Standing in Line to Serve

In the Boston area, a funny thing happens every holiday season.

If you try to call one of the local soup kitchens or food pantries to inquire about volunteer opportunities, they tell you that they are all booked.

This Christmas, our family was put on a "alternate volunteer list" at one of the local food pantries and told that we would be called if other volunteers cancelled. We were never called. Our family had underestimated the popularity of community service these days in Boston. Voluntarism is also in vogue among Harvard undergraduates. With 52 PBHA committees, 24 independent student-led public service organizations and various service groups with religious affiliations, everyone I know, it seems, puts down the books to give blood, teach SAT prep, dance with fifth graders or raise money for aids victims in Africa. And new community service ideas are always in the make, as one quarter of the community is replaced every year.

Generally, the underlying motives behind this community service boom are genuine, discounting resume builders and medical school sharks, that is.

It might seem obvious that the best and brightest feel obligated, motivated or conditioned to give back.

Yet, our widespread community service participation, on second thought, is more surprising, given other incontrovertible truths about the average Harvard student.

First, we are extremely politically apathetic. Many of us did not even bat an eyelash when we exercised our democratic right by voting for the Undergraduate Council president last month. We clicked a few arrows to register our choices with the same disinterest with which we renew our library books. The election came and went, without an effective debate among students about campus-wide initiatives, structural changes or reform.

Not that national politics fare any better here. Seniors have lived at Harvard during parts of two presidential campaigns. However, Iowa and New Hampshire, debates and conventions…well, you will learn about that in Government 1540, "The American Presidency." A good class.

The second anthropological truth about Harvard students is that we are abnormally individualistic. "I" is the prevailing pronoun; "independent" is the most valued adjective; and "Personal Agenda" has become a proper noun. Believe it or not, at other normal colleges, people do not make lunch dates to see their friends; they just hang out.

Of course, the individualism to which we have grown accustomed will probably become a lifelong habit. Now we rush from a seminar, to the library, to a meeting, to a party, to another meeting--there are a lot of meetings here. Someday soon we will run from the boardroom, to the gym, to day care, to the PTA meetings--and end up at the shrink.

This intrinsic individualism would predict, then, that a sense of community responsibility would be put on hold or even forgotten as students try to juggle their own busy, stressed and over-committed lives.

So the widespread community service involvement of Harvard students is a welcomed surprise. It seems that students prefer affecting change at the micro-level, in a hands-on, feel-good manner. Mentoring a disadvantaged child, for example, strikes many of us as more meaningful than supporting a candidate who promises to change educational programs for that child.

Sociologists have accused our generation of college students of being politically apathetic. At Harvard, political activism might be out of style. But all of the potential lobbyists, demonstrators, letter-writers, and strikers have not retired, they have only changed tactics, leaving the steps of University Hall for schools, prisons, soup kitchens and far-flung neighborhoods.

Less whining and more real doing. If Harvard student behavior is indicative of any larger, national or global trends (Harvard loves setting trends) then, the nature of political activism and social activism might have changed. The term "activism" itself might even have become an anachronism.

For the present, at Harvard, serving the community is the primary activity. As we continue committing to community service, the mind-boggling numbers of service organizations on campus will beg the question: Which community will we choose to serve?

"The Active Voice" winds down this week but "activity" at Harvard will surely continue. Thank you to the readers, the campus activists, the campus cynics, and the subjects of my scrutiny for their help during the past year. As the ideas expressed through this column were largely conceived during dinnertime discussions, I would like to thank the Cambridge Girls (and their groupies) for their inspiration.