The College of Wooster credits amongst its graduate qualities a commitment to justice and civic/social responsibility. We work to affirm this goal of the College by engaging in sustained partnerships that foster collaborative learning and civic participation in a diverse & complex society.
We encourage all individuals to exhibit a personal commitment to community and serving others by engaging the six pathways to civic engagement:
Giving personal time and energy to address immediate community needs and priorities.
Wooster has a long tradition of volunteerism. Below are a few ways to get involved:
Wooster Volunteer Network
The Wooster Volunteer Network (WVN) links Wooster students to volunteer organizations in the broader Wooster Community. Their mission is to help you help others. WVN has partnered with Residence Life since the 1970’s to support select houses, suites, and apartment spaces committed to a shared community service program.
Community Connections Program
The Community Connections Program partners with APEX to combine academic study and community service in First Year Seminars. This service-learning connects theory with practice develops critical thinking skills so you can understand, appreciate, and objectively critique multiple perspectives.
Participating in, or producing scholarship that addresses community educational deficiencies.
We believe that achieving our educational purpose is only possible in a diverse community of learners. We seek to extend the benefits of learning beyond the campus and beyond ourselves. To help meet this goal, four international/global nomad Ambassadors have been selected as cultural representatives to the greater Wooster community.
The Applied Methods and Research Experience (AMRE) was originally designed to give students from Wooster Mathematics Department experience in practical applications that the classroom cannot provide. In recent years AMRE has also had several projects of a social service nature. For eight weeks of the summer, student teams and their faculty/staff advisors are paired with a client to conduct real world research. Recent projects include research on Wayne County Public Transportation alternatives and quantifiable data sets on local poverty rates.
Mobilizing individual or collective action to influence or change public opinion or policy
The #WoosterHomeForAll movement was started by a Wooster Student in the Fall of 2016 in response to a feeling of discord between students and community members. A silent demonstration of solidarity along Beall Avenue and a rally held downtown lead to the creation of the hashtag. The Center for Diversity and Inclusion encouraged faculty, staff, and local community members to post photos of themselves using the hashtag. Later a formal graphic was created with over 1,000 images being distributed in the greater Wooster community.
College towns across the country often experience various levels of tension between community members and the students who attend local colleges. Wooster is set on creating pathways of communication about this concern through the Bridging Beall Project.
The College reviews applications from students and community members and then places them into groups of six. The groups are purposefully designed to offer a wide range of background, identity, and political affiliation. Each group is led through a multi-week program that revolves around discussions of personal identity and a shared service project in the community. The goal of the program is to create allies for each respective group in their contrasting social circles.
Voter Registration and Voting
As a student at the College of Wooster, we encourage the involvement of students within the city of Wooster as well as Wayne county. This includes registering to vote, and voting during midterm, special, primary, and presidential elections. We partner with the Wayne College Board of Elections to ensure the validity of documents we provide our students. Each student receives a voter registration form as well as a utility letter for residency verification. Faculty, staff, individual students and student organizations work together to encourage participation in local/national elections, registering to vote and transportation to voting precincts.
Wooster students who reside on campus are eligible to vote as a citizen of the State of Ohio, a frequently contested state in national elections. Your vote really can make a difference here!
We encourage all students to engage in political discourse at all levels of government, and that starts by registering to vote.
The voluntary redistribution of resources by individuals or institutions.
Soup & Bread
For the past 45 years, The College of Wooster has hosted weekly Soup and Bread meals to help fight hunger in our local community and around the world. The mission of this service program is, to eat simply so that others can simply eat. Volunteers comprised of students, faculty and staff assist The Soup and Bread Team weekly to serve, clean and eat with customers from campus as well as the larger Wooster community.
For $5.00, which can be paid from your meal plan, participants eat a simple meal of soup and bread, with $3.00 going back to the community to help fight hunger in Wayne County.
Soup & Bread is a student-run program and takes place in Kittredge Hall on Wednesdays from 11 am – 1 pm.
To empower students to make a positive impact on the world, the Center for Entrepreneurship offers a wide variety of programs and activities that support the entrepreneurial sprit of students from all majors. Any student with an interest in creating solutions, products or services can find opportunities to complement and enhance their professional development and academic experience.
Driven by the philosophy that great ideas have to be put into action, the Center offers resources such as support for student businesses, internship opportunities, and connections with international entrepreneurship activities.