Student Leaders for Civic Engagement

Exceptional student leaders coordinate programs outside of courses in which over 200 Kalamazoo College students engage each year in meaningful and relevant community service.  Our student leaders – numbering over 20 in academic year 2006-2007 –  hold civic engagement scholarships and work closely with institute staff and our community partners to design ongoing programs

These extraordinary scholars recruit, train, orient, supervise and evaluate their peers, coordinating the complex program activities that foster student learning and build programs (described below) that strengthen the community.  Student leaders direct structured reflection discussions and present workshops about the public policy issues students encounter.  Together, they design campus-wide programs to share knowledge about and inspire action on compelling public problems.  These programs allow students to link course-based work with personal experiences in the community that illuminate issues and inspire advocacy on issues like health disparities, immigration, sustainable development, educational inequality, adult literacy, diversity, urban sprawl, juvenile justice, and peacemaking. 

The incorporation of structured reflection, and a long term commitment to the partnerships in which we collaborate, distinguish this work from simple volunteerism. 

Critical thinking and activism makes these co-curricular service-learning experiences a vital part of the “K Plan.”  These programs both benefit from and provide scaffolding for other elements of the K Plan, especially the Senior Individualized Project (SIP) and Integrative Cultural Research Project (ICRP, on study abroad), which complement and/or cap outstanding community-based learning experiences that span the four years of a Kalamazoo College education.  Increasingly, thanks to endowed scholarships, students are also able to weave into their K Plans experiences like summer community-based research, internships and externships that focus on social justice and community change.

LaPlante Scholar
Holly Anderson
coordinates the Farms to K program

more about Holly >>

Meet all our student leaders>>