Nat'l service conference stirs excitement

The nature of community serice, and how to encourage it, was a major topic of discussion during the second day of the National Service Conference at the Christian Association on Friday. The conference -- sponsored by several organizations on campus and in the community, several other universities and the American Association for Higher Education -- was considered a resounding success by its participants. The conference began Thursday evening with a keynote speech by Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Pa.) and a panel of national service experts who spoke to a packed room in the Annenberg School. Friday's workshops included a discussion of the impact of national service on local communities, the Clinton agenda and a discussion on implementation of service programs on campus. Tao Hsu, a junior at Bryn Mawr College, said she has begun to national service in a different light. "They've started making me excited," she said, "but not so excited that I'm not thinking rationally. Because the questions are so basic, I have to start thinking about them from square one." Hsu said that she would like to develop a network at Bryn Mawr to get more students involved in community service and to help student leaders reevaluate their organizations. Greg Ricks, vice-president for education for City Year -- a service organization for troubled communities -- called the conference "highly interactive." "A lot of people on this campus have found each other," Ricks said. "The people that [held the conference] have a sense of accomplishment. It's like throwing 10 house parties." Ricks said that some strong points of the conference were that students recognized "the need for humility" and "the need for being more mature in expectations." Ricks said that the participants realized that national service "in not a panacea, an answer to everything." Jack Kiefer, a graduate student at Drexel University with the Pennsylvania Service Corporation said "it's good for individual campuses and organizations to demonstrate what they're doing. It's a reaffirmation that there are other people like this." Jef Buehler, a consultant for Student Volunteer Services who is getting his master's degree at Rutgers University in Camden, said that "the whole point of this is to share everything, to cut through the politics and the bullshit."