AmeriCorps Service Leaders
University of Southern Maine
Promising
Approaches
- (4)
Encourage and support activities and student and community organizations that
provide opportunities for students to be engaged in their campuses and
communities.
- (8)
Involve students in the development and sustaining of campus/community
partnerships.
Overview
This program, co-sponsored by Campus Compact and funded through the Corporation for
National & Community Service, offers students opportunities to become
leaders in community service, partnering with community agencies, projects, or
organizations and recruiting and supporting student volunteers in that
work. Its goals are:
- To engage AmeriCorps members in direct community service that meets locally identified community needs
- To increase the leadership skills and civic knowledge of AmeriCorps members.
- To engage AmeriCorps members in recruiting and managing volunteers.
- To facilitate the development of new campus-community partnerships and the strengthening of existing ones.
A variety of projects have taken place including:
Leading Social Work students in working with incarcerated women.
Recruiting students for the Big Brother/Big Sister program.
Initiating a new mentoring program
Leading education about substance abuse and incarceration recovery and volunteering
with a nonprofit organization.
Special Features
Civic Learning Goals
- Civic Knowledge: …recognize characteristics and
actions of effective, participating citizens… identify and describe the
community in which they live…identify and describe local problems and their
connection to problems on the state and national levels…explore ways an
individual can help solve societal problems…
- Civic Skills: …evaluate information for objectivity…apply
information to effective efforts to help solve societal problems…assess the
consequences and context for personal
action….develop and use critical thinking and ethical reasoning to make
informed and responsible decisions…develop and use verbal and written
communication skills…work cooperatively…develop effective
team-building…effectively advocate individual and shared interests…public
speaking…contacting public officials…organize meetings…active
listening/perspective taking…become informed about community affairs, political
issues, and the processes by which citizens effect change…achieving group
goals…forge coalitions…examine structural causes of social problems and seek
solutions…effectively promote goals in contentious political arenas…organize
people to address social issues
- Civic Attitudes/Dispositions: …willingness to enter
dialogue…tolerance of ambiguity and resistance to simplistic answers to complex
questions…a sense of personal efficacy…affective/emotional attachment to
community…social trust…respect for
individual and group identities…concern for the greater good…belonging and
contribution to groups in civil society…socially responsible…see themselves as
members of a public, a community…
Contact Information
Andrea Thompson McCall at USM
Sarah Miller at Campus Compact for New Hampshire
www.compactnh.org/projects/serve_NHME.htm
