Counting Down the Hours

If you are anything like me, you have had June 15^th circled in your calendar for the past two months. This year marks my inaugural journey into the vast world that is the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. Established by the Corporation for National and Community Service in 2006, the recognition “highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community problems.” (www.nationalservice.gov/special-initiatives/honor-roll). Items such as percentage of students participating in service, number of hours completed and population served are all considered.

At Brockport we face a challenge that I am certain is not unique to our institution – how do we efficiently track all the service our students are doing? It seems a daunting task when you consider not just opportunities offered through our office but also those hours that students complete on their own, through class or as a member of their organization. Indeed as I began working on the college’s honor roll application, I began to uncover a whole world of community engagement of which I was only peripherally aware. In unpacking the experiences of our students, I met faculty who are doing incredible things in the community and involving students in meaningful service learning.  I discovered students who are spending hundreds of hours improving the world around them. And then the panic set in.  How on earth could we really capture all the work our college is doing?

This question is one that colleges grapple with all over the country.  I wish I could write this blog post and let you all know that I have found the golden ticket to tracking student service hours.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.  But what I will share are a few ideas and resources that may be useful.

• Form partnerships across campus: look for the larger areas in which service is being completed. This is your “low-hanging fruit.” Connect with academic departments in which service learning is required to find out which specific courses are involved.  Talk to athletics or service organizations to establish a system of reporting community service.
• Make it easy to report: when requesting information from campus partners, keep it simple by not asking for extraneous details.  For example, you can work with the registrar to obtain service learning course rosters each semester, which means faculty need to only report service details.
• Find a tool that works: at Brockport, we utilize the CollegiateLink system from Campus Labs (http://www.campuslabs.com/) to allow students to register their community service hours.  In this capacity, we are able to also encourage student reflection on the experience to deepen the learning that occurs.
• Incentivize reporting: determine ways to recognize departments, organizations or individual students who are completing (and reporting) community service hours. One useful resource is the President’s Volunteer Service Award (www.presidentialserviceawards.gov). This national award recognizes individuals who make a positive impact in their communities through service.  Your school can become a certifying organization.  At Brockport, we encourage students to reflect on their service experiences by registering their hours.  Once a student hits over a hundred hours in the year, we will submit their name for the award.

It seems reporting community service hours on campus is an ever-moving target. I would certainly not assert that we have established the best system, but hopefully you will find some benefit in the lessons we have learned at Brockport.  And, if you have found some strategies that work, be sure to share your wisdom in the comments sections!