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Campus-Wide Student Leadership Roles
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Student Leadership for Community Service Days and Campaigns
Bonner Scholars and Leaders will participate in multiple types of one-day, occasional, and sustained community/civic-engagement events and activities, beginning in the first year. As they do so, they often learn how to plan and facilitate the success of these events, including with concrete roles like working with partners, envisioning a meaningful and realistic project, planning orientation, leading team building, managing volunteers, and facilitating reflection. Campus programs can think about ways that students’ leadership can catalyze others.
Service Saturdays at Slippery Rock University
- The Service Saturday model at Slippery Rock University aims to empower Bonner Leaders by supporting the mission of their community sites. Through the creation and facilitation of meaningful service, participating students get the opportunity to learn as they volunteer at/with an organization with this half day Saturday experience. Bonners are given the responsibility to coordinate the event, including outreach to volunteers and building relationships with campus collaborators. With this model, Bonners receive leadership experience, facilitate reflection and discussions, and introduce students to organization members. See their model below:
Slippery Rock University - Service Saturdays
Writing for Change at the University of Houston
- The Bonner Leaders Program at the University of Houston hosted "Writing for Change" event that involved the University campus as a whole. Through this event, students had the chance to write letters to their local and national representatives regarding issues they are passionate about. Current Bonner students wrote well-researched issue letters with guidance from a faculty member and these letters were then printed and provided at the event to be signed by students and staff. Students were introduced to the idea of letter writing in an early-semester civic engagement workshop where they organized in groups and picked their letter topics. Students then wrote their letters on their own time with feedback from the faculty mentor who ran the workshop. All student letters were reviewed and revised prior to the Writing for Change event. At the event, blank paper was provided for students to write letters of their own if they desired, as well as copies of pre-written letters that students could read and sign and send if they agreed with the argument about the issue. Also provided were lists of the representatives currently in office, the issues they care the most about (or which are relevant to their office), and their addresses. The event was helpful for students who were less familiar with state and local politics and the concept of representation. Bonner Leader students advertised this event to the whole campus through flyers, on-campus television ads, social media outreach, and word of mouth, and the events resulted in hundreds of letters being sent to local, Texas, and U.S. representatives. Below are two example letters written by students (Abortion Access, Against Book Bans), and the list of representatives used at the time of the event.
Engaging 1,600 Freshmen at The College of New Jersey
- At The College of New Jersey, every student must complete eight hours of service as a first year student and an upper division course linked with engagement. TCNJ's upperclass Bonner Scholars are involved in planning and leading more than 25 Community Engaged Learning Days (CEL) each year. These CEL Days, which reinforce best practices, also enable 1,600 first year students to complete their service work, while getting inspired to do more. In fact, TCNJ's Center often finds these students return to join other programs. They are hence called B-VOLS.
Student Leadership in Campus-Wide Centers
Students can actively collaborate with Bonner Program staff to maximize campus-wide engagement by leading institutional outreach initiatives. For an overview of additional student leadership positions tied to the Bonner Program, see Bonner Student Leadership.
Peer Management Positions at Christopher Newport University
Christopher Newport University (CNU) in Virginia sought to expand their center team with student staff. Below, are detailed descriptions of two new student leadership positions that are part of a professional higher education team in the Center for Community Engagement (CCE). These students develop skills to manage and empower their peers. They participate in training at monthly CCE student staff meetings on community engagement principles, service ethics and etiquette, communication, customer service, time management, and planning.
Christopher Newport University Service Track Coordinators (STC) - STCs are responsible for the advancement and management of off-campus student volunteer efforts at local non-profit partners within CNU’s ten service tracks.
- rising second or third year student
- apply for the position via a Handshake job posting
- hold office hours and advise students
- correspond with community partners in their assigned service tracks
Christopher Newport University Site Team Leaders (STL) - STLs are liaisons between their service site and student volunteers.
- help with volunteer management and recruitment
- represent one local non-profit organization
- requested by a community partner or current student volunteer
Issue Coordinators and Project Managers at Macalester College
In the Civic Engagement Center at Macalester College, there are 12 paid student staff. Most of them focus on partnerships and projects, organized by issue. The others work with programs and operations. Through these sustained roles, student leaders work directly with community partners to plan and implement projects. They create and lead trainings for other students. They foster the campus-wide culture of service. Student positions include:
- Arts, Environment & Sustainability Coordinator
- Immigrants & Refugees Coordinator
- Language Opportunities Coordinator
- Housing, Work & Food Justice (aka Economic Justice) Coordinator
- Public Policy & Justice Coordinator
- College Access (2)
- Youth & Tutoring
- Dialogue Cohorts
- Office Assistant
- Bonner Program Assistants (2)
Running a Basic Needs Organization at Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU)
Gator Thrift is a campus thrift store run by student leaders, including Bonner Leaders. This effort began to de-stigmatize poverty and ensure that students have access to food, professional attire, and other needed goods. Student leaders partnered with Dress for Success and the Sharp Dressed Man, learning strategies to garner resources like clothing and developing systems to secure ongoing donations from alumni, students, faculty, and staff. Gator Thrift was so successful in its first years that they expanded. Programs like this are now seen across most, if not all, campuses in the Bonner Network. They include food pantries, Campus Kitchen models (which repurpose unused food from the dining hall), community gardens, furniture and clothing stores, and more.
Shared Reflection at Warren Wilson College
The Open Cabin community engagement reflection at Warren Wilson College is a new initiative started by the Center for Community Engagement. Warren Wilson asks that each student participate in a community-engaged endeavor be it research, an internship, a course, or their first-year seminar. In that context, the purpose of the “Open Cabin - Community Engagement Reflection” is to center student experiences within community engagement from a place of reflection and cohesion. The Center aims to offer co-curricular programming that complements and enhances students’ experience in the classroom and in the community. This monthly meeting is facilitated by Bonner students and is open to all community-engaged first year seminar students, faculty, and staff as well as other students. This builds a larger campus culture and language around community engagement in a way that students, staff, and faculty can use together. Bonner students are trained to prepare and facilitate reflective conversations to normalize the obstacles faced in community relationships, problem-solve as a group regarding ways to navigate healthy engagement, and give common language and goals to the work done.
“Students as Colleagues”
Students Leading and Facilitating Faculty Engagement: This concept, supported by research and scholarship (Battistoni & Longo, 2011) is that students can and should be considered as colleagues to faculty. In fact, many campuses have developed sustained programs by which students play a leadership and facilitator role in the classroom and in the planning and implementation of community engagement linked with coursework. Students work on logistics, orientations, reflection, and other roles.
Related to the concept above, another student role is to do more organizational and formative work to guide the increased integration of community engagement with curriculum. Students in these roles at institutions including Earlham College, Montclair State University, Siena University, and Stetson University have met with faculty in departments to discuss research opportunities, conducted inventories of faculty engagement; interviewed faculty to ascertain their perspectives on community engagement; and organized mixers and events for faculty, students, and partners.
