Donations from alumni have historically been a leading source of charitable support for higher education. But in recent years, alumni supportiveness has been on a steady decline. Participation rates and gift sizes are at their lowest levels ever recorded. Nowhere is this issue more pressing than at private, master's comprehensive…

Several facets of the undergraduate experience have been linked with the importance students assign to prosocial values (e.g., helping people in need), including academic major, exposure to social and cultural diversity, community service, and a prosocial institutional ethos. However, these factors have not been examined within a single framework…

So far, the comprehension and production language modes have typically been studied separately in generative second language acquisition research, with the focus shifting from one to the other. This article revisits the asymmetric relationship between comprehension and production by examining the second language (L2) acquisition of the noun phrase…

This article describes a 9-month community action project that took the form of an art studio located in a thrift store. The purpose of the project was to creatively reduce clothing fabric waste from unused donations, and also to document the social justice and ecological issues involved in clothing production and distribution. Collaboration with…

How can schools secure volunteers to help fix up the building and grounds? There isn't much research on how to secure volunteers to participate in school clean-ups and fix-ups, but some key ideas can be found in anecdotal examples from many communities around the nation. The first recommendation is that securing volunteers is easier when the…

Over the past few decades Special Olympics has been criticized within the academic community for failing to provide inclusive recreational services, reinforcing negative stereotypes, misusing volunteers, and lacking research demonstrating positive impacts for individuals with intellectual disabilities and the larger community (Hourcadde, 1989;…

In this article I discuss a number of excerpts from interviews with class grandparents; that is to say, older people helping out in schools for children in Sweden. The interviews focused on experiences of taking part in class grandparent projects. Indirectly, however, they dealt with identity. By treating the interviews as stories, as ways of…

We examined the volunteer service contribution of older adults (N = 100) to volunteer role development and agency attachment. Informed by a developmental regulation framework and socio-emotional selectivity theory, we tested a twofold hypothesis for the premise that greater role development and agency attachment would be experienced by (1) older…

The challenge today is how to make e-mail and other forms of electronic communication effective in motivating volunteer action. Is it possible to make e-mails feel personal and welcoming? E-mail, instant messaging, texting, and social media are tools that allow individuals to communicate quickly and inexpensively, but they are lifeless without the…

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore docents' perceptions of their interpretive role in art museums and determine how those perceptions shape docents' practice. The objective was to better understand how docents conceive of their role and what shapes the interpretation they give on tours to the public. The conceptual…

Because of their extensive experience with death and dying, hospice volunteers may be more successful at engaging in meaning-making regarding their death-related experiences than their low point life experiences (e.g., job loss). Consequently, their memories of death-related experiences will manifest more meaning-making strategies (e.g.,…

An interactive mapping project is revolutionizing the way crises are reported and managed, and is spotlighting the value of citizen journalism. The project, called Ushahidi, which means testimony in Swahili, uses crowdsourcing (gathering information from a large number of people) to map crisis information. This crisis mapping tool has since been…

Identifying the factors affecting the retention of volunteers in their activities is one of the main objectives for researchers and volunteer managers. There have been many studies with this aim and many factors affecting sustained volunteerism have been identified. However, one of the limits of these models is the low percentage of explained…

Service-learning experiences for college students are increasing in popularity. Although youth mentoring is thought to be a significant service-learning experience for students, data in this area are lacking. This study evaluates a unique school-based service-learning mentoring experience at a midsized Midwestern university. Data were collected…

Research on volunteer mentor programs has demonstrated mostly positive outcomes for mentees. As a result, many schools seek to attract and retain volunteers to assist children in need of support. The researchers interviewed 26 adult volunteers (from Australian companies) who help children with reading difficulties and examined intervention effects…