Student Leadership Resources

The following are helpful resources for students. Some are additional pages, and some link to other sections of the Bonner website.

Understanding The Congress Representative Role

For a printable summary of the role of the Bonner Congress Representative, use this resource: Your Roles as a Bonner Congress Representative

All First Year Congress Representatives are required to write a letter to the Bonner Congress Coordinator following the November Bonner Congress Meeting. These letters are due by December 15. This page provides guidelines for these letters: Letter to the Bonner Congress Coordinator

Working with the Community

Bonners are already active at many community agencies. If you are looking for a way to expand your program’s role within the community or to ensure that your program is connected to all aspects of the community, some ideas can be found in the Community Agencies listing.

If you need some guidance about how best to approach your inventory and analysis of community assets and needs, you may want to consult: The ABCS of Where to Look in the Community

Working on Campus

If you need tips about approaches for marketing and publicity, especially for getting the work of the Bonner Program more recognized on campus or getting more students involved in service, try this resource: Publicity

If you need ideas about how best to work well with your staff supervisor, check out this list: Fostering a Good Relationship with Your Director/Coordinator

If you are working to build a coalition on-campus (or off it), you may want to consult the Coalition Building workshop and this resource: Coalition Building

If you are working to establish better relationships with other groups on campus, especially student organizations, try this list: Campus Organizations

If you are working to engage faculty and administrators in supporting the work you do or getting connected, try this resource: Faculty and Administration

Making Your Bonner Program Better

Congress Reps often play leadership roles in supporting the quality and effectiveness of the Bonner Program, especially its training and enrichment activities. If you need to know more about the overall goals for student leadership and learning, check out the Bonner Skills Sets.

Reps also help their peers best negotiate steps like finding summer placements. Try the Bonner Partners database for ideas of organizations. If you or other students are interested in working at the Bonner Foundation, check out the Summer Internship Guidelines and Summer Internship FAQ's

Student Voice & Leadership Best Practices

One of the hallmarks of a strong Bonner Program is strong student leadership throughout the program and also on campus, extending the reach of community service to engage diverse students and expanding partnerships with local community agencies. We seek to encourage and uphold student voice and leadership at all levels of the program.

Bonner Congress Representatives, as student leaders and liaisons throughout the Bonner network, often take leadership roles on campus in a wide variety of ways. They, like Senior Interns, Class Chairs, and members of the campus Student Leadership teams and committees, help bring to life an array of projects and processes for effective campus-community service.

In the summer of 2005, four undergraduate interns with the Bonner Foundation helped to spearhead a process of assessing student voice and leadership within Bonner Programs. Congress Representatives completed an in-depth survey regarding these practices. The survey gave us some interesting glimpses into the status of student leadership on campus.

Also, the interns combed surveys to identify unique best practices from campuses. Congress Representatives were invited to write about these practices in order to share them with the network. So far, the following best practices are featured. Each of these projects involves student leaders in organizing and implementing the project, often leading others in the process.

• Potato Drop (submitted by Chris Fountain from Berry College)
• Community Service Day (submitted by Lauren Parham from Carson-Newman College)
• Campus-Wide Day of Service (submitted by Anthony Miller from Oberlin College)
• Knox County Repair Affair (submitted by Chrystal Pridemore from Union College)

• Crop Walk (submitted by Kwesi Fynn from Davidson College)
• Open House Information Booth (submitted by Chris Gravely from Lees McRae College)
• Participation in Books for Africa (submitted by Kate Bauer from Lynchburg College)
• Campus-wide Organizational Partnerships/Coalitions (submitted by Jessica Holley from West Virginia Wesleyan College)

• Nutritional Packets for Fresh is Best (submitted by Diana Lapp from Middlesex County College)
• Semester of Service (submitted by Ernesto Romo from University of Dayton)
• First-Year Trip to Big Creek People in Action in McDowell County, West Virginia (submitted by Jason Bentley from West Virginia Wesleyan College)

• Bonner Scholar Social (submitted by Lauren Heysek from Concord University)
• Bonner Awards (submitted by Maitreyi Doshi from Concord University)
• Planning of Upcoming Events using Community Night Meeting (submitted by Jenise Phelps from Saint Mary’s College)
• Student Organized Group Reflection Options (submitted by Patrick Brennan from Wofford College)
• Student Leadership Team (submitted by Phillip Hutchinson from Wofford College)