| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Meet the Bonner Network: Video Playlist

Page history last edited by Ariane Hoy 12 years ago

 

 

Welcome to the Bonner Network: a community of people who are passionate about engaging in campus-community partnerships to create social change from the ground up.

 

We are a network of 75 college campuses, over 150 campus-based staff, 3,200 current Bonner students, 5,000 Bonner alumni, and hundreds of non-profit organizations from around the world who are working together on social issues like hunger, poverty, homelessness, healthcare, youth empowerment, the environment, and more.

 

Browse the video links below to learn more about who we are and what we do.

 

Vision

The Bonner Program's vision is to effect social change through long-term, reciprocal, and strategic campus-community partnerships. Through the development and engagement of students, faculty, and staff in civic and community life, campus-community partnerships can be a key part of building on the assets and addressing the needs of local, national, and international communities.  Our programs are founded around three key goals: community partnerships and impact, student development and leadership, and campus infrastructure for sustained engagement.  Through our collective work, we mobilize thousands of individuals to help build a more just, equitable world.  The Bonner Program's values are six "Common Commitments", representing our common beliefs and values for working in communities: Civic Engagement, Community Building, Diversity, International Perspective, Social Justice, and Spiritual Exploration. One group of Bonners traveled the country to explore how these values play out in different campuses:

 

 

 

Students

The core element of the Bonner Program is that students devote 10 hours per week to service every week throughout their four undergraduate years, as well as engaging for two summers of full-time service with a non-profit or governmental agency. Bonners tend to explore and identity an issue area about which they are passionate (such as education, immigrant services, the environment, and youth development), often pursuing knowledge of how to best impact this issue through coursework and curricular experience.  Through a four-year developmental experience, they serve in that field throughout in multiple organizations and increasingly challenging roles in their own communities across the country and sometimes around the world. We have learned from our Alumni study that Bonners continue these commitments after college, as they identify careers in which they find meaningful ways to continue to engage in civic life.  Our alumni work in the non-profit (33%), governmental (34%) and for-profit sector (33%) to do this.  Meet four Bonners who have different backgrounds, interests, and professional goals:

 

 

 

Alumni

Since 1990, the Bonner Program has graduated 5,000 alumni who are continuing to make a social impact around the world. Our 20th Anniversary survey (2010) indicates that about 65% of our alumni choose a career in the government and non-profit sectors, often tied to their undergraduate service experiences. Nearly 80% still volunteer on a regular basis; over 90% voted in the last election. As Bonners take their service experiences into the professional world, they are leading social change in nearly every sector. To learn more, hear from this Bonner Alumnus, Omekongo Dibinga — a poet and activist for international human rights:

 

 

 

Campuses

We support the work of college and university campuses through providing resources to link the civic engagement mission of higher education institutions with the needs of local communities, enabling institutions to collaborate across departments to achieve social impact. By combining academic expertise with practical service experiences, campuses are able to engage in issue-based problem solving. See how a Bonner student is working on environmental issues with his campus and community:

 

 

 

Staff

We work with staff members in various offices on campuses, including in Student and Academic Affairs, as well as collaborate with a host of departments across campus.  Most often, the staff who direct and coordinate Bonner Programs also play other program management roles in centers focused on civic engagement, service learning, political engagement, diversity, college access, and more. Many of our staff members are Bonner alumni themselves. Hear the perspective of a Bonner alum turned coordinator:

 

 

 

Communities

Each campus builds and sustains multi-year developmental partnerships with local (as well as national and international) schools, non-profit and governmental agencies.  Each year, these partners connect with the campus as they host student and other volunteers, engage faculty and students in public scholarship and community based research, participate in service-learning projects and courses, and act as co-educators.  Moreover, these partnerships often build their capacity through additional resources, including grants and funding, board development, and building consortia of partners and institutions to share models and strategies (i.e., research and assessment and other projects).  By building a national network of campus-community partnerships, we tap into the existing resources of institutions and provide purpose to their research, we empower communities to build better programs and capacities, and we address local needs with community-focused, evidence-based, and results-driven approaches. This model results in a series of long-term, reciprocal, high-level, and sustainable community partnerships in campus-communities around the country. Learn more about this relationship from the perspective of a community partner:

 

 

 

Network

As a Foundation, our role is to support our students and alumni, as well as the campus-based staff that oversee them, the campus-wide coordination of civic engagement, and the non-profit organizations that the universities partner with. Our efforts here in Princeton primarily focus on research & development, program support, reporting, and national network management (i.e. national conferences, social media, and special initiatives like our Bonner Alumni Network). Also, many of our Bonners are funded through AmeriCorps, resulting in our strong partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service. As an example, see how our Network took a "day on, not a day off" for MLK Day 2011:

 

 

Our Culture

We know that to build communities, we must build ourselves. Our staff and students engage in ongoing personal and professional development both through our campus-based curriculum as well as our national meetings. This focus on personal wellness and relationship-building has enabled us to work positively, intentionally, and collaboratively on addressing social issues around the country. With these values and practices in mind, our students coined the phrase "Bonner Love" as the way to describe the culture of the Network:

 

 

 

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.