Making an Impact on Your Campus and in Your Community
Seeking Social Change | Promoting Diversity | Engaging Civically | Protecting Nature | Bonner Roles
Bonner Students should carefully plan how they hope to impact their campus, community, and country. Through many different leadership roles on campus and in the community, Bonner students can raise student voice and community awareness, encourage campus involvement, and pursue change on issues. On this page you will find examples of ways to engage throughout your college career on topics important to Bonner students. Start planning TODAY!
Seeking Social Change
Exercising Leadership to create social change.
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Campus Culture of Service: Why should only a small group of students be the ones doing most of the service? Building a culture of service and civic engagement among students across campus is part of the Bonner Program. Students often complain that others are perceived as apathetic, but you can help pave the way for greater involvement. Find ways to engage your campus, presenting them with reasons and ways to commit themselves to their community and world.
Resources:
Bonner Best Practices:
Bonner students at The College of New Jersey lead all freshmen (1,600 of them each year) to be involved in service through Community Engaged Learning Days. Bonners planned and led 30 days in 2006-2007. From TCNJ's Center for Civic and Community Engagement: "The College of New Jersey endeavors to be an national exemplar in the education of those who seek to sustain and advance the communities in which they live. Consequently, along with fostering students' scholarly growth and their knowledge of broad sectors ofhuman inquiry, the college places a strong emphasis on civic responsibility."
- Promoting Social Justice: Hopefully, there are educational opportunities and projects that promote social justice on your campus and in your community. That work, however, may be held back by a lack of unity and commitment. If this is true, and you have a passion for social justice, find ways to create activities and creative awareness building on campus to strengthen the student effort to combat local and global injustice through both service and politics. Lots of students have done this by planning special events (e.g., viewing of Invisible Children or a social justice film series), starting projects (e.g., an Amnesty International chapter or training on diversity issues), or in other ways (e.g., advocating for local foods to the cafeteria).
Resources:
From the Training for Change website: "Since 1992 Training for Change has been committed to increasing capacity around the world for activist training. When we say activist training, we mean training that helps groups stand up more effectively for justice, peace and the environment. We deliver skills directly that people working for social change can use in their daily work."
Promoting Diversity
Respecting Diversity in a Multicultural, Multinational World
- International Service and Learning Opportunities: Work towards promoting international service opportunities as well as raising an awareness of international issues. Organize international service and learning opportunities on campus and find ways to promote a global awareness within your school.
Resources:
A portal to the nonprofit sector, Idealist.org is a resource for finding more than 67,000 organizations around the world. Find organizations jobs, internships, and resources on diverse topics and more at Idealist.org.
- Addressing Local and Global Poverty: Through service work many Bonner students are exposed to poverty, its causes and consequences. Promote an awareness of poverty on campus and the need to combat it not only with service but advocacy and policy (both foriegn and domestic).
Resources:
Oxfam is a non-profit organization committed to fighting global poverty through saving lives, strengthing communities, and campaigning for change. Oxfam America works on many initiatives that bring it in to contact with students and campus across America.
Engaging Civically
Being involved in the Political Process and Civic Life
- Voting and Political Engagement: Statistics show that active students on college campuses, like Bonner Students, have not necessarily voted at higher levels than their peers (although this may be changing in 2008). As younger populations continue to go to the polls in record numbers, let's make sure that Bonner Students and Bonner Campuses are at the front of the line.
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Connecting Service to Policy: Some students on your campuses, including Bonners, are involved in their communities through direct volunteer service. Beyond that, are you interested finding ways to influence public policy and legislation in order to address root causes and identify long-term solutions to the issues we face? Work with peers and faculty to identify strategies to help students understand public policy and get involved through policy research, education, internships, and more. Then get started planning your event today.
Resources:
A national association of environmental, civic rights, mental health, women's, children's, and consumer advocacy organizations, Alliance for Justice works to advance the cause of justice through strengthening public awareness and fostering the next generation of advocates.
Policy Options Wiki is a great starting place for anyone interested in advocacy. It is a Bonner partnered initiative designed to offer guidelines for performing public policy research. This Wiki includes examples of policy briefs written for institutions in Trenton, NJ.
Use USA.gov to connect your passion or your service placement to public policy by researching what policies affect your state.
Protecting Nature
Taking care of natural resources and the environment.
- Campus Greening and Recycling: Want to help make your campus "green" and help curb the amount of recyclable waste thrown out on your campus? Begin organizing a campus greening and recycling initiative to help protect the environment. Work with other campus organizations or think bigger and begin talking with other schools and organizations in the area.
Resources:
Eliminate junk mail to your address for five years through 41Pounds.org. This saves an estimated 41 lbs. of wasted paper for the average adult.
- Promoting Sustainability: Research the company in charge of your campus dining. Do their policies result in unnecessary waste? Is the food grown with chemicals that affect both the taste of the product and the environment? Is there a lack of locally grown or produced food? Are they concerned with providing products that have been guaranteed fair trade? Begin a research initiative to see what organizations on campus should change some of their buying and selling policies.
Resources:
The Student Environmental Action Coalition is a grassroots coalition of student and youth environmental groups. Through their effort, thousands of youth have shared resources, building coalitions, and challenged the limited definition of environmental issues.
Bonner Roles
What are the different roles you might play within your Bonner Program itself?
- Serve as a Bonner Congress Representative to help connect your school to the National Bonner Network.
- Serve as the Bonner Senior Intern for your final service site during your senior year.
Previous Page: Bonner Senior Interns | Next Page (New Section): Academic Connections
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