Student councils, club governing boards, and student political groups scrambled to organize Columbia University Serves 2008, a nonpartisan, service-oriented event on Low Plaza before the ServiceNation Summit.
Echoing the themes of the ServiceNation event itself, campus leaders worked with the University administration to sponsor a pre-forum service fair and guest speaker to extend the day’s message of volunteerism directly to the student community. The event will happen in Van Am quad with 75 tables for some 50-60 groups.
The organizers, including Columbia College Student Council president George Krebs, CC ’09, are calling upon their peers “to give back to one’s country and community” and join in ServiceNation’s drive to recruit 100 million annual volunteers by 2020.
The leaders asked that a local and national service professional speak at the fair and suggested figures including California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, American clothing designer Kenneth Cole, Caroline Kennedy, Alma Powell (wife of former Secretary of State Colin Powell), and R&B singer-songwriter Usher, all of whom are connected with ServiceNation. As of Wednesday evening, no speaker had been announced. The event’s introductory speaker also had not been announced, although it was rumored to be University President Lee Bollinger.
The student groups also plan to emphasize the day’s commemoration of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“This shouldn’t be a time when we kind of take part in attacks on one another,” Krebs said. “And the candidates recognize that, and if two national presidential campaigns can get on board with that idea, then certainly Columbia’s campus can.”
Meanwhile, the Columbia University College Democrats, the Columbia College Republicans, and the Columbia Political Union have said that they will tone down their political messages and join forces to carry out an extensive voter-registration drive throughout the day.
In addition to these political groups and groups with ties to ServiceNation, such as the American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity, club governing boards sent out e-mails earlier this week encouraging their constituent groups to participate.
“Columbia is a campus that is in many ways associated with civic engagement, and that is the spirit that SGB and its groups embody,” Student Governing Board Chair Arjun Kapoor, CC ’09, said.
SGB Vice-Chair Jacob Taber, GS/JTS ’09, said he hopes SGB humanitarian groups will gain greater exposure as a result of the service fair.
According to Engineering Student Council President Peter Valeiras, SEAS ’09, Columbia was chosen by ServiceNation as the site of the first part of its summit because it is in many ways a service school. “I really hope that students take away the notion that it’s really not what side you’re on, not your beliefs,” Valeiras said. “Service is something that everyone should do just to better your community.”
According to Valeiras, Ivy League schools have some of the highest numbers of students becoming involved in civic roles such as Teach for America and the Peace Corps.
“Civic engagement is a type of public service,” said Columbia Political Union president
Nick Shea, CC ’09. “I think people who are involved in politics choose to do it because they choose to care about improving their societies and their communities.”
Lien Hoang contributed to this article.
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