We then move to higher education, which again has both private and government-run sectors. I, again, have a knowledge base almost completely in the public sector.

Should community service be a part of college learning? More and more schools are saying yes. In fact, many English programs (Eastern Michigan University is one) folds in a community focus as part of their first-year English composition classes. The Honors Program and Phi Theta Kappa, again, both require community service. Many schools also have a commmunity service sector of their co-curricular programs. Students are invited to participate in Habitat for Humanity, along with other community projects.

This stems from a more social-based point of view in the academic sector. When I was in my Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona, one of the required readings was Freire's The Pedogogy of the Oppressed. The book focuses on the relationship between community/society and education. That program, while within the English Department, was heavily saturated in socialist and Marxist literature and perspectives. As such, community service was seen as necessary within post-secondary education.