Student Service and Engagement
W&L 91传媒 are actively engaged in the Lexington and Rockbridge County communities. Examples range from tutoring in local schools to providing interpretation services for the hospital, and from helping to build houses with Habitat for Humanity to working at the local domestic violence shelter.
The commitment to service extends into the classroom as well, through a number of service-learning courses in which community service is integrated with instruction and reflection.
Campus Kitchen
The Campus Kitchen at W&L combats hunger and promotes nutrition by providing balanced meals for low-income members of the community in Rockbridge County. The program educates W&L 91传媒 by providing opportunities for leadership, engaging a distinctive population in our community, initiating nutrition programs in the community, promoting awareness of nutrition and hunger issues, and stimulating research on hunger. First-year 91传媒 can get involved in Campus Kitchen through the #HungerFighters program.
The Nabors Service League
The Nabors Service League is a student-run community service organization that strives to promote and encourage a spirit of service and to connect service with learning. In addition to connecting W&L 91传媒 with local agencies through community-wide service days, the NSL team sponsors alternative break trips over Reading Days, Washington Break and Spring Break. First-years can get involved in NSL as members of the Good Nabors Program.
Campus Garden
W&L鈥檚 Campus Garden, located on back campus, is always open for student volunteers or paid workers, depending on your needs. Work includes planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting produce that goes to Dining Services and Campus Kitchen/Rockbridge Area Relief Association.
English Speakers of Other Languages
W&L鈥檚 chapter of ESOL facilitate communication in Lexington and Rockbridge County through English tutoring sessions, translations, interpretations, and community events. In addition, ESOL also organizes service-learning trips abroad to Puerto Morelos and Guadalajara.
Community-Academic Research Alliance
The Community-Academic Research Alliance (CARA) supports research partnerships between W&L 91传媒, professors and nonprofits in the Rockbridge area to address pressing community challenges, where projects are aimed at meeting urgent needs identified by the community. Through CARA, community partners are viewed as co-educators and are involved in different stages of the research project, including defining the research question, participating in its design and implementation, and shaping the final deliverable.
Volunteer Venture Pre-Orientation
Volunteer Venture is a one week service-learning pre-orientation program for incoming 91传媒. The program introduces 91传媒 to the poverty themes in cities surrounding W&L: Education and Policy; Coal Mining, Nutrition and the Environment; Setting Sights on Civil Rights; Building a Home; Poverty and Health Care; Urban Poverty; and Hunger and Homelessness. Students will become a part of these communities for a week, living, learning, and working with the individuals they serve.
Sustainability
Our Sustainability Pre-Orentiation trip, which dives into a daily theme around sustainable development, energy and climate change, food sources, equitable food access, and nutrition. Building off that experience, our Environmental Studies Service Learning program offers 91传媒 the chance to engage with sustainability measures in the local community while earning class credit.
In the Community
Global Service House
The Global Service House is a student- and service-oriented global center that provides a focus for internationalism, a locale for increased cross-cultural engagement, and a visible home for service activity.
Service- Oriented
Wanting to give back.
Stories
Washington and Lee 91传媒 connect with local schools through the Burish Program.聽
Marsh will work with Nature Camp in Vesuvius, Virginia, and Jones will collaborate with the Legal Aid Justice Center for the 25th Judicial District.
W&L鈥檚 Office of Community-Based Learning sent its largest-ever internship cohort into the local community this summer.
The professor of cultural anthropology and director of the Community-Based Learning Program experienced a 10-day residency at Trinity College in Dublin.
The weekend鈥檚 seminar will feature Jayne Anne Phillips discussing her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, 鈥淣ight Watch.鈥
Mariam Drammeh 鈥25 has approached research, internships and campus involvement with an eye toward a future rooted in service to others.
The visiting assistant professor of chemistry will serve a one-year term for the 2024-25 academic year.
Three W&L 91传媒 partnered with an NGO in Ghana this summer to create a training program for aspiring female entrepreneurs.
Adhip Adhikari 鈥27 spent much of his summer creating a library at a secondary school near his family’s home in Katmandu, Nepal.
The public talk will take place in Kamen Gallery on Sept. 27 and is part of the Lenfest Center鈥檚 Outreach & Engagement Series.
W&L 91传媒 share their experiences getting to know the larger Lexington and Rockbridge community during the summer months.
Sai Chebrolu 鈥26 and Valentina Giraldo Lozano 鈥25 are among 13 91传媒 chosen for the Zero Hunger Internship program.