People work to unload a shipment of food at The Food Pantry in Oxford, Miss., Tuesday, April 2, 2013. (Photo/Thomas Graning)
Early one Sunday morning in April, senior Amber Smith arrived at the Turner Center to help volunteer for the Rebel-Man Sprint Triathlon. Although she was there volunteering, Smith was also there to receive credit for one of her classes, Parks and Recreation Management 391.
“It’s a practicum course required for graduation,” Smith said. “All parks and rec majors have to take it and have 50 hours of community service hours by the end of the semester.”
According to Smith, the course requires each student to receive 30 hours of service from one location while dividing the other 20 evenly between two other places.
“Next year, it’ll be all 50 hours at one location,” Smith said.
The Parks and Recreation Management department isn’t the only one on campus that requires its students to volunteer, however. Other departments, such as the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College and the Nutrition and Hospitality Management department, also require or encourage their students to get volunteer hours throughout each academic term.
According to Dr. Kathy Knight, interim chair of Nutrition and Hospitality Management, she has been encouraging her students to volunteer by making it a requirement in her classes.
“Ever since I started teaching nutrition, NHM 311, I have always tried to include a service component,” said Knight. “So, I have them work one-clock hour at a food pantry.”
Knight explained that when she first started in 1985, there was only one place in Oxford for her students to volunteer – the Oxford Food Pantry.
“Those opportunities have grown in the last five years,” Knight said. “Now, we have a campus food pantry, Manna through the Episcopal Church, More Than a Meal and Lovepacks.”
Knight believes volunteering is very important for her students because she wants them to gain a new outlook on others in situations different from their own.
“I want them to broaden their horizons with seeing that some people have to worry about what they’re going to eat that night,” she said. “There are some students that do, but fortunately, most of our students, though their budgets may not be perfect, do not have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.”
The number of departments on campus that require volunteering for is unknown, but according to Laura Martin, project manager at the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Development, there are seven departments on campus that participate in service-learning courses, which are courses that have a service component built-in.
“I don’t know about volunteering requirements, but we have recently polled department chairs to see how many are participating in those type courses, and I think there was around seven,” Martin said.
The McLean Institute was founded in 1984 and has been trying to raise the quality of life for all Mississippians.
According to their website, the institute is working with the university at this moment to create a better environment for service-learning courses.
Their mission statement claims, “By developing support opportunities for faculty, staff and students, we expect to accomplish our goal of matching service activities to community needs. This involves supporting faculty, staff and students interested in combining coursework with the needs of the community through service-learning courses and community-based research projects.”
Right now, ten courses ranging from pharmacy to linguistics were listed as the available courses for the coming 2014 fall semester.
Martin, however, believes there will be more courses in more departments in the future.
“There’s a push for it in the administration right now,” Martin said.
Departments are not the only places on campus looking to encourage more community involvement from its students. The Residential College South is looking to add a requirement of eight service hours next semester for its residents.
“I want to create a community of doers,” said Dr. Marvin King, senior fellow for the Residential College South and an associate professor of political science and African American studies.
According to King, he wants to, in a sense, force his students to volunteer because, in the end, it’s best for them.
“The research literature shows that students do better the more involved they are,” King said. “It seems counterintuitive. People are more busy. They have a lot to study, but what we actually find is the more involved students actually do a lot better.”
King also thinks volunteering gives students a different perspective on things by making them active outside the classroom.
“While I’m a professor, I’ll be the first to admit you can learn a lot outside of the classroom, but only if you give yourself that opportunity,” he said.
King used the metaphor of eating an apple to show why he believes volunteering is beneficial for everyone.
“It’s like eating an apple. It’s good for the body. It’s good for the soul. It gives you energy. It gets all the toxins out of your body. It’s good for you. I think volunteering is a lot like that.”
While Knight and King both emphasized the idea of volunteering as rewarding on a personal level, they both agreed service hours also help students be competitive on the job market.
“I’m very conscientious of what it takes to get a job after you graduate,” King said. “And I know the more you have on the resume, the better, and not everyone knows that.”
Knight echoed that belief by saying volunteer hours are what help set her students apart when they apply for internships.
“Used to good grades, a good GPA, went a long way to getting you in. Now, since it’s so competitive, admission committees are looking for more,” she said.
Either way, Amber Smith believes all sides are helping her as she heads into her last semester at the University of Mississippi.
“It has benefitted me to volunteer because I have met so many people and made so many connections for the future.”
