Actively and effectively market the opportunities to students and community partners.
Inform students who are eligible for work-study about the opportunity to engage in community service and how to get involved. Use multiple means of communication.
Determine how community partners will be recruited and selected as appropriate locations for community service work-study positions.
Inform community partners about the availability of work-study students and the benefits the partners can gain by engaging these students in service through their organization.
Cedar Crest College, Allentown, Pennsylvania
During student orientation each year, Cedar Crest students participate in a day of service. During the service day activities, students are given information about Federal Work-Study community service positions. The college offers students a choice of positions in nine fields of service: animals and environment, hunger and homelessness, health and wellness, children and youth, adult literacy, mentoring, elderly, arts and culture, and special events, and moves students through a track of increasing responsibility as they progress through their four years.
Tammy Bean
Director of Community Service Programs
Clarion University, Clarion, Pennsylvania
Clarion highlights community service work-study as one of several ways students can get involved in the community and gain career experience during their time at the university. University staff meet with students and their parents during summer orientation sessions; advertise through a brochure, newsletter, website, and posters; conduct presentations to service-learning classes and student organizations; and participate in the Activities Day Fair. More students and community agencies are interested in community service work-study than can be accommodated each year.
Positions are designed to provide students with career experience relevant to their major course of study at Clarion. Information sessions for students explain the goals of the program, the selection process, criteria for employment, student assistant expectations, and the nature of the opportunity. Applications of eligible students are forwarded to agencies for selection. New site supervisors and student employees must participate in a university orientation prior to employment. A handbook accompanies the orientation. Each spring semester, supervisors and students are required to evaluate each other using a standard performance evaluation. Visit www.clarion.edu/career for forms and resources used by the program.
Diana Anderson Brush
Associate Director
Career Services Center
University of Montana—Missoula, Missoula, Montana
The University of Montana has engaged work-study students in community positions for several decades, and the campus president is very supportive of the program. Students are informed of the opportunity to do community service work-study at meetings held during orientation week. In addition, the Career Services website contains job information, including descriptions of all types of work-study positions. The Director of Financial Aid has long-standing relationships with many local organizations and individuals and invites them to post community positions online. As a result, one in five UM work-study students is engaged in community service.
Connie Bowman
Assistant Director
