Local Community Service Opportunities
Each semester, Marquette hosts Service Fair, a two-day gathering in the Alumni Memorial Union of over 100 social services agencies and student organizations. Its purpose? To match local community service opportunities with first- and second-year students who are eager to help.
Hundreds showed up at this fall’s Service Fair. “Students were in line two hours before it started,” says Kim Jensen, Arts ’98, assistant program administrator, Service Learning. “I think that shows how interested and engaged they are in community service.”
The reason for this enthusiasm is something that is pure Marquette: students with strong high school track records in community service come to the university wanting to continue doing it.
“In return, we try to make it as easy as possible for them to get involved,” says Dave Borgealt, assistant dean for community programs.
At Marquette, there are three major entryways to local service projects: The Office of Student Development’s Center for Community Service, Service Learning and University Ministry.
Center for Community Service
Borgealt works at Marquette’s Center for Community Service, which oversees student organizations that perform community service. The center hosts many one-day events throughout the academic year; Hunger Clean-Up is its largest.
The center also runs a volunteer network that places student volunteers at over 40 non-profit agencies throughout Milwaukee.
Other Center for Community Service projects include:
- Urban
Connection, pairing new freshmen with student orientation
staff members to work on community service projects in
Milwaukee
- "Give Us 4 Day," a joint project with a local TV
station during which students help winterize homes of the
elderly and disabled
- Weekend immersions, which allow students to explore social service issues
Service Learning Program
Service Learning, part of Marquette’s Institute for Urban Life, blends community service and the classroom. Each semester, students can register for around 55 courses that include an optional community service component — for college credit.
“Students integrate what they learn in the community with the course they’re taking,” says Bobbi Timberlake, program administrator, Service Learning, who started Marquette’s program.
Community service comprises 15 to 30 percent of course grades. Faculty is responsible for linking the student’s community service experience to what’s being learned in the classroom. “The connection must make sense to the student,” says Timberlake.
Erik Wright, a senior with a double major in elementary education and Spanish, has taken three Service Learning courses. “When you can apply what you learn in the classroom to the real world,” he says, “it gives you a new level of understanding.”
Service learning also offers a social justice service project, designed to raise awareness around an issue chosen by students. “Our goal is to link the Marquette community with the surrounding community,” says Timberlake. This semester’s issue is decent and affordable housing in Milwaukee. Service Learning also offers international service experiences.
University Ministry
Projects run by University Ministry make a deliberate connection between volunteering and faith. Midnight Run, a University Ministry service project, has roots in Matthew 25:40:
“…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Started by students in 1988, Midnight Run serves the hungry and homeless at 10 sites on an ongoing basis. One of these, Noon Run, takes place six days a week on the edge of campus, where students serve soup and sandwiches.
“We see food as a vehicle to connect with people,” says Gerry Fischer, interim associate director, University Ministry.
Senior Nikki Hertel, Burke scholar and student coordinator for Hunger Clean-Up, started volunteering in "Midnight Run" her freshman year. “It was a turning point in my life,” she says. “Working with the homeless motivated me to make social welfare and justice my major. It showed me where I was being led.”
Other University Ministry service projects include:
- Soup
with Substance, a presentation on a social justice
issue, accompanied by a simple meal of soup and bread
- MAP (Marquette Action Program), which sends students on service trips to locations throughout the U.S. during spring break
A Time for Reflection
Many of Marquette’s community service projects also include time for reflection, during which students share what they’ve learned from their service experience.
“The reflection aspect is intentional,” says Borgealt. “It’s a direct tie-in to St. Ignatius — a celebration of service that’s unique to Jesuit institutions.”
A perfect cap to an experience that brings classroom theory to life and help students learn more about themselves. “These projects are a great way to enter into relationships with people,” says Borgealt. “They are very powerful learning experiences.”
It’s an experience that also involves students more deeply in Marquette’s urban community. Says Fischer:
“We see our setting as a blessing, not something we have to overcome.”
PROFILES IN SERVICE
- CJ. Egalite
- Gabrielle Misfeldt
- Conor Sweeney
- On a Mission: Dr. Chuck Garven
- Hunger Clean-up and
National Service Day - The Whole Community’s a Classroom
- Campus Kitchen
Bobbi Timberlake, Administrator of Marquette's Service Learning Program
Quick Facts About Marquette
| Identity: | Catholic, Jesuit, private |
| Established: | 1881 |
| Location: | Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Undergraduate: | 8,048 |
| Postgraduate: | 3,500 |
| Campus: | Urban, 90 acres |
| Athletics: | 14 NCAA Division I teams (Big East) |
| Colors: | Blue and Gold |
