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Community Service and Prevention
Community-based prevention programs often rely heavily on volunteers for their services and activities. Here are some ways service learning students can combine academic interests with community prevention work:

• Journalism students can develop press kits and other press materials in prevention media campaigns
• Library science students can organize prevention resource centers
• Urban planning students can assist in drafting guidelines for the placement and operations of alcohol outlets in a community
• Sociology students can make detailed observations about how public spaces and alcohol and drug problems interact
• Nursing students can volunteer in community AOD treatment programs
• Business students can document the economic costs associated with alcohol and other drug problems at a local level
• Criminology students can help local law enforcement agencies analyze crime statistics
• Medical students can volunteer in detoxification centers

Five Elements of Meaningful Service

1. Community voice is essential if we are to build bridges, make changes, and solve problems. Any community service organization should make sure that the voice and needs of the community are included in the development of the community service program.
2. Orientation and training are important first steps for any community service experience. Information should be provided for student volunteers about the community, the issue, and the agency or community group.
3. Meaningful action means that the service being done is necessary and valuable to the community itself. Meaningful action makes people feel like what they did made a difference in a measurable way and that their time was utilized well. Without this, people will not want to continue their service, no matter how well we do with the other four elements.
4. Reflection is a crucial component of the community service learning experience. Reflection should happen immediately after the experience to discuss reactions, share stories, and explore feelings. Reflection is also a good time to present additional facts about the issues and thus dispel any stereotypes or an individual's alienation from service. Reflection should place the experience into a broader context.
5. Evaluation measures the impact of the students' learning experience and the effectiveness of the service in the community. Students should evaluate their learning experience and agencies should evaluate the effectiveness of the students' service. Evaluation gives direction for improvement, growth, and change.

Using Academics to Generate Student Involvement
There are two tried and true incentives for involving students in prevention efforts: pay and course credit. In general, offering course credit is the preferred route, since both faculty and students will be more highly motivated (and more tightly constrained by academic requirements) to make the work an enriching educational experience.

Prevention work calls upon a broad range of skills that students may need in their future work, including problem assessment, strategic planning, policy and program development, political organizing, media advocacy, data collection and analysis, and report preparation. Students will often seek out opportunities to do this work where they can learn such skills and come into contact with faculty, other academic officials, and community leaders.

Finding student volunteers is another possibility. Many students are truly motivated to help make their campus a better place, not simply for themselves, but for students in years to come. Others recognize that they will be more attractive to future employers and graduate schools if their academic experience is rounded out with community-based volunteer work.

Enlisting volunteers may be easier if the initial focus is not on alcohol and other drug use per se but on its consequences. In the Core Institute data from over 40,000 student surveys administered during the 1995-96 school year from both two- and four-year institutions, respondents were asked whether students on their campus cared about several problems that affect campus climate. While 44 percent said that their fellow students care about AOD use, far greater numbers said that students care about other problems, such as sexual assault (84 percent), nonsexual assault (76 percent), and campus vandalism (61 percent).(15)

These problems are associated with alcohol and other drug use, so student concern about them can be channeled into a broader concern about alcohol and other drugs. Part of the answer is to raise awareness of these problems and to identify steps that individuals can take to avoid dangerous situations. The other part is to engage students in a broader effort to change the campus environment and social norms about AOD use by linking prevention with the academic mission of their college.

Student Incentives
Student demand for service learning and campus and community service in higher education is growing. National organizations such as Campus Opportunity Outreach League (COOL), Campus Compact, and the National Society for Experiential Education identify a range of reasons why students value service opportunities:

• Academic Credit. Students often look for ways to earn academic credit that are relevant to real-life issues. For example, graduate students in one school of social work earned credit for conducting an assessment (and class report) on the alcohol message environment on their campus.
• Affinity. Students want a sense of community and so affiliate with various campus organizations to be with kindred spirits who are engaged in meaningful activities.
• Building Resumes. In an increasingly competitive job climate, the college graduate who can claim outside-of-class experience and muster testimonial letters from a wide range of campus references is likely to be more attractive to prospective employers.
• Career Exploration. Through involvement in prevention activities students can explore a range of fields for prospective graduate education or work, such as communications, marketing, political science, public health, theater arts, or any of the other academic disciplines or professional fields that can contribute to the prevention of alcohol and other drug problems.
• Citizenship. During the college years students confront issues of social justice and public responsibility and begin to define their own civic values.
• Leadership Opportunities. Students involved in prevention learn that they can be leaders and make a difference in campus and community life.
• Learning by Doing: Students can augment the cognitive learning of academic life with the experiential learning of being involved in real-life issues of importance.
• Work Study. Five percent of federal work study financial assistance must be connected to service learning. For most college students, paying the bills is often a high priority.