CACC Programs » Federal Work-Study Community Service » University of San Diego

University of San Diego

Gaining Leadership Skills through Federal Work-Study

http://www.sandiego.edu/csl
Contact: Elaine Elliott, Director, Center for Community Service Learning, University of San Diego,
619-260-4798, Elliott@usd.edu

The Center for Community Service Learning (CCSL) at the University of San Diego (USD) seeks to impart the university’s mission to students involved in its programs: to serve with compassion, provide ethical leadership, foster peace, and work for justice.

FWS Community Service: Site Coordinators

Reflecting the university’s mission, CCSL has developed a FWS community service component that integrates leadership training and advance supervisory skills and program coordination for students who work at service learning sites in the community. Chosen through a competitive process, including interviews and recommendations, the FWS students work 10 to 20 hours a week at additional pay as site coordinators. The coordinators provide continuity and connection between community organizations, CCSL and service learning faculty, while working to enhance their peers’ service-learning experiences. The jobs include scheduling service sessions, monitoring attendance and recording achievements. Site coordinators also conduct orientation for service learning students, lead reflection sessions, and facilitate interactions between the service learning students and site staff.

Training and Support

Site coordinators receive an orientation to their sites and their responsibilities and obtain on-going support from school and agency staff. Experienced site coordinators also coach and encourage new coordinators. Site coordinators are able to enhance their abilities to facilitate reflections, solve problems, and handle practical matters such as scheduling, monitoring attendance, and conducting orientations. FWS community service students participate in a semester-long leadership program, which builds connections and encourages cooperation, while exploring ethics and social justice issues.

Benefits for the University

Leadership skills that students develop from being site coordinators can benefit other university programs. CCSL staff encourage the site coordinators to consider taking leadership positions in co-curricular and other university-wide programs. Thus students who begin FWS community service as an America Reads tutor as a first-year student can move through leadership positions as site coordinators and serve in more significant roles on campus, such Director of the Center for Awareness, Service, and Action.

Benefits for the Students

Additionally, USD has found that leadership experiences help develop career goals. Many students report that after graduation they enroll in graduate programs that prepare them for professions and careers to serve the community. Other students go on to the Peace Corps, the Jesuit Service Corps, and other service-related programs and gain even more valuable community experience.

Benefits for the Community

Community partners appreciate the site coordinators because they can trust them to provide management, trouble-shooting, and coordination of the student volunteers at their sites. In addition, community agencies and schools are able to accommodate significantly more student volunteers and thereby achieve more positive results in their programs.

Benefits for Learning

From an academic perspective, Elaine Elliott, director of CCSL, observes a higher order of intellectual development in students whose serve as site coordinators: they “compare perspectives, think through problems, and integrate and apply knowledge. They learn from and contribute to their peers’ success and are in a position to critique as well as receive criticism. They work with us to measure progress, and they are much more likely than other student participants to make judgments on the basis of evidence in context.”