Bringing community service and community engagement into higher education represents a significant change in thinking for many staff, faculty, students, and communities. Such change takes time. This does not, however, mean that the process can t be accelerated. Those who are already convinced of the value of community engagement in higher education have been able to convince others by holding events that generate publicity, or through publications and presentations that raise awareness about activities that are already taking place.

The New Hampshire Tour of Service, held in the spring of 1998, achieved both of these on a grand scale. New Hampshire Campus Compact collaborated with seventeen colleges and universities statewide to create a media event around community service.

The Tour of Service was designed on a concert theme with a ten-day tour of the state making 17 stops for the 17 campuses. Planning began five months before the event. Releases were sent to newspapers and media outlets two weeks beforehand in each town where the tour would stop, and each campus advertised its own planned day of service. In the span of the ten days, more than one thousand students and one thousand community members joined faculty and staff to provide over eight thousand hours of service. Tour of Service projects were generally manageable events that could easily be completed within a day and provided visible service that would attract attention and media coverage. Earth Day festivals were held for more than 350 youth; 25 tons of trash were bagged in environmental clean-ups; Walk-a-Thons were held to raise money for charities; and ground was broken on a new Habitat for Humanity house.

These events brought new attention to service activities throughout New Hampshire and recognition for the service that colleges and universities were already doing. Local newspapers wrote about scholar power and the contribution of students to the community. By raising awareness on campus and in the community, the Tour of Service helped expand the scope of community engagement, and spread the word about service in higher education.

From

Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Contact: Campus Compact for New Hampshire at http://www.compactnh.org/