1. The Bonner Program:
Cornerstone Activities
“Access to Education,
Opportunity to Serve”
A program of:
The Corella & Bertram Bonner Foundation
10 Mercer Street, Princeton, NJ 08540
(609) 924-6663 • (609) 683-4626 fax
For more information, please visit our website at www.bonner.org
4. Cornerstone Activities:
Recruitment & Selection
• Fully engage the admissions and financial aid office
• Develop materials that include accurate and
inspiring information about Bonner
• Create a selection process that involves students
and community leaders
• Consider inviting and interviewing applicants on
campus
• Design process so Bonner serves as a yield tool
• “You can do your work now or do your work later.”
www.bonner.org
5. Cornerstone Activities:
Orientation
• Orientation occurs before the beginning of school and
other first year activities
• Full agenda (a minimum of two full days) to offer
opportunities for fellowship, team building, training and
inspiration
• Consider having at least part of it off campus
• By end of orientation students should know what they
are getting into and have their fall placement established.
• Engage upper class students and community leaders in
orientation
• “Just remember where you start has a lot to do with where
you end up.”
www.bonner.org
6. Cornerstone Activities:
First Year Service Trip
• Plan for after school year finishes
• Book end the first year orientation
• Time to rebuild community
• Encounter a community of difference
• Chance away from campus to reflect on the past
year.
• Time to plan for the upcoming year both individuals
and as a class.
• “Few want to do this event, but everyone is glad they
did it”
www.bonner.org
7. Cornerstone Activities:
Second-Year Exchange
• Awareness of the larger Bonner network
• Engaging in a different culture (don’t just go next
door or to a school just like your own)
• Exchange of program ideas and sharing of best
practice
• Opportunity for personal and group growth
• Role as a member of a larger student movement
• “What you put into this is what you will get out of it.”
www.bonner.org
8. Cornerstone Activities::
Summer of Service
Connect passion and interests
•
A summer placement should connect with what a student has been
•
doing and what they hope to do when they return
Full time service Emersion service experience for an extended time
•
Develop skills and contacts that will be helpful when they return to
•
school
Explore career opportunities and future decision-making
•
Build strong resume
•
Do something and go somewhere they otherwise might not have
•
done
Don’t over-rely on summer camp placements
•
“Summer Placements can be the most profound experience of a college
•
career.”
www.bonner.org
9. Cornerstone Activities:
Recommitment Exercise
• Establish as an expectation of this event from the
beginning
• Be clear that renewal is not automatic, it is earned
• Students reflect on the first half of their experience
• Plot a course for the sound half of their experience
• Create an honorable way out for students to leave
— whose interests have changed, who never quite
knew what they were getting into, or who never
quite stepped up to the challenge
• “Being in the Bonner Program is a privilege, not a right.”
www.bonner.org
10. Cornerstone Activities:
Third Year Leadership
• Undertake an identifiable leadership role on campus
connecting the community
• Take responsibility for involving other students
• Collaborate with other student leaders
• Work with other student leaders to plan campus
wide service program. Participate in planning and
leading Bonner Program activities
• Connect relationships outside of Bonner program
(fraternity, team, etc) with service activities
• “Serving in a leadership role is both an expectation and
a requirement.”
www.bonner.org
11. Cornerstone Activities:
Senior Presentation of Leadership
• Culmination of service worth thought-out college
• Articulate personal growth and community impact
• Connect a significant level of engagement to the issue /
agency works with (writing a grant, oral history, annual
report, community based research project)
• Present findings to the Bonner community
• Documentation should be such that it can be left
behind for others to use and learn from
• “The SPS is not just an after dinner speech or a scrap book.
It is a tool for reflection, development and capturing a
journey of served e that is ongoing.”
www.bonner.org
12. Cornerstone Activities:
Resources & Best Practices
Bonner Partners
•
Implementation Guides:
•
- Co-Curricular — Orientation,Trip, Exchange
- Community Partnerships — Third Year Leadership
- Vocation — Recommitment, Senior Presentation
In Good Form sample forms
•
Recipes for Change: Building a Strong Bonner Program
•
Funding:
•
• Bonner Summer Service funding (where available)
• Bonner Junior/Senior Leadership Fund (where available)
Summer Leadership Institute — All Bonner Service Option
•
www.bonner.org
13. Cornerstone Activities:
Relevant Self-Assessment Items
First-Year Service Trip:
Successfully takes first-year (and/or new) Bonners through an immersion
experience in a different context, including preparatory educational, service,
reflection, and group building activities
Second-Year Exchange:
Effectively provides an opportunity for students to come together with students
from another campus for an experience involving reflection, action, and/or
education that also provide a larger context for students’ understanding
Third-Year/Upper-Level Leadership:
Opportunities and structures for third-year or upper-level leadership in the
Bonner Program; students’ effectively demonstrate civic leadership
(committees, Congress, class projects, project coordinator roles, mentorship,
and reflection)
Senior Capstone Experience:
Students have a capstone-level experience in the fourth year; students create a
final presentation of learning.
www.bonner.org
14. Cornerstone Activities:
Best Practices & Examples
• Jim Ellison, Laughlin Chapel
• Kevin Buechler, Davidson College
• Laura Megivern, Johnson State University
• Rina Tovar, Stetson University
www.bonner.org
15. Student Development:
First Year Trip
• Tips: • Use resources:
• The Basics:
• Involve students • Bonner
• Full immersion—service,
in pre-trip Partners (found
culture, learning—for the
learning and online) can be
class of students in a new
planning actively involved
place and context
• Teamwork, • Co-Curricular
• Build around deeper
community Implementation
themes (e.g., poverty,
building, and guide—section
global) that also connect
resolving on Trip
to home context
conflicts are a
• In Good Form
• Have the key elements part of an
samples
planned in advance— effective trip
housing, service project,
• Recipe for
• Connect service
transportation, Change
with policy or
reflection, intentional
broader analysis
learning
www.bonner.org
16. Student Development:
Second Year Exchange
• Tips: • Use resources:
• The Basics:
• Involve • Second Year
• Team up with one or
Congress or Exchange
more campuses and
student leaders Guide, under
design full immersion—
in planning Useful
service, learning, analysis
Documents
—building on First Year • Can be a (online)
Trip sophomore
class project • In Good Form
• Spark students’
samples
knowledge and interest in • Design activities
the student service that emphasize • All Bonner
movement cross-campus Service Event
and big vision option (at SLI)
• Learn unique and best
learning
elements about each
other’s campus and
Bonner Program
www.bonner.org
17. Student Development:
Third-Year Leadership
• Use resources:
• The Basics: • Tips:
• Utilize available
• Third-year students need • Third-years can
funding, like Jr/
structured options for play many roles
Sr Leadership
leadership—project in mentoring and
Fund or
coordinator roles, leading peers
innovation
Congress, Student
• Take advantage grants
Leadership Team
of national
• Project
• Juniors can design and networking
Coordinator
implement a campus- opportunities
guide
wide project (through (conferences,
class meetings) Congress)
• Congress
webpages,
• Third-year should
Facebook,
communicate higher
Student Best
expectations for
Practices
students’ skills and
leadership
www.bonner.org
18. Student Development:
Senior Presentation of Learning
• Tips: • Use resources:
• The Basics:
• Build planning • Guidelines and
• Seniors create innovative
into Senior modules in
presentations that
Class Meetings Vocation
represent their
or even a Implementation
internalization of the
Retreat Guide
Bonner experience
• Build delivery • In Good Form
• Structured guidelines
into Awards examples
encourage students to
Ceremony and
articulate their service
• Student Essays
campus-wide
and developmental and other
programming
journey reflections
• Integrate family
• Presentations generate
and partners
inspiration and energy for
other Bonners,
community, and campus
www.bonner.org
19. Student Development:
Summer Service
• Tips: • Use resources:
• The Basics:
• Utilize the • In Good Form—
• Students identify a full-
Bonner examples of
time internship that
Partners to Summer Service
builds into their overall
identify good placement
Bonner experience
options documents
• Placement process meets
• Integrate into • Recipes for
the same standards as
advising and Change
rest of partnerships—
other meetings examples
strategic, developmental,
strong CLAs, use BWBRS
• Move beyond • Bonner Partner
low-level database
• Staff and student work
placements
together to solidify
• Bonner funds
summer placement where available
www.bonner.org