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Bonner Student Development

Contents

Overview

The Bonner Program is built along a four-year developmental model for students. This translates to students making a multi-year commitment to service and engaging in developmentally appropriate curricular and co-curricular experiences. As a result, they become more involved and qualified to take on additional responsibilities and leadership roles as they advance in the Program. Growth and development for these students occurs in multiple settings such as the individual student's service site, Bonner meetings, cornerstone activities, formal and informal reflections, and academic courses. Data collected over the years indicate that guided conversations and carefully planned opportunities for reflection in the program contribute to students' sense of civic agency and skillset deemed crucial for personal, professional, and community development. 

While each campus in the Bonner network will have its own way of defining the various student learning outcomes, the Bonner Program's Student Development Framework (explained below) provides both conceptual and concrete strategies to enable students to excel in the program at their particular campus. A comprehensive training and education calendar that is linked to developmentally appropriate learning outcomes can provide a solid foundation for students as they engage in service work and develop as leaders. 

Bonner Student Development Framework

The chart below (the Bonner developmental Model) explains how Bonners' community engagement roles evolve over their four years in the program, starting with engaging in direct client-service to handling more complex capacity-building projects. 

Service Leadership Roles 

Many Bonners will find themselves taking on a formal leadership role as an intern or member of the Bonner Leadership Team. See the Bonner Student Leadership section to learn more about the many roles or the Bonner Leadership Teams section to explore the creative ways that campuses have engaged students to strengthen the Bonner Program, campus-wide engagement, or community partnerships. 

Capacity-Building Projects 

With the increasing focus on deepening and expanding the capacity of nonprofit partners and the local community, juniors and seniors should also be stepping it up in their service work. See the Guide on Capacity Building to learn more. Here, the students may revisit their positions and Bonner CLAs, perhaps in conjunction with advising, to take on a project like curriculum design, program evaluation, grant writing, research, and more. In the Documents to Download section, you will find some trainings that are helpful to prepare students for these roles.

Community-Based and Policy Research 

Some programs are making the expectation that students work on a research project during the junior and/or senior year. Again, this fits with the ongoing learning and leadership development of students, as well as with increased academic expectations in majors, minors, and programs. This can include a Community-Based Research  CBR) project, where the student addresses community-identified needs for knowledge and information while also earning hours and credit for this work. In the Documents to Download section, you'll find some helpful trainings for students.

Social Action Projects/Campaigns

As students progress through the Bonner developmental model, they are gradually exposed to the many manifestations of community and civic engagement. It is the intention that as they reach their junior and senior year, they will have engaged in direct service, begun working on building capacity at their service site, and gained a deeper understanding of the complex policies and issues at play within their service site. At this point in their Bonner journey, it is the hope that students are exposed to the many avenues in which they may foster social change. In order to build their skills and confidence as agents of change, empower and train upperclassmen students to develop and implement their own social action campaign. At this time, the predominant way this can be accomplished is through partnership with a faculty member to teach a social action course. However, staff can also adapt the social change guide to better fit their program and campus needs. On the Social Action and Community Organizing page, you can find resources and examples that can support you in implementing this initiative.

Social Innovation Projects

Social Innovation is defined as a novel solution to a social problem. Bonners are doing intensive service in the community, with intentional support, training, reflection, and education to help them process their work and impact. Because of this, students have one of the most insightful experiences that can spark social innovation that is focused on local community work. To harness this inspiration, the Bonner Foundation is hoping to launch the Social Innovation Fund, a source of funding for Bonner social innovation projects. This fund is open to applications from all Bonners in the network. Additionally, Bonner Scholars can also apply to use Community Funds for this purpose as well. Given this opportunity, student leaders can deepen their level of engagement with their service site and community by taking on a social innovation project, and building their leadership abilities through team-based project management.

Common Commitments

About ten years after the establishment of the Bonner Program, the Bonner Foundation brought together staff and students involved in the program to articulate a common language about the goals and values of the program. Through a series of focus groups and discussion sessions at various Bonner-sponsored gatherings, six Common Commitments were identified as representing the collective beliefs about the types of values and personal commitments that those connected through the Program encounter and explore.  Each Bonner Program weaves the exploration of the Common Commitments into their work in various ways, including reflection activities, trainings, film screenings and discussions, and coursework.  

Cornerstone Activities

The Cornerstone Activities are designed to be hallmarks of the Student Development Model. A Cornerstone Activity has been designated for each level of the model:

• Bonner Orientation
• First Year Service Trip
• Second Year Exchange
• Junior-Senior Capstone (Engaged Signature Work)
• Senior Presentation of Learning

Bonner Student Learning Outcomes and Rubric

Over the past decade, the Bonner Foundation and colleges and universities in its network have begun to formalize a set of learning outcomes connected to the co-curricular, curricular, and integrative experiences associated with its four-year civic engagement program. The image below represents the student learning outcomes identified by The Bonner Foundation and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). There is a suggested rubric to assess these learning outcomes, which draws on the rubrics developed as part of the VALUE initiative of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, including the Civic Engagement, Civic Values, Civic Knowledge, and Integrative Learning Rubrics. It is developed for community engagement program staff and students to reflect on how well the curricular, co-curricular, and integrative experiences help enhance students' civic knowledge and skills. Click below to view the rubric.

Bonner Program Learning Outcomes Rubric 2023.

Knowledge Areas

The following knowledge areas are identified as important to discuss to broaden students' understanding of the complex issues they may confront during their service experiences.  Through the following lenses, students may examine root causes, which policy options work well, and which do not, and what may be needed for long-term solutions: 

• Place-based knowledge
• Connected to the community where the student is serving, such as knowledge of local context, history, economics, politics, and issues 
• Issue-based knowledge (Local, National, Global)
• Poverty
• Homelessness
• Hunger
• Distribution of wealth
• Distribution of food
• Health care
• Environmental concerns 
• Civic Knowledge
• Structure and roles of government 
• Analyzing the implications of policies 
• Ways to be involved in shaping public policy 

Bonner Civic and Community Engagement Trainings include modules that address a number of these topics. 

Bonner Skill Set 

First developed in 2003-04 through collaborative efforts of students, campus administrators, community partners in the Bonner network and Foundation staff, the Bonner Skill Sets were created to connect to and complement both the Common Commitments and the Student Development Model. It is the hope that every Bonner graduate will have increased their mastery and grown in their ability in each of the skills listed below after four years in the Program.  To facilitate student achievement,  we have developed an extensive series of training modules which can be found on and downloaded from our Bonner Civic and Community Engagement Trainings.

Reflection

Reflection is a critical learning process derived from questioning one's assumptions and analyzing one's experiences. In Bonner context, critical reflection involves thinking about how we show up in a place, evaluating our community engagement experiences, and examining how it affects us and the world. By practicing critical reflection, students deepen their understanding of place, people, themselves, and issues. They make connections, gain new skills, and become more effective in their service work. The Bonner Program offers participating students a series of six related reflection activities that help with their personal and career development: 

1. Reflection essays
2. One-on-One Meetings
3. ePortfolio
4. Resume
5. Interview preparation
6. Senior Presentation of Learning

Visit the Reflection section and Bonner Training Modules on Bonner wiki to get familiar with a range of reflection activities.