Senator Rand’s SB 2079 has already been the subject of considerable and justified criticism. Today my Pope Center colleague Jay Schalin weighs in with an op-ed piece in the N&O.
This ridiculous, reprehensible bit of legislative meddling follows a national trend of conscripting students for “volunteer” community service work.
What makes the politicians think that college students necessarily have any expertise — or even bare competence — to mentor kids in K-12? Lots of college students themselves need mentoring! I used to have students who couldn’t get the various forms of “their,” “there,” and “they’re” straight. Would such mentors do more good than harm?
And while many college students lead pretty leisurely lives, there are more than a few who, between their coursework, activities (which might include some volunteer work of their choice), and maybe part-time jobs, are stretched to the limit. Taking 20 hours (actually more when you consider travel time) per semester away from them is nasty business.
There are many other arguments against this bill, but I’ll close with this: You can’t encourage a spirit of charitable service by holding students’ degrees hostage of the completion of a certain number of mandatory hours of “service.”
