Arizona State University is the first university in the nation to join Employers of National Service, a program launched by President Barack Obama to assist AmeriCorps and Peace Corps alumni with job opportunities.
Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National Community Service, made the announcement on Monday in a press conference presented by ASU’s newly renamed College of Public Service and Community Solutions.
There are approximately one million employment opportunities available to AmeriCorps and Peace Corps alumni through this program made up of around 200 organizations, Spencer said.
Alumni of AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps spend a year or two doing service and are often met by the struggle of unemployment when they attempt to return to the workforce, according to Spencer.
“We’re asking employers to, on their job announcements, put ‘Peace Corps, AmeriCorps alums encouraged to apply,’” Spencer said. “Maybe go so far as to put a box on the application that says ‘have you served in the Peace Corp or AmeriCorps? Please describe your experience.’”
Many of the employers that she has had the opportunity to speak with have said they joined the program because they were looking for individuals who would put task before self and have risen to the top through a competitive process, she said.
“It was really good to heard from those CEOs that they were in it for the right reason,” Spencer said.
Spencer was elected to her position of CEO by Congress in 2012. In 2013, Obama named Spencer co-chair of the President’s Task Force, a team established to form partnerships that would create opportunities for the public to participate in service.
“One thing that makes it possible for us to do what we do is that we exist in an extremely rich ecosystem of organizations devoted to public service,” said Jonathan Koppell, dean of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions. “I just perused the list of Employers of National Service, and Arizona is extremely well represented.”
Among the Arizona organizations represented are the Alliance for Arizona Nonprofits, United Way of Northern Arizona, Western Arizona Council of Governments, and the cities of Phoenix, Tempe and Avondale.
During the press conference Spencer commended the efforts of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions, which recently adopted the community solutions portion of its name at the beginning of the calendar year.
Koppell said he enjoys being the dean the college because he gets to interact with thousands of students motivated by public service who are trying figure out how they are going to make a difference in the world. He said there are a lot of misconceptions about youth not caring about service that need to be put to rest.
“The relationships I made as a result of [AmeriCorps] have directly impacted the job opportunities I have had since graduation,” said Analisa LaCour, a masters student at ASU and two time alumni of the AmeriCorps program who wants to open an ASU Preparatory Academy on a Native American reservation.
She served as a graduation coach for high school students in the Gila River Indian Community because of connections made through the program.
In 2013, the Corporation for National Community Service, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a 10-year study that sought to answer the question: Does volunteer work improve the chances of getting a job? The results indicated that there is, in fact, a higher chance that you will receive a job if you volunteer.
“If you volunteer and you’re unemployed and searching for work, you increase the likelihood of getting a job by 27%,” Spencer said. “You’re introducing yourself to the community as an asset and those connections turn into, often times, jobs.”
Contact the reporter at madison.alder@asu.edu.
