MoMent

when compared with older generations (Pryor et al. 2009, 40). Moreover,
students in ever-increasing numbers are flocking to civic engagement
opportunities in college—often spurred by volunteer work in the year before
entering college. In the same survey, 85.3 percent of entering first-year students
reported that they “performed volunteer work” “frequently” or “occasionally”
as high school seniors (Pryor et al. 2009, 11). Participation in service is high in
the college years as well: according to 2010 HERI data on college seniors, 8 in
10 seniors reported being engaged in some form of community service during
college (DeAngelo, pers. comm.).
In a national survey using the Personal and Social Responsibility
Inventory (PSRI), which was conducted by the University of Michigan’s
Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, data from
twenty-four thousand students at twenty-three diverse colleges, universities,
community colleges, and military academies indicate that students want their
colleges to foster a stronger institutional emphasis on contributing to the larger
community. Moreover, the longer the students stay in college, the wider the
gap becomes between their endorsement of social responsibility as a goal of
college and their assessment of whether the institution provides opportunities
for growth in this area (see fig. 2; Dey et al. 2009).
Students’ assessment of whether their campus valued and promoted
contributing to the larger community declined from first to senior year. In
addition, while 44.8 percent of first-year students strongly agreed that their
campus actively promoted awareness of US social, political, and economic
issues, only 34.3 percent of seniors strongly agreed with this statement. There
was an even more striking discrepancy in the global arena: among first-year
students, 43.3 percent strongly agreed that their campus actively promoted
awareness of global social, political, and economic issues, but only half that
amount—22.9 percent—of seniors strongly agreed with this statement (Dey
et al. 2009, 4–8).
As A Crucible Moment emphasizes, community service is not necessarily
the same as democratic engagement with others across differences to
collectively solve public problems. Nor does service always establish a
reciprocal partnership or lead to an analysis of systemic causes of a given issue.
But service can be, and often is, the first step toward a more fully developed set
The longer the students
stay in college, the wider
the gap becomes between
their endorsement of social
responsibility as a goal of the
college and their assessment
of whether the institution
provides opportunities for
growth in this area.
Figure 2: Student Views on the
Importance of Contributing
to the Larger Community
Percentages of students who strongly agree that
contributing to community “should be” a major
focus of college and “is” a major focus of college,
by year in school.
55%
45%
57%
42%
Source: Data from Dey et al. (2009). FIRST YEAR SOPHOMORE
58%
JUNIOR
41%
59%
SENIOR
38%
“Should be”
“Is”
A CRUCIBLE MOMENT: College Learning & Democracy’s Future 5