
projects during their vacation week in March. Thousands of students each
year build houses for low-income families, care for HIV/AIDS patients and
tutor inner-city children instead of going to beach parties in Florida.
Nine students from Vermont's Middlebury College Hillel, the Jewish student
organization on campus, traveled to Mississippi to provide Hurricane
Katrina relief work in March 2006. More than 100 students from 10
universities worked together to repair 17 roofs in a heavily damaged
neighborhood. Trip leader Rebecca Steinberg says, "It was an amazing
experience that I know we will never forget."
Each year, the Corporation for National and Community Service (www.nationalservice.org)
provides opportunities for more than two million Americans of all ages to
serve their communities through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and
Serve America.
The corporation estimates five million students will be engaged in
volunteerism by 2010.
Martha Paluch is a USINFO staff writer.
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Martha Paluch is a
USINFO staff writer.
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