Milton’s Community Service Program has been engaging students and local non-profit organizations for decades. Last spring, program leaders conducted an extensive assessment of service at Milton to understand the value of the experience, affirm the program’s strengths, and identify opportunities for growth. This assessment included feedback from many constituents—students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and partner sites—who completed surveys and participated in focus groups. The goal: align the program more closely with Milton’s strategic priorities—offering students a rich and meaningful experience, and developing in them the competencies and skills to be open-minded, empathic, collaborative, self-aware, responsible citizens.
Milton’s service program has a new name: Community Engagement Programs and Partnerships (CEPP). Moving away from a focus simply on service—the idea that only the volunteer has something to “give”—the program will move toward a model that emphasizes two-way partnership and contribution. Acknowledging that all members of the program—student volunteers, faculty and staff members, partner organizations and their constituents, parent volunteers—add immense value, strength, resource, and potential for growth, the program will promote thoughtful sharing of knowledge, skills, and perspectives in these relationships.
This shift includes a more purposeful connection with the Office of Multiculturalism and Community Development, under whose structural umbrella the program sits. This link encourages more explicit work on understanding culture and identity and on defining reciprocal needs and assets of community partners; it will mean focusing more closely on the impact of work with partner sites; enhancing training and reflection for student volunteers; and supporting service learning and social justice work through the curriculum.
Find out how you can get involved.