Students told to ‘get a life’ at rally
Students Serving Utah Network (SSUN) rallied at all higher educational institutions across the state Friday on the Marathon Fun Bus Tour, urging students, faculty and administration to “get a life.”
SSUN is the student representation subpart of the Utah Campus Compact (UCC), which was founded Nov. 21, 1986, at the Utah Capitol to promote service-learning at Utah’s universities and colleges.
The Get a Life theme is taken from Winston Churchill’s quote, “You make a living by what you get, you make a life by what you give.”
Through the marathon tour, SSUN hopes to give increased awareness through giving, serving and making a life for themselves as well as those they serve.
“The Get a Life campaign stems from the existing Raise Your Voice campaign,” said Misa Matsumori, SSUN public relations vice president and BYU’s service director. “The Raise Your Voice campaign is about getting students across the country to come together and show that our generation has the knowledge, common motivation and skills necessary to be active citizens.”
The Marathon Fun Bus Tour began in Logan and ended in St. George, rallying with every college and university campus in a marathon “road trip” from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. with an additional stop Saturday morning. Student body presidents, service-learning presidents and campus presidents came along for the ride. Campus visits were 20 minutes long, where SSUN representatives, along with campus service-learning directors, shared their vision of SSUN and campus efforts to incorporate and promote service and civic involvement.
Cameron Woolf, president of SSUN and USU’s service vice president, said one reason the organization is important is because it is the only association that all higher educational institutions in the state of Utah participate in, including their presidents.
“So why are we doing this tour?” Woolf said. “Well, we feel that civic engagement is crucial to the education of our students here in the state of Utah. We also feel that the opportunities to be civically engaged are not limited to the classroom, but are often found outside the lecture halls, in other areas of the campus, and throughout the entire community.”
Woolf said that 90 percent of his education at USU that will carry him throughout his life was found outside of textbooks and classrooms.
Matsumori said that as students receive education, they have the opportunity to help others in their pursuit for education. In effort to bridge the gap between K-12 and college, SSUN is helping universities develop tutoring programs and strengthen existing tutoring programs.
Woolf said he feels optimistic about the tutoring program at USU based on students’ participation in Battle of the Brothers blood drive and the number of service hours pledged on Sept. 11.
USU’s United Volunteers director Heather Bankhead reported on the success of Sept. 11 through United in the Spirit of America Day. The Val R. Christensen Service Center set up tables across campus for students to pledge service hours in remembrance of the victims.
Casualties from Sept. 11 totaled 3,031, which was the goal for the number of pledged service hours. Students exceeded this goal by totaling 37,373 hours pledged, Bankhead said.
“Seven hundred and thirty-three students pledged to serve in a variety of ways, from community service in hospitals and nursing homes to tutoring in the school system and cleaning up the environment,” Bankhead said.
As students fulfill the hours they pledged for Sept. 11, they will enhance the community and make a difference, said Bankhead.
Bankhead said becoming civically involved typically includes voting and lobbying to have our voices heard. Through these efforts, she said, students will be magnified as they involve themselves in the community and become exposed to more situations where they will see the differences that need to be made.
Aaron Brown, USU’s service-learning student director, explained that land grant universities like USU date back to President Abraham Lincoln, and that part of being a land grant university involved giving back to the community.
“USU has a tradition of service stemming from the Val R. Christensen Service Center, the first of its kind in the state of Utah,” Brown said.
Brown said service learning manifests itself in many different ways at USU, from students building adobe homes in Mexico to designing water efficient xeriscapes for local non-profit agencies.
USU lacks a centralized effort on campus to promote and organize service learning, said Brown.
Brown said a group of students are working to formalize service learning at Utah State. Through service learning, students will take what they learn in the classroom and use it to serve the public through research and becoming civically engaged.
“The driving force of this movement is the conviction that Utah students care about the quality of their education and feel there is much we can do within the context of formal education to strengthen communities,” Brown said. “Our small effort is a representation of a whole generation of students who will, through service, take on the challenging problems of society and win.”
The focus of the Marathon Fun Bus Tour was to encourage students to become civically engaged. A way to start becoming more civically involved is to participate in Civic Awareness Week where students can learn about current issues and register to vote, said Bankhead.
Woolf said, “What I hope to see is that we bridge the gap between K-12 and college students, improve our community, and, as a co-product, develop our students by creating lifelong citizens who have a love of service and being civically engaged.”
– lindseykay@cc.usu.edu