Campus Community Collaborations
Examples & Resources for Community Colleges

Many colleges understand and support the Campus Compact National Center for Community Colleges belief that involving students, staff, and community members in volunteerism and service-learning projects can have a direct impact upon social service agencies within a particular educational district. How this opportunity is designed and implemented is often as unique as the college or the district that is served. The College of Lake County, located in the northeast corner of Illinois, serves a district of 542,000 residents and enrolls more than fourteen thousand students each semester. Multiple approaches are used to encourage volunteerism and service-learning as important tools that contribute to personal and civic growth.

A major thrust of our service program is possible due to cooperation between the Lake County Health Department and the College of Lake County. The Health Department is funded to provide a substance abuse prevention program called In Touch. The administrative office for this program is housed on the main campus of the college, maximizing our mutual efforts to increase volunteer outreach and decrease substance abuse. The In Touch Prevention Services office cooperates with the collegeÌs Student Activities office and others to co-sponsor a series of yearlong wellness and outreach activities utilizing the services of volunteers.

Through the In Touch office, a student organization, the In Touch Volunteer Council has been formed to provide students with a direct link to community volunteer agencies and projects. It is through the collaborative relations established between the college (Student Activities office, Faculty and other offices), Lake County Health Department (In Touch Prevention Services), and United Way of Lake County that we have been able to connect students, staff, and community members with more than thirty-nine agencies and their related projects.

The College of Lake County provides office space for In Touch, which in turn provides the college with the time and expertise of their prevention staff members. The staff members advise a student group, the In Touch Volunteer Council, whose members work with various college and community entities to connect students with community agencies and needs. A wide variety of initiatives and projects are coordinated by the In Touch office in cooperation with the collegeÌs Student Activities office, including:

• Fall and spring volunteer fairs at the college - Two on-campus volunteer fairs are held each school year. The fairs are open to volunteer agencies looking to recruit students interested in sharing some of their time to volunteer at a nonprofit agency. The college then invites these organizations to become part of the College of Lake County Volunteer Council, an organization that provides placements for students earning college credit through a cooperative education course on volunteerism.
• Volunteer opportunity listing - The CLC Student Activities office maintains a file and bulletin board list of social agencies needing a variety of volunteers. All agencies must meet five criteria to be maintained in the file, including a written job description, training, supervision, evaluation, and feedback.
• Fall tugs - United We Tug is a fund-raiser for the United Way of Lake County that involves student and faculty teams engaged in a tug-of-war. This event has raised more than $250 and generated strong campus awareness and support for United Way agencies.
• Day of Caring - Students and staff of the college participated in the United Way Day of Caring, which involved painting and cleaning at more than thirty different social service agencies in Lake County. This effort is similar to the Into the Streets project mounted by the Campus Outreach Opportunity League, designed to introduce students, faculty, and staff to community service.
• College course on volunteerism - In January 1996 the college began to offer EWE 102, a course on volunteerism. This course introduces students to the world of volunteering. Each student must complete classwork that looks at the motivations, learning, and outcomes of volunteerism, as well as perform a minimum of forty hours of volunteer work at a preapproved agency. Service contracts are used to determine grades.
• Shared garden - The In Touch Volunteer Council maintains a shared garden that focuses attention on volunteering and substance abuse prevention activities. The garden project aims at infusing healthy activities and community spirit into the various groups involved in its care. Various college and community groups participate in the care and development of the shared garden, with the produce being given to local care facilities and food pantries.
• Neon drunk driving simulation - A collaborative effort between In Touch, In Touch Volunteer Council, College of Lake County Student Senate, Lake County Health Department and a local Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge dealership resulted in having a neon car brought to the college campus that was programmed to simulate drunk driving. Students, staff, and high school students experienced the effect of drunk driving without touching a drop of alcohol.
• Illinois Campus Compact - The college is active in the Illinois Campus Compact and sponsored Ron Jakubisin, an In Touch counselor, as the keynote speaker for the annual LIVE Conference. In addition, students and staff stay focused and informed by serving on the Illinois Campus Compact Board.
• Faculty support - College faculty have been very supportive of volunteerism and are becoming more involved as they learn how to incorporate service-learning into their classes. Faculty regularly refer students to the In Touch Volunteer Council and to the Student Activities office, where students connect with volunteer programs.

Almost every county or region has a substance abuse prevention agency (local health department, etc.) that is responsible for programs and services regarding substance abuse. Community colleges can look toward Student Activities and the college health department or counseling centers to initiate contacts with area substance abuse agencies. Once contact has been made between a substance abuse agency and the college, work can begin to incorporate service-learning into the curriculum. The connection between substance abuse prevention and volunteerism is clear: Both involve raising self-awareness, helping others by helping yourself, contributing to community improvement, serving others, and utilizing community resources (i.e., community colleges and community agencies like the health department, United Way and social agencies). It is an exciting link that serves everyone well.

Ed Snyder is Director of Student Activities at the College of Lake County, Grayslake, Illinois, where he has been integrally involved in the development of student services programs for twenty-seven years. As the Student Activities Director, he is administratively responsible for the In Touch Prevention program at the college and was responsible for a FIPSE grant in 1989.

Ed serves on the Volunteer Referral Advisory Committee of the local United Way of Lake County and assists students and staff in developing and implementing various college/community-based volunteer projects.

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