"It would be very easy for us to sit in this pastoral setting at UMBC—it is lovely, it is comfortable, it is safe—and yet we, as Americans, realize that the world is much bigger than this campus, and the world in which our students will live will have many challenges—and everyone won’t be middle class. There will be many problems, and as leaders, our students will need to solve them.

If our students are going to be able to work in their professions and be active in their communities, they need to learn now how to become involved, how to serve others.

What is most significant about service is that when we reach out to others, we learn more about ourselves. Our students regularly reflect on their experiences and find, for example, that the children they work with are like themselves. That interaction, between college students and children, leads to both being better than they were before."