What We Do

Student Leaders for Service (SLS) is designed to intentionally build students' leadership capacity and civic engagement skills by serving and learning with not-for-profit and community organizations in the Portland metropolitan region. SLS members serve as a key like between the university and the community, making manifest PSU's mission: Let Knowledge Serve the City. This is done in a variety of ways:

• SLS members act as volunteer coordinators for nonprofit and community organizations in the tri-county area by recruiting PSU students, faculty and staff to engage in volunteer service.
• Members serve five to ten hours per week at a community-based organization for an entire academic year, acting as quasi-staff members at the organization.
• Members work with university faculty to help students in community-based learning courses reflect on service-curricular connections and on their roles as democratically involved citizens.
• Members assist faculty, staff and students in finding service opportunities, planning service events, and other aspects of integrating community-based learning into course curricula.
• Members plan and lead special service day activities on no fewer than three nationally recognized days of service, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service and Earth Day.
• Members network with area colleges and universities to plan joint service community initiatives, workshops and trainings for students and community-based partners.
• Members collaborate with the university administration as advisors to the Community-University Partnerships office which supports service and other campus-wide, community-based learning and civic engagement initiatives.
• Members promote the importance of diversity, civic engagement and community-based learning in creating a well-rounded, informed and empathetic body of student citizens.