Connecting Service and Politics

Excellence (Fourth-Year) Stage

Goals/Objectives | Skill Development | Training & Enrichment | Cornerstones | Academic Connections

Goals/Objectives 

This year is designed to help you integrate a variety of interests--personal, educational, and professional--with your experience in service and politics. By the end of this year, you should have the skills and resources to see where these many interests overlap and how they can enable you to be civically engaged throughout your life. You will gain the abilities to participate effectively in the political process in ways that extend your service to include broader solutions. This year will help you find your place in that process in relation to what career and personal goals you've set out for yourself.

Skill Development

The fourth stage of this model will help you to develop the following skills, knowledge, and values: 

     • ability to participate effectively in the political process based on your interests, skill sets, and civic capacities in ways that extend your service to include broader and more complex solutions, perhaps those that combine direct service with engagement with policy and other resources.

     • this action-based knowledge will help you plan for a future of life-long civic engagement, one that can allow you to work from a variety of career choices to continue to effect positive change

     • in this, you will have an understanding of and appreciation for the multiple strategies for civic engagement, their potential and pitfalls, and how best to navigate available political and social avenues—on a local, state, national, and international level if you choose—to work for positive impact 

Training, Enrichment & Reflection

As a Bonner, you'll be able to supplement your service work with meaningful reflection and activities. Through specific skill trainings, educational and spiritual enrichment activities, and personal and group reflection, you will be able to think about your future in lots of new ways. These activities will help you develop the skills listed above that emphasize the integration of your service experience, personal interests, and academic/professional career to affirm a life-long commitment to civic engagement. The following sequence of events could be useful as a model for a year long commitment to exploring this level of civic agency. 

Cornerstone Activities

Connecting service and politics can also be accomplished through preexisting Bonner Program activities such as the Senior Capstone Presentation, monthly and class-based meetings, site-based teams, and more. Click here for how to utilize these program features to achieve the goals and acquire the skills in this stage.

Academic Connections

Here are some ideas for how service and politics can connect in the classroom and complement service work to create a well-rounded developmental experience toward civic engagement.

• Independent Study Course: This course would be designed by the student with the help of a faculty mentor who understands their growth as a Bonner and future interests. This course would include complex, relevant, and contemporary readings; preparation for a capstone presentation that includes a paper and presentation; a reflection for the Service Binder; and an action plan for the student's site-based team to be used after they graduate.

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