More Ivory Tower than Beacon on the Hill, Amherst College is comfortably disconnected from the real world. It is a rare occasion that students traverse the boundaries of Routes 9 and 116 to become engaged in the larger community in which we live. Sheltered from reality, we discuss the world with academic distance instead of getting involved. However, to make the most out of our education, we must gain an understanding of the world and of our membership in it.

Amherst College and its students need to make a commitment to community work. Engagement in service and activism should receive the same sort of institutional support and pre-eminence accorded to athletics and music. As a school community, we encourage students to intensely involve themselves in a variety of activities. We celebrate the teamwork, dedication and leadership that sports teach. Musicians are appreciated for their discipline, creativity and talent. However, the time and resources the school dedicates to promoting community work is substantially less than that devoted to sports and music, even though all of these extracurricular activities yield positive benefits for both the individual and the school. The resources on campus available to student volunteers and activists are not readily accessible. Through the use of training, manuals or staff coordinators, there needs to be improved communication on how to utilize services offered by the College.

In regard to community work, quality is of significant importance. Too often Amherst students are involved in community work and are not challenged to reflect on how their actions impact its recipients and successfully further social change. There is not a broad understanding of the students' and the school's role in the community. There needs to be a dialogue on campus that allows volunteers and organizers to examine the needs of the community. Furthermore, student volunteers and the College alike must recognize that volunteers represent the school and act as a vehicle in building relationships with our neighbors. The school must be well-informed about the work being done by its students. Whereas the College's rapport is damaged by the inherently transient nature of the college student volunteer population, it is within the College's interest to take an active role in maintaining relationships based on consistency and dependability.

I acknowledge that students are busy and engagement in community work can be time consuming. Students should have the resources at hand to become engaged with an issue through a serious commitment that can't be done in a couple hours of during the school week. There is a significant gap in opportunities offered by the school in long-term service and activism. Establishing and sustaining an infrastructure that allows all interested students to engage in community work with compensation during the summer or Interterm would put students in touch with a new learning experience and provide the College with tremendous networking capabilities.

Students come to college in order to improve their understanding of their lives and the world. A great deal can be learned from community involvement that could never be read in a book or heard in lecture. It is the day-to-day actions that validate and give purpose to the materials we study in class. Theory only becomes reality through practice and confrontation with real world challenges. However, there are only two community-based learning courses at Amherst.

The integration of experiential education helps students in English 6 (Reading/Writing/Teaching) and Women's and Gender Studies 53 (Domestic Violence) derive additional meaning out of their readings and community work. Amherst should offer more classes like these, but in their absence, the faculty, staff and students invested in community work ought to facilitate a dialogue connecting their community activities with larger social, political and academic ideas.