Engagement and Service
W&L students 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 ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ combats hunger and promotes nutrition by providing balanced meals for low-income members of the community in Rockbridge County. The program educates ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ students 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 students can get involved in Campus Kitchen through the #HungerFighters program.
The Bonner Program
The Bonner Program is a unique leadership development program for students with an interest in service and civic engagement. The program is based on the belief that students have the desire and ability to leave lasting and unique contributions through their community service. The Bonner Program provides students with the framework to continue involvement in community service, while providing financial support to help make their education more affordable. Bonners commit to 1800 hours of service and leadership training over the course of their four years in college.
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 ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ students 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
ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡'s 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
ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡'s 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 ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ students, 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 students. The program introduces students to the poverty themes in cities surrounding ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡: 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 students 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
ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ students share their experiences getting to know the larger Lexington and Rockbridge community during the summer months.
Sai Chebrolu ’26 and Valentina Giraldo Lozano ’25 are among 13 students chosen for the Zero Hunger Internship program.
Ben Bankston ’25 is finding opportunities at ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ to challenge himself in and out of the classroom.
The 2023-2024 academic year at ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ saw the proliferation of several new course offerings for students through a new faculty development initiative offered by the Office of Community-Based Learning (CBL).
Washington and Lee students are applying their accounting skills in the community as part of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program.
ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ is one of 15 private colleges and universities to receive the 2024 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification.
The professor of cultural anthropology will serve a dual role leading Community-Based Learning and the SHECP Consortium.
Students in the Williams School consulted on a number of projects including marketing, research and social media strategy for businesses and organizations.
Elrod serves as the university advisor to the program that supports clients in navigating the required steps toward obtaining or reinstating a driver’s license.
Washington and Lee students gain new perspectives after internships through the Shepherd Program.
ÁùºÏÌü¿ª½±ÏÖ³¡ neuroscience students recently partnered with an innovative art-making program offered at Kendal at Lexington.
CBL’s new initiative is an opportunity for faculty development, student collaboration and deepening partnerships with the surrounding community.