The idea behind the University of Massachusetts Community Service Learning Program (CSL) is simple: students get college credit for volunteering in local communities. But how effective are these programs? What does volunteering mean when student volunteer programs are as widespread and insubstantial as a Katy Perry song?

At face value, it appears that students today are more socially conscious than our predecessors. According to a volunteer growth report issued by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the number of teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 who volunteer in the U.S. increased from 13.4 percent in 1989 to 28.4 percent in 2005. Students of our generation are as likely to spend their spring break tearing down houses in New Orleans as they are downing kegs in Cancun. Service Learning classes are cropping up as part of the curriculum at UMass and at other colleges across the country. But as more and more students jump on the volunteering bandwagon, the question must be asked: how much of an impact does service learning really have? Is our generation really more socially conscious, or are we just fooling ourselves?

UMass’ Commonwealth Honors College seems to think it’s the former. ComCol’s Community Engagement Program (CEP) offers a wide range of service learning opportunities, such as IMPACT!, the Citizen Scholars Program, and individual service learning classes and capstones. These classes seem like a great way to get students engaged in service work and connect supposedly privileged UMass students to underprivileged local communities.

The problem is they don’t always work very well.

In fall 2008, I enrolled in a Dean’s Book Service Learning class through Commonwealth Honors College. The class offered students an opportunity to volunteer at various nonprofits in Holyoke and discuss their service experiences in a classroom setting. The problem was that, like most of the individual CSL classes at UMass, the Dean’s Book class only required one to two hours of service a week from students, which leaves students feeling ineffective and nonprofit organizations frustrated. Many students in the class complained that most of their ‘service’ was spent just standing around, and that they felt they were more of a nuisance than a help to the organizations.

CSL sounds like a great idea, but like a lot of great ideas – communism, spray-on hair, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace –  it works better in theory than in practice.

According to Amy Calandrella, farm programs coordinator for the Holyoke nonprofit group Nuestras Raices, the relationship between student volunteers and local nonprofits “is really complicated.”

“The organizations can get dependent on student volunteers and don’t look for other resources in their own communities,” said Calandrella. “Student volunteers can also become a burden on the organization because students don’t have the skills and experiences they need to truly make a difference.”

But, like Calandrella said, the relationship is complicated. Calandrella first became involved with Nuestras Raices through the UMass Citizen Scholar Program in 2006. She continued to volunteer with the organization during her undergraduate career and worked with them after graduation with funding from an Americorp VISTA, a program where volunteers work for a year on an anti-povery initiative. A year later, she was hired full time as Nuestras Raices’ farm programs coordinator.

It is possible to make a difference through volunteer service learning, but it often requires going beyond the parameters of the University’s CSL courses. Community Service Learning programs have two major flaws that prevent them from being effective. One, students do not have the necessary skills to be of use to the organization, and two, they do not volunteer for long enough periods of time to have a real impact on the organization or community.

This is particularly true of short-term service opportunities like Alternative Spring Break. ASB is a form of volunteering in which students spend a week traveling and doing community service projects in distant parts of the country.

“It’s very difficult to make a tangible impact in a week,” said UMass senior Zachary Fischer. Fischer recently returned from an Alternative Spring Break trip to Birmingham, Ala., as a part of the Civic Interfaith Alliance. His group spent the week working in homeless relief centers and learning about urban agriculture. Fischer believes service projects such as alternative spring breaks should be seen as “an activator, not an ending.”

“I know that I personally signed up on my first trip because I wanted to see New Orleans,” said Fischer. “The experience there, however, prompted me to get more involved, and now I’ve led two trips and taught two classes.”

Students may not be able to make a huge impact in a week or even a semester, but that doesn’t mean their efforts are meaningless. The point of Community Service Learning is education, and what education can inspire.

Calandrella said the best thing a student can do before coming into a service project is to research the organization.

“Having realistic expectations helps,” she said. “The more informed the student is, the more enriching the experience.”

Fischer echoed Calandrella’s sentiment and also emphasized the “learning” part of service learning, that education is that the primary purpose of CSL.

“The real impact of service learning is what both sides take away from it,” he said. “Students get a week to apply academic discussion to real practice and see how difficult it is to enact any sort of social change. In its best instances, they are inspired to dedicate themselves to a cause and start from the ground up.”

Rachel Dougherty is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].