The Columbia College Citizenship Program: A Student Laboratory in Civic Affairs
E ACH week hundreds of Columbia and Barnard students tutor underprivileged children, assist hospital personnel in pediatrics wards and emergency rooms, conduct interviews for neighborhood conservation, and work in government offices. This work in the community, part of the Columbia College Citizenship Program, is purely voluntary, with no service or academic credits. The program is administered by a student group of fifty called the Citizenship Council, which finds worth-while projects, recruits volunteers, screens applicants, and follows up on day-to-day problems. This is not a guided-tour type of operation; each participant agrees to devote several hours every week to voluntary work. Columbia believes that the teaching function of a college is not limited to the classroom. A college must make its students aware of the social and political problems of our society and instill in them a moral commitment to do something about those problems. The Citizenship Program fulfills this function. It reminds the college student of the duties as well as the rights implicit in the concept of citizenship and encourages active participation in civic affairs. It is a purely voluntary activity, for we believe that to work for course credit would take away from the spirit of the program. When plans for the program were announced in I957, objections were raised by students and faculty. Skeptics thought it was too idealistic. Others believed participation should be a requirement for graduation. The faculty opposed anything that implied compulsion. Some already existing student-activity groups feared a loss of their power and prestige. Many agencies in the community were reluctant to rely on college students. Gradually, all of these objections have been overcome. Today, the Citizenship Program of Columbia College is, in the eyes of the campus and the outside community, the largest and most vital of campus extracurricular activities. In this voluntary program which utilizes our urban setting to reveal city life in many aspects hitherto unknown to them, our students gain an insight into the problems of education, poverty, discrimination, slum clearance, and disease. The compassion and under-