College students want to work in a soup kitchen. They’d rather not work within the political system to solve the root causes of hunger.

That general problem drew about a dozen Kansas University students to a teleconference Thursday to discuss how best to engage young adults in the political system.

“The demographic we’re talking about is very involved in service,” said Kevin Hager, director of the student-run Center for Community Outreach. “It’s making that connection to political involvement. How do we tell someone volunteering in a retirement home they have a vested interest in Social Security issues?”

The students were involved in a teleconference sponsored by Campus Compact, a national organization that aims to increase students’ service to their community. The panel discussion was broadcast to 75 sites, mostly in the United States.

According to one study, fewer than a third of people ages 18 to 24 voted in the 2000 election. Overall, turnout was about 51 percent.

The panel discussion involved several students, former students, a faculty member and an administrator from across the country. None of the participants seemed to have a clear answer to why students are willing to provide service but reluctant to get involved with the political process.

“We may be filling the belly of a corpse when we need to be performing CPR,” said Fabricio Rodriguez, executive director of Philadelphia Jobs with Justice.

Other panelists said students didn’t have one clear issue to unite on as they did during the Vietnam War era. They also said universities should require students to perform service and do a better job of explaining the importance of political participation.

Curtis Sloan, third-year Kansas University law student, of Powhattan, and Jessica St. Clair, graduate student from Valley Center, visit before a national teleconference on student involvement in the political process. The teleconference was sponsored by the Center for Community Outreach, the Dole Institute of Politics and the Kansas Campus Compact. Sloan is a member of KU's Civic Literacy committee and St. Clair has led a service learning task force at KU.

But KU students said increasing participation would be easier said than done. Bryan Young, a junior from Wichita, noted the small turnout for Thursday’s meeting.

“It’s a problem of getting the students who don’t care to care,” he said. “Everything else falls into place if you find that solution. There are a lot of people who are (at KU) just to get a job and make money. I’d say more than half are that way.”

That led some in attendance to say KU should require students to participate in “service learning” before they graduate, with hopes that it could translate into political participation. Service learning typically refers to volunteering that is required by a particular class.

Without the requirement, some students “wouldn’t have had their eyes opened to service,” said Jessica St. Clair, a graduate student from Valley Center. “It’s not that they’re forced into it.”

After the meeting, Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, senior vice provost, said while students’ time constraints and a limited number of volunteer opportunities made such a requirement unlikely, KU administrators had stepped up their advocacy for service learning among faculty members in recent years.

Tying the volunteerism to a class is the best way for service to become political involvement down the road, she said.

“It’s different with service learning, because you have a context for an agency,” she said. “Instead of just volunteering at Jubilee Cafe (a local meal service for the homeless) you learn about poverty and hunger — about why there is a Jubilee Cafe.”

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