Integrate community service work-study into the institution’s overall civic engagement mission and programs.
- Establish community service work-study as an important component of campus community service programs and efforts.
- Build connections between community service work-study and other community service initiatives.
- Determine how the community service work-study students — who typically serve for more hours and longer periods of time — can support other campus service efforts (e.g., as site coordinators, volunteer coordinators, or assistants in service-learning courses).
Miami Dade College, Miami, Florida
Community service work-study students play an essential role in helping administer and lead Miami Dade College’s Center for Community Involvement. These students help run four comprehensive campus centers that oversee all service learning and America Reads activities. Community service work-study students meet with faculty, visit classes to encourage students to get involved in service, counsel and place service-learning students with community agencies, provide service-learning training for agency partners, help recruit, hire, support, and monitor America Reads tutors, and assist with myriad other community engagement projects.
Contact: Joshua Young
Director, Center for Community Involvement
Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota
The Off-Campus Student Employment (OCSE) program (Macalester College’s work-study program) is one of many programs administered by Macalester’s Civic Engagement Center. Sophomore through senior students can work 8-10 hours each week at one of more than 30 approved sites. The program is designed to create institutional partnerships between Macalester and local community organizations, with students serving as a bridge between the organizations and the campus, enabling each to build on the varied resources of the other.
The OCSE program adheres to the same standards of good practice and follows the same guiding principles established for all of Macalester’s civic engagement efforts. All students in the program are required to attend a monthly two-hour training workshop on nonprofit issues, models of social change, and skill-building techniques. Work-study students serve with many of the same core community partners as those involved in other campus-based civic engagement initiatives. As such, they may work with the same organization in a variety of capacities (volunteer, work-study student, intern, service-learning student, or as part of an honor’s or research project).
Contact: Ruth Janisch Lake
Assistant Director
Civic Engagement Center
Karin Trail-Johnson
Director
Civic Engagement Center
