volunteering

Following a weeklong orientation that focused on health disparities and public health, first-year students at the School of Medicine got their hands dirty working at urban gardens in St. Louis. The students volunteered with a nonprofit organization that works to establish and sustain green spaces in neighborhoods across the city.

Post-9/11 disabled veterans furthered their education, improved employment prospects and continued to serve their community through participating in The Mission Continues’ Fellowship Program finds a new study by the Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The Mission Continues is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to enable every returning veteran to serve again as a citizen leader. This study is one of the first to focus on the health and psychosocial outcomes of disabled veterans after providing civic service, defined as formal volunteering in a structured program, to nonprofits all across the country.

How do students learn the skills necessary to work with those who are different from them? How do they come to understand the global ramifications of local actions? How does higher education effectively train this generation for the global workforce? The answers to these questions can be found through international volunteer service, which is increasingly seen at a broad range of institutions of higher education in a multitude of forms. “While it is not new to higher education, international service pedagogy is at the threshold of a new era,” she says. “We have both the opportunity and responsibility in higher education to support and critically assess the international service performed by our students,” says Amanda Moore McBride, PhD, associate professor and research director at the Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Leaders in higher education and international service will come together on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis March 30-April 1 for the International Service and Higher Education Symposium. “International service is not new to higher education, but it is at the threshold of a new era,” says Amanda Moore McBride, PhD, director of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service and research director for the Center for Social Development at Washington University.

Even a few weeks of international volunteer service may result in a long-term relationship between the volunteer and the host country, suggests the research of the Brown School’s Amanda Moore McBride, PhD, assistant professor.

Fresh off a summer of pool parties and video games, the Washington University Class of 2009 will get to work as soon as they step onto campus. More than 1,000 University students, mainly newly arrived freshmen, will volunteer their time from 1-4 p.m. Sept. 3 to paint, landscape, clean and beautify 11 St. Louis public schools to make the new school year more enjoyable for students and their teachers. It’s all part of the seventh annual Service First, an initiative that introduces first-year University students to community service in the St. Louis area.

Washington University undergraduates help pull weeds at Hamilton Elementary School during the fourth annual Service First in 2002. As part of the St. Louis Public School’s “First Day, Every Day” initiative, more than 1,000 Washington University students will volunteer their time to landscape, paint, clean and renovate several schools to make the upcoming year more pleasant for teachers and students alike.

The fifth Service First will take place Aug. 30 when more than 1,100 students, including most of the new freshman class, will help clean, update and renovate 13 St. Louis, University City and Riverview Gardens public schools. Volunteer support from faculty and staff to help supervise and organize students for the project is welcomed. “This […]