Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 1986)
F I) l C A I I () N TRENDS IRA WYMAN On* to 006: Harvard senior Tim Sheiner tutors inmate Lou Martee for Phillips Brooks House Doing Good Students are signing on for community service again in impressive, effective numbers At first glance, Georgetown Univer sity senior Mark Fox could be mis taken for any Yuppie-in-training: his rugby shirts and fashionably faded 501 jeans might brand him as just another guy with BMW’s on the brain. But this premed student is not mere ly another material boy. lnsteud of whiling away his Saturday mornings sleeping off hangovers, he leads 17 other Georgetown students into the blighted neighborhoods of nearby southeast Washington, DC., to spend time with inner-city kids, catching a matineeat KennedyCenterorjust tossinga ball around. And despite thestereotypingof his peers as varsity apathetes. Fox says he is not unusual. "Sure, some [students] are ca reer oriented, some are party animals," he says. But many, he finds, "see something besides a career as the goal of their under grad uate ed ucat ion. ” Like thousands of students nationwide, Fox is trying to personalizesuch monumen tal causes as poverty and hunger by getting involved in community sendee A surge in all varietiesof volunteerism is now energiz ingcharitable projectaat schools across the nation, where students are showing up in greater numbers than at any time since the 1960s. At Harvard, for example, 56 percent of the class of ’86 said they participated in public service, compared to 35 percent in 1983. AtTulane,CACTUS(Community Ac tion Council of Tulane University Stu dentsi has become the most pop ular extracurricular activity, with 6(X) students—more than double the number of just two years 1450—involved in every thing from tutoring slum chil dren to providing medical care during MardiGras. At DePuuw in Greencastle, Ind., students even pay for the privilege of liv ing in Third World privation while participating in aid proj ects And at many schools, the trend is being encouraged with credits, fellowships and grants. This fresh crop of do-gooders tends less to starry-eyed inno cence or zealotry than its prede cessors Remarkably diverse, these helpful students come from all political persuasions— alt hough they’re all more likely to seek M R.A.’s thun martyr dom There are Keaganauts who want government out of tht* welfare business os well as liberuls who wear their bleeding hearts on their sleeves. The majority probably fall in the neutral category, according to Sister Nancy Ann Flumerfelt, a sociologist who advises both political and nonpolitical groups at Michi gan’s tiny Aquinas College "They are very comfortable collecting cans forcharity, but they're not comfortable trying to deal with what agri-business is, or why the family farm is going under,"she declares. At the bottom line, these pragmatic ide alists an- finding ways to pencil compas sion into the timetables of their careers, making the spirit of events like Live Aid concrete, and gaining a sense of belonging in the bargain. Some, it must be admitted, are looking for a dash of public service on their resumes. "Altruism is chic," jokes STKVKN HAMHKKti Feeding force: Columbia-Barnard students make lunch at a church near campus
