Student Opportunities

At Drake, we believe ALL students can be changemakers. There are numerous ways to get involved in the local community and help make your mark on a better world. 

The Office of Community Engaged Learning helps connect students to the community through one-time, short-term, or ongoing opportunities based on interests, skills, professional goals and more. 

The following resources are available to students interested in community engagement:

• Community Engaged Learning Courses - Take a class that integrates academics into the community through service learning, internships, research projects, and more. Search for the "Community Engaged Learning" attribute when searching for classes at course registration time. 
• Impact Explorers is a chance for first-year students (or others!) at Drake to learn about campus resources related to community engagement and social change, and find out about ways to get involved in the local community, while meeting other students with shared interests. 
• Student Service Organizations - Drake is home to several service-focused student organizations, like Habitat for Humanity, APO, Next Course Food Recovery, and Best Buddies. Visit the Fall and Spring involvement fairs to learn more! 
• Volunteer Opportunities – Drake partners with more than 100 local organizations. As a Drake student, you'll use DUgood to search for and sign up for volunteer opportunities! 
• Pathways for Civic & Social Change - There are many ways to create change, it doesn't just look one way. Through the Pathways framework and survey, you can learn about your preferred ways to make change and meet with a peer to get connected to opportunities you care about. 
• Employment opportunities in the Office of Community Engaged Learning exist through the year. Community Engagement Peers are students committed to working with service-learning and community engagement. There are also Federal Work-Study jobs available in the community - search Handshake for these positions. 
• Training and Conferences - A number of local, regional, national, and international conference opportunities exist around the topics of community engagement. The Office of Community Engaged Learning has scholarships available for students to be able to attend. 
• Fellowships- Fellowship opportunities such as the Newman Civic Fellowship are available to students participating in social change and community engagement.
• Establishing a Partnership - Have a project idea, but need help finding an agency to work with? We can help identify sites, establish contact with community partners and provide descriptive information about the sites.
• Programs - There are a number of programs to get involved with such as the SPROUT Community Garden, Next Course Food Recovery, and Changemaker Scholars.
• Civic Action Week - Held each Spring, Civic Action Week is a campus-wide week-long event for students, faculty, staff and the broader community to educate, engage and encourage collective responses to persistent societal challenges. You can also participate in a National Day of Service like MLK Day of Service. 
• Funding opportunities are available to students designing and participating in service-learning projects.
• Post-Graduate Opportunities – CEL staff are knowledgeable about and can provide information on programs like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps.
• Civic & Voter Engagement - Civic engagement is huge at Drake! You'll find resources about registering to vote, researching candidates, how to get involved in politics and more. 

Building Skills through Community Engagement

Community engagement & service-learning projects offer students the opportunity to build True Blue Skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving skills, collaboration,  communication, and global understanding. In other words volunteering can help you build skills for career and community success and prepare you to be a Civic Minded Professional. 

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