How Undergraduates Are Affected by Service Participation

Based on entering freshman and follow-up data collected from 3,450 students (2,287 women and 1,163 men) attending 42 institutions with federally funded community service programs, the impact of community service participation on undergraduate student development was examined. Even after regression analyses controlled for individual student characteristics at the time of college entry, including the propensity to engage in service, results indicate that participating in service during the undergraduate years substantially enhances the student\u27s academic development, life skill development, and sense of civic responsibility

Long-Term Effects of Volunteerism During the Undergraduate Years

A growing number of colleges and universities in the United States have become actively engaged in encouraging their undergraduate students to participate in some form of volunteer service (Cohen & Kinsey, 1994; Levine, 1994; Markus, Howard, & King, 1993; O\u27Brien, 1993). Further, service is increasingly being incorporated into the curriculums of major and general education courses (Cohen & Kinsey, 1994; Levine, 1994). While relatively few colleges include service learning or volunteer service as a curricular requirement, the number is growing and such a requirement has become an increasingly frequent topic of debate (Markus, Howard, & King, 1993). That the top leadership in higher education has become increasingly supportive of service as part of the [End Page 187] undergraduate experience is reflected in the phenomenal growth of the Campus Compact, a consortium of colleges and universities dedicated to promoting service among students and faculty. The Campus Compact now numbers well over 500 institutions

Evaluation of Learn and Serve America, Higher Education: First Year Report, Volume I

This report presents evaluation results for the first year of the Learn and Serve America, Higher Education (LSAHE) initiative, sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNS). It addresses impacts of LSAHE on communities, higher education institutions, and service providers

Examining the Underrepresentation of Women in STEM Fields: Early Findings from the Field of Computer Science

Despite the plethora of studies examining the root causes of the gender gap in STEM, a significant problem is that most research considers STEM fields in the aggregate and does not account for possible differences in the factors that predict interest and enrollment in specific STEM fields. Because not all STEM fields face the same degree of gender segregation, we cannot expect all STEM fields to attract the same types of students, especially since students likely have different motivations for pursuing one STEM field versus another