OPINION

Keeping college students connected

Editorial Board
Fall semester is in session. Communities and students have another chance to connect trough volunteering.

A college campus can be an island in a community.  Students can live, work and play at their institution of higher education and have very little connection to the city, town or village their college calls home.

That lack of a connection is an unfortunate byproduct of our beautifully self-contained modern campuses. But thankfully, there is a way for area universities and their students to build and strengthen ties with one another: community service.

As staff writer James Goodman reported, area college and university presidents are expressing a desire to do more to help the communities in which their college campuses are a part. Now that the fall semester is underway, the nearly 80,000 students attending local colleges and the hundreds of organizations in and around the Rochester area have another chance to connect.

As college presidents try to do more to help communities in the region, we encourage area universities to strongly promote community service to students and to do even more to facilitate connections between students and organizations. And on the other side of that coin, we urge leaders of organizations big and small to reach out to area colleges and universities to share information about their organizations' missions and provide volunteer opportunities.

The percentage of college students who volunteer has declined in recent years. Volunteerism in the United States  was 24.9 percent in 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among 20- to 24-year-olds, the volunteer rates were the lowest across all age groups at 18.4 percent.

But the opportunity to give back is there and area colleges have some avenues in place to help students and community organizations connect.

The College at Brockport, for instance, discusses the benefits of volunteering on its community service page and lists a few volunteer outlets. The Rochester Institute of Technology Leadership Institute & Community Service Center provides ideas on ways to get involved and offers a link to find a place to volunteer.

Students at Nazareth College can visit the college's Center for Civic Engagement to find community service opportunities. The St. John Fisher College Community Service Department offers the statement, "It is our vision that all members of the St. John Fisher College family will be servants of the community" on its homepage, where a link to ongoing volunteer opportunities can also be found.

These and other web pages owned and operated by area colleges and universities provide a gateway for the community and students to connect with one another through volunteering. Imagine the difference it would make if all of the nearly 80,000 college students and the community organizations that need help worked together.