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 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 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 W&L 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
W&L’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
W&L’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 W&L 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 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 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.
W&L Hosts 20th Annual Tom Wolfe Weekend
The weekend’s seminar will feature Jayne Anne Phillips discussing her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Night Watch.”
Positivity Meets Personal Connections
Mariam Drammeh ’25 has approached research, internships and campus involvement with an eye toward a future rooted in service to others.
Connell Cunningham Jr. Named Scholar in Residence for the Office of Community-Based Learning
The visiting assistant professor of chemistry will serve a one-year term for the 2024-25 academic year.
Three W&L students partnered with an NGO in Ghana this summer to create a training program for aspiring female entrepreneurs.
Adhip Adhikari ’27 spent much of his summer creating a library at a secondary school near his family’s home in Katmandu, Nepal.
The Lenfest Center Presents ‘Native American Peoples and Lands: Historic Connections to W&L’
The public talk will take place in Kamen Gallery on Sept. 27 and is part of the Lenfest Center’s Outreach & Engagement Series.
W&L students share their experiences getting to know the larger Lexington and Rockbridge community during the summer months.
Washington and Lee Students Selected for Congressional Hunger Center Internships
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 W&L to challenge himself in and out of the classroom.
CBL Faculty Collaborative Generates New Community Connections
The 2023-2024 academic year at W&L 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.
Washington and Lee University Receives National Designation for Commitment to Community Engagement
W&L is one of 15 private colleges and universities to receive the 2024 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification.