Several AU students and staff are helping develop the Brookings Institution's Initiative on International Service, which aims to double the number of American citizens who volunteer overseas by 2010.
The Initiative plans to do so by pulling resources from a diverse group of organizations, such as corporations, NGOs and higher education institutions.
The Brookings Institution is a private, nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and the development of policy solutions for the government.
Although the project is in its formative stages, several AU staff members, including Katherine Spahl, director of the AU Career Center, and students including David Schneider, a senior in the School of International Service, are working to increase the involvement of college students in the Initiative.
According to the American Weekly, AU formally created a "campus engagement" group in fall 2006 under the leadership of Dr. Robert Pastor, vice president of the Office of International Affairs, to increase student awareness of various volunteer opportunities abroad.
AU staff decided to take a leadership role in the project because the Initiative's goals correspond to the university's emphasis on civil service commitment, said Anthony Elmo, a first-year SIS graduate student and research assistant in the Office of International Affairs.
According to Elmo, AU will create an inventory to keep track of the number of AU students who volunteer abroad. Spahl said the inventory will include all the AU students who volunteer in any organization anywhere overseas. Then, the campus engagement effort will try to double that number by 2010, Spahl said.
Although there are many opportunities to volunteer within the U.S., Elmo said volunteering overseas helps students become more intelligent about the world and about themselves.
The Initiative is an important endeavor because it will help provide short-term alternatives to the Peace Corps, Elmo said. "We also want to make sure the home country recipient has positive regard for the work of the volunteer, " Spahl said.
Furthermore, AU will work to encourage and help other institutions of higher education, starting with local schools such as Georgetown University, George Washington University and Howard University, to create their own campus engagement groups, Spahl said.
The most important task of the program is to creative criteria to evaluate all organizations that offer volunteer opportunities, especially those that require a fee, Spahl said. Many organizations charge students a fee in order to allow them access to their volunteer resources.
According to Spahl, the program would also like to provide opportunities for minors to foster greater commitment to civil service at an early age.
Elmo also said the program aims to increase financial support for students who want to perform service abroad by developing new federally funded fellowships.
"The goal is that every AU student has an opportunity to go abroad because the world is not insular and [they] should do their best to learn about other cultures," Elmo said.
Shoshanna Sumka, coordinator of global and community-based learning, said the program is a great opportunity because many studies show that volunteering helps students connect theory and practice.
Sumka advises all students who travel abroad to go with an open mind to the culture and people who receive them.
"One of the most important parts of going overseas is the idea of humility," Sumka said.
