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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Staff Editorial: Answering Michelle’s call

Perhaps the only thing more impressive than getting more than 1,000 freshmen to participate in Friday’s day of service was the announcement that Michelle Obama will likely be this year’s commencement speaker. GW students will be required to log 100,000 hours of community service this school year to solidify the agreement – and we expect that goal will be accomplished.

The first lady is a great choice for commencement speaker. She brings an outside perspective, is dynamic and obviously has the life experience needed for such an event. She said she is confident that we will meet the goal, and we share her optimism – but we worry that the terms of this challenge guarantee it will be anything but challenging.

The Office of Community Service has said it might broaden its method of counting service hours in response to the announcement. But loosening the definition of community service hours would be a poor choice for OCS.

Counting the hours that some work study students get paid for – one potential option – is not the image of community service that the first lady is expecting. Including these hours would be disingenuous to the spirit of this agreement.

Rather than redefine volunteering as something that you can get paid for, OCS and the GW community should focus on actually living up to the goal of 100,000 community service hours. There are two important steps for making this a reality.

The first task OCS must accomplish is to raise the profile of this challenge. Admittedly, this challenge got plenty of attention on Friday – but OCS should be as creative as possible in maintaining the buzz surrounding the goal. OCS should bombard students with opportunities and reminders to contribute to the tally of service hours. Sponsoring random days of service, holding events where students can log a quick hour in a busy day and posting visual reminders of our progress around campus are all ways OCS can be effective.

For the second requirement, we suggest the first community service project should not be painting a house, but rather refurbishing the OCS Web site. This site is embarrassingly outdated and lacks basic functionality. The homepage should include information about the challenge, an easily accessible and much-improved form for logging community service, and suggestions for service projects. In addition, the new Web site should be linked and featured on GW’s homepage.

The Hatchet’s editorial board shares in the excitement of this announcement. To this end, we pledge our support to raising the profile of this objective. Every month we will print a “Michelle Obameter,” which will be a visual display of GW’s progress. We are confident that GW can meet this goal without lowering service standards, and we look forward to hearing Michelle Obama’s speech at commencement this year.

Readers can visit the Forum to comment on this editorial.

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