[quote]
Studies show this generation, more than any other, has increased its level of volunteering over the last few years.
A study by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement shows that between 80 and 85 percent of incoming college freshmen have community service experience prior to starting their higher education. That’s up from 66 percent in 1989.</p>
<p>Stricter college admissions standards may help explain the jump. Many admissions officers have grown to expect community service credentials on high school r</p>
<p>It makes sense to me that requiring students to do community service would result in more volunteering after students graduate.</p>
<p>After all, students are required to brush their teeth, read, go to school, etc. and having such requirements doesn’t prevent their doing such things after they leave home/school. The same is true of volunteering. And volunteering is a heckuva lot more fun and fulfilling than are many activities that students are required to do.</p>
<p>There is more REQUIRED voluntary community service (that’s an oxymoron if ever I’ve written one) than has ever existed before. But still, the only people in our society who are forced to do community service are high school students and convicted miscreants.</p>
<p>It does rub off. Every survey I have ever seen shows adult volunteering, in aggregate, at an all-time low.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that adult volunteering is at an all time low because probably there is a larger percentage of women in the workforce than ever before. As the current adults age, retire and as their kids grow up, I bet more will volunteer, which is what I’ve seen occur with my peers.</p>
<p>Working moms simply don’t have that much time to volunteer.</p>
<p>I also have seen some articles indicating that organizations seeking volunteers need to revise what they want volunteers to do. </p>
<p>"Robert Grimm Jr., the Corporation for National and Community Service’s director of the office of research and policy development, says that many groups provide weak support for volunteer management, underappreciate their volunteers, and don’t provide appealing opportunities that entice people to return year after year.</p>
<p>Mr. Grimm says that charities, especially those experiencing volunteer attrition, should consider rejiggering how they engage volunteers, and that those who do so “will reap substantial rewards” in coming years.</p>
<p>He says that baby boomers want to use their skills, and in general are not interested in activities like cleaning parks, delivering meals, or answering phones. “One could imagine an organization where you paid people to do some of the general labor activities that you used to have volunteers do,” says Mr. Grimm, “and have this group of healthy, highly educated older adults who have a lot of skills to bring improving your management’s strategic planning or finances or other things consultants and staff members have traditionally been paid to do, resulting in significant cost savings.”</p>
<p>“After all, students are required to brush their teeth, read, go to school, etc. and having such requirements doesn’t prevent their doing such things after they leave home/school.”</p>
<p>Yeah I suppose setting the slaves free didn’t prevent them from picking Massa’s cotton either. Oddly though it didn’t improve relations much.</p>
<p>But I am all for it. There is a generational shift afoot. The last of the Xers have passed through college (and a dismal lot they were) and Generation Y is taking over. It a generation nobody knows because they grew up with working or divorced parents, latch key kids or in Day Care and Summer Camps, after school care centers. They also grew up with computers, cell phones, Rap music, gangbangers, way too much casual oral sex, and too many bitter boomer old maid teachers.</p>
<p>The Xers were just greedy and shallow with bad music. These kids are still waters that run deep or reflect from the surface what we want to see. Most of art the last 20 years has been ugly. cruel, and mechanistic or else derivative. God only knows what that has done to these kids souls. I believe they are going to surprise us but for good or ill - that is the question.</p>
<p>In any event making men do things they haven’t a mind to do on their own seldom brings out the best in them in the long run.</p>
<p>I think it’s a lot simpler than that. We’ve trained the kids that community service is punishment - they read (those who can read) the sentences given to the convicted felons and other miscreants, and they know what that’s about. They see right through the ruse, and, except for those few good souls who are captured and captivated (God bless 'em), they don’t want any part of it. </p>
<p>I thought that article was poorly written. The study cited in the article indicates an increase in the number of INCOMING FRESHMEN who have community service experience. There was no reference to any study showing that there is an increase in COLLEGE GRADS who are voluntarily engaging in community service work, just some anecdotal examples.</p>
<p>Our local high school requires each student to log 40 hours of community service in order to graduate, so obvioulsy 100% of our graduates enter college with community service experience whether they want to or not.</p>