PROVIDING INCENTIVES TO STUDENT LEADERS
If a campus is interested in deepening and broadening the base for civic engagement, it may want to examine the amount of time a volunteer student can give to the work. Students working on this agenda in addition to their academic work, their paid work, and their own service work clearly will be too fragmented to be effective.
Supporting students who are working to increase the civic participation of the student body may be accomplished by:
• Reconfiguration of the jobs of student staff members in a volunteer or service-learning center.
• Requesting the office of the president, provost, dean, or head of student affairs to subsidize a student position for a year or two
• Appealing to an outside funder. The annual cost of a single student working on a civic engagement initiative might be something an individual donor might be willing to support.
In addition to salaries, honorariums and/or awards, there are other benefits available to students who work on this initiative. These include:
• The opportunity to provide direction and leadership to a new national movement,
• Opportunities to network with other student leaders across the state and country,
• Opportunities to work with decision makers at the campus and local level and politicians at the local and state level,
• Opportunities to attend and speak at local, regional, state and national conferences and gatherings,
• Opportunities to think, speak, write and publish about civic discourse and action,
• Information and assistance in making life plans including jobs, graduate school, and career choices, and
• Letters of recommendation(s).
But it is important to note that many students simply will not be able to give this initiative the time it deserves unless it can be underwritten in part by the institution which is interested in greater civic participation by students.
