“Daring to Volunteer”: some reflections on geographers, geography students and evolving institutional support for community engagement in higher education

Abstract

Volunteering with our local community organizations (many of them charitable) is clearly set to become more of a feature of our lives as staff and students working in higher education. This activity is seen as potentially valuable in enhancing the student experience, particularly through a strengthening of students' employability prospects. This paper, written from the perspective of a geographer who is a volunteering champion within his higher education institution, explores some political and institutional settings and backdrops within which volunteering is being encouraged. It discusses the strong record that academic geographers have in reflecting on the development of community volunteering.

Keywords:

• volunteering
• community engagement
• geography

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Raymond Raine, Community Engagement Learning and Teaching Project Manager until his recent retirement, and Jo Earl from the UWE Volunteering for helping to fashion and assess the materials delivered in the module. Their valuable advice, experience and support enabled us to work effectively with students to develop both their emotional intelligence and their employability prospects as they worked (albeit briefly) with their chosen organizations.