Motivate yourself

'U' should not coerce students to volunteer

Students come to Michigan with extensive community service." So said Barry Checkoway last week, after the renaming of the Center for Community Service and Learning in honor of Edward Ginsberg. Although there are a large number of students who participate in high school community service out of personal desire, many students are also motivated by admissions standards and graduation requirements. Upon being accepted to the University, they lose some motivation to volunteer and once classes start and academics become more important. Students shouldn't let service slide.

Reading requirements, test preparation and research papers add to hours spent in class and make being a student a full-time job. Many students like to spend the free time they do have socializing.

In spite of the demands of their lives - both academic and social - almost every student ought to be able to carve a few hours out of their schedule to do some type of community service. Still, the moral force of this imperative needs to be gauged by students individually according to their personal sense of obligation. The University should never consider any type of policy that coerces students into community service.

The Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning offers some activities, such as Alternative Spring Break and other short-term volunteer work days, that bolster the range of student participation in service. With the funds provided by the Ginsberg donation, the Center should be able to offer more similar opportunities.

In an interview last week, Checkoway said that one of the uses for the Ginsberg donation would be to encourage professors to teach classes with community service components. This would be a positive development since it would probably increase student volunteerism without direct coercion. Any type of requirement that students do so many hours of volunteer work to graduate would be unacceptable.

Encouraging community service is always admirable and students should feel some sort of obligation to give back to the community. But in recognizing civic virtue, the University should remember that it does not have the moral authority to force students to volunteer.