The Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement

The Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement
- Community and University Service-

Beginning Fall semester 2007, The Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement will be tracking service hours in two areas: Community Service and University Service.

DETERMINING IF YOUR HOURS ARE COMMUNITY OR UNIVERSITY SERVICE
Ask yourself if what you did was part of a campus organization. If it was…was your time spent planning something for prospective or current students? If so, your role was university service.

If your work was part of a campus organization, but wasn’t providing a service to anyone, you need to think about the work you did. If it helped better the Statesboro or GSU community, it may have been service. If it was more of a discussion, a meeting, or a training, it was probably not service.

If your work was not part of a campus organization, did it better the community in some way (picking up litter, assisting with an education program, raising funds for a nonprofit, etc)? If so, it was community service.

POINTS OF CLARIFICATION:
Meetings: Meetings count as service if the meeting was spent planning a community service event or an event for Georgia Southern University students.

Conferences: Conferences count as service if the theme of the conference was one that would equip the attendee to help the population of Georgia Southern University or Statesboro. Students can get hours for the time that they were actually at the conference, as well as some travel/lodging time. If the conference was a two day event, students can get 5 hours for travel/lodging time (in addition to conference time). For three or more days, they can get 10 hours.

Service Trips: Service trips (such as Alternative Spring Break) count as service. Students can count the hours they worked, as well as taking 5 hours for travel and lodging for each two days of the trip. Maximum of 15 travel/lodging hours can be claimed.

On-Call Duty: Being on-call does not count as volunteer hours unless you are actually called for duty. You can, however, take up to two hours of volunteer time if you are required to travel to be on call or to travel to get your duty pager or phone.

Note-takers: We want to recognize the work of note-takers. However, you cannot count time when you are attending your own class as volunteering. Therefore, please count any time spent outside of class with the not-taking (meetings with the student or the SDRC, time typing notes), etc.

Paid Work: If there is pay at all (stipend, salary, hourly), the activity cannot count as service.

FORMS AND TRACKING HOURS
Tracking Form: The tracking form to record service hours will be available from The Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement as well as online at http://students.georgiasouthern.edu/volunteer.

Turning in forms: Hours will only be accepted if submitted by the end of the semester during which they were completed. Once the form is turned in, the student will receive a copy and the hours will be checked over by the Coordinator of Leadership and Civic Engagement. The student will receive an email notifying him/her of how many hours were accepted and the reason if any of the hours were not accepted.

If the student has a problem with the rejection of some of his/her hours, there will be a five business day period in which the student can turn in additional information to the Coordinator of Leadership and Civic Engagement and the hours will be reconsidered.

TRANSCRIPTS:
The Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement will continue to offer Service Transcripts for students who complete over 200 hours of service. These hours can be Community Service, University Service, or a combination. Service will be categorized as either Community or University Service on the transcript.

NOTES:

• All hours reported to The Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement prior to August 14, 2007 will be considered Community Service.
• Each student is responsible for turning in his/her own hours!