An Evolutionary Model for Student Leadership in Community Service & Service-Learning Administration

Student Leadership Phase I:
Office Assistant/ Project Leadership Model

• Primary work of community engagement falls to administrator
• Students, especially Federal Work Study (FWS), assist administrator with recruitment, placement and support of volunteers
• Additional student(s) coordinate one-day service events, or on-going service projects
• Duties for Office Assistant/ Project Leader include:
  - Receive community requests and solicit campus response
  - Help with volunteer recruitment, placement and support tasks
  - Help staff service events
  - Provide office coverage
  - Assist Coordinator as needed
• Strengths of this model
  - Provides needed support to coordinator
  - Causes little institutional concern regarding uncontrollable growth; stays under the radar
  - Increases student ownership, leadership in service
  - Service Events/ Project Leaders allow for bigger service presence on and off campus
• Disadvantages of this Model include:
  - Student availability may not coincide with coordinator need
  - Students may hold back from assuming leadership
  - Community continues to look at administrator as sole point of contact
  - Placement of student leader on campus limits their understanding and engagement in community.   - New initiatives require extensive administrator involvement
  

Student Leadership Phase II:
Affiliates Coordinator Model

• Affiliates Coordinators assume primary responsibility for community engagement at a set of community agencies (affiliates)
• Agencies are organized into a set by like service, geographical area, or anticipated number of volunteers/service learners
• Additional student(s) coordinate one-day service events, and provide office assistance
• Duties of the Affiliates Coordinator include:
  - Establish working relationship with agency staff (may entail from 3-6 agencies, depending of student ability and administrative need.)
  - Help identify opportunities for service and service-learning at sites
  - Help establish system for orientation, placement, supervision and support of volunteers and service-learners.
  - Serve as liaison between campus and community
  - Problem solve as needed
• Strengths of this Model includes
  - Tighter structure in place to facilitate service involvement at select agencies
  - Ability to quickly identify and respond to problems
  - Growth of campus/ agency collaboration is more planned and intentional.  Enhances ability to fully link course work with service.
  - May unleash even greater student ownership of community engagement
• Disadvantages of this Model:
  - Students placed on campus may not gain level of community involvement to satisfy their own service impulse
  - Limits on direct involvement hinders deeper understanding of agency and community need
  - Requires good measure of administrative capacity at the agency. Some agencies with great need may have to be by-passed if they lack strong on-site supervision
   

Student Leadership Phase III:
On-Site & Affiliates Coordinator Model

• On-site Coordinators conduct primary work at one partnership agency (recruit, place, support volunteers, help manage service-learners, and collaborate with agency staff, etc.)
• Single agency allows for focused attention and deeper involvement.  New opportunities emerge.
• Experienced student leadership can provide the novice Co-coordinators with on-the-job-training
• On-site coordinator duties include:
  - Collaborate with agency staff to define volunteer and service-learning engagement. Help agency to with volunteer policies, orientation, and supervision structure.
  - On campus recruitment, and on-site placement and support of volunteers and service-learners
  - Assistance in ensuring service-learner engagement meets course goals
  - On-site problem solving
  - Resource development as needed
  - Assistance in monitoring student involvement
• Advantages to this model:
  - Can target on-site coordination at agencies with many volunteers and service-learners
  - Can insert on-site coordinator where agency administrative support is weak
  - Can assign several on-site coordinators where campus engagement is multi-layered or extensive
  - Single student point of contact present at site can convince reluctant agency of campus' capacity to meet responsibilities.
  - Provides advancement opportunities for student leaders
• Disadvantages of this model
  - Supervision of on-site coordinators creates a challenge
  - Effective use of on-site coordination can lead to rapid expansion of community engagement,  creating strain on other administrative structures
  - Placement of on-site coordinators at only some sites may cause resentment at agencies without commitment of on-site coordination
  

Student Leadership Phase IV:
Comprehensive Student Leadership Model

• Creates additional layers to office management to support new level of community engagement
  - Assistant Director has role in managing and supervising on-site, service events and affiliates coordinators
  - Office Manager has role in managing and supervising office assistants
  - Additional Coordinators manage Transportation, Public Relations, Web Page, Information Management, etc
  - Within team selected coordinators may be identified to provide training and assistance to leadership corps in recruitment, volunteer recognition, team building, etc
• Advantages to this model:
  - Where administrative resources are limited, this structure helps get the important work accomplished
  - maximizes student leadership and promotion opportunities
  - Student volunteers & service-learners may be more open in expressing concerns to student supervisors, enabling problems to be addressed sooner.
  - High level of student leadership and engagement may open up resource development opportunities to further support service.
• Disadvantages of this model;
  - Students are sometimes reluctant to hold their peers accountable
  - May be difficult to find right student leader for all positions
  - Tight schedules hinder some student leaders in the effort to delegate tasks to office assistants, etc.
  - Sometimes academic overload can cause students to fall short in meeting responsibilities
   

Student Leadership Phase V:
Comprehensive Model, integrated with Federal Work Study
and Institutional Advancement

• Maximizes use of FWS and College generated payroll and scholarship resources to allow for broad recruitment and retention of skilled student leaders
• Provides student leaders a differential pay scale to correspond with responsibilities
• Serves as a visible testimony of campus commitment to service and service leadership; facilitates recruitment of new student leaders and development of additional resources
• Advantages to this model
  - Can help campus meet 5% FWS community service requirement
  - Pay differentials encourages students to take on additional responsibility
  - Non FWS coordinators (paid through grant resources or college pay roll) ensures all jobs filled with quality leadership
  - Scholarship assistance beyond hourly compensation rewards leadership and may allow for greater post-graduation service involvement and leadership
• Disadvantages of this model
  - Higher pay scale and expanded leadership staff increases college cost for FWS match
  - Reductions in FWS allotments to college may lead to reductions in Community Service FWS
  - Increased Community Service FWS reduces availability of FWS to other campus departments
  - Economic downturn may lead to increased use of FWS and possibly over spending as more students across campus use their eligibility