Columbia U. Emphasizes Service Requirements in Pitch to Students

Columbia University’s effort to integrate volunteer service into its curriculum by offering students credit for the donated hours they spend on community projects has become a highlight of the university’s pitch to prospective students, reports The New York Times.

For the past six years, service learning has been a requirement for all of the university’s engineering majors, and other academic departments are now considering following suit in what experts point to as one of just a few programs nationwide that have mandatory service requirements for graduation.

“We obviously want to create engineers and applied scientists who are technically adept but also effective in this global society,” said Jack McGourty, associate dean of Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “We want to create students who are socially aware.”

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