The civic staff of the Center for Student Engagement took on the question of how involved DePauw students truthfully are in the community.
The board sent out a national assessment of service and community engagement survey to the student body at the end of January. The results show where students volunteer, in what capacity and how often.
This year, the Bonner Scholar Program, a scholarship program with an emphasis on community service, became involved with DePauw's civic staff of the Center for Student Engagement to form a strategic planning committee. The committee consists of three students, three faculty members and three members of the Greencastle community.
According to Jessie Scott, coordinator of Bonner Scholars, the committee's goal is "to define what [DePauw's] focus should be for community involvement, [as well as] thinking through the need in the community and our role in solving these issues."
In order to gauge student involvement in service at DePauw, the committee took a survey to which 236 students responded-about 10 percent of the student population. For every response, DePauw donated a dollar to the United Way of Putnam County.
"It's especially telling that the students who do service are doing it in a very limited way," Gigi Jennewein, coordinator of Community Service and Outreach, said. "The frequency and depth of service are very limited-my speculation is that we are seeing one shot deals."
DePauw has a comparatively large percentage of students who are involved in service, but many students are not approaching service opportunities with a long-term commitment in mind. According to the survey's findings, many students volunteer for just one day each semester.
According to Jessie Scott, coordinator of the Bonner Scholars Program, the strategic planning committee is working on developing new initiatives to integrate community service into the DePauw student experience.
One of these new initiatives, summer community building internships, is already in action and the program is currently accepting applications. Another initiative that the team is working on is community engagement with a direct connection to courses, by implementing classes that require a community engagement project.
"At DePauw, we supplement the liberal arts with hands-on experience. Service complement, reinforces-even challenges-what you're learning in the classroom," Scott said.
Although some DePauw students may lack depth in their community service experiences, there are definitely exceptions. Freshman Page Daniels, a Bonner Scholar, is involved in the Rescued Treasures resale shop, Putnam County family support services and JumpstArt, a program that teaches children about different forms of art.
"Local service is important here because this is where we live, and in order to better where we live, we have to help out," Daniels said. "There's the perception of an economic class divide between DePauw students and the local community, and there's a stereotype of DePauw students as rich, stuck-up, unwilling to help. When we go out into the community they see that we aren't like that."
In the eyes Sharon Maes, one of the students responsible for getting DePauw students involved in the Greencastle community project of the Nonfood Pantry, believes consistency of involvement is an important part of service work.
"[Service work] is all about the relationships that you build, serving a need, working with people and helping them with what they say they need," Maes said.