One option, of course, would be to place even local politics students into community
service agencies, and work to connect their experiences with the local political environment.
Then there would be little doubt that the first goal of service learning would be fulfilled. For
various reasons, including the traditional assignment in this class, students in our Local Politics
class primarily served in campaigns, though two groups of students did not. More on this later in
the paper.
The general idea of the second goal is that engaging students with various community
organizations now will promote their civic engagement in the future. We all know the dire claims
of Putnam’s (2000) Bowling Alone: the great “civic generation” weaned on World War II is
passing away and leaving in its wake a generation or two of disconnected, uninvolved, social
capital lacking Americans. Meeting attendance is declining; gathering in informal groups is
declining; engagement in our communities in all manner large and small just does not happen
they way it once did in the good old days. There is some evidence that young are also less
engaged than they might be. While volunteerism might be up, there is good evidence that today’s
students are not connected to the political/public environment (Keeter, et al, 2002). Without
actually entering this debate, or even commenting directly on its merits, we suggest that whether
or not social capital matters, and whether or not it is (or was) declining, civic engagement is, as
Martha Stewart might put it, “a good thing.” It seems particularly appropriate that political
scientists be concerned with students developing the necessary skills, knowledge, and
understandings to allow them to become productively engaged in their communities.
Reports suggest that students may in fact become more engaged citizens after
participating in a service-learning program. A study of alumni from a Catholic liberal arts
college showed that students who participated in either community service and service-learning
during their undergraduate were much more likely to be involved in their community two to nine
7
Convention