Citizenship

According to the dictionary, citizenship is the the character of an individual viewed as a member of society; behavior in terms of the duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen.  Most people assume that in this definition, society means only the broader society as whole (i.e. city, state, or country); however, a society can be represented by any community of people (however large or small).  This leads to an importantly different connotation of citizenship that implies that it is active engagement of an individual to serve the community.  

Before reading this chapter, I thought that citizenship was achieved solely by physically helping other people.  I had no idea that civic engagement (a synonym for citizenship) could be achieved through a myriad of ways including community research, advocacy and education, and capacity building.  It is important to recognize these "indirect" means of being a good citizen because they involve empowering other members of the community to stand up and make a difference.  

Citizenship and civic engagement is unique within Evans Scholars because we are a hybrid of the bonding and bridging dimensions of social capital.  In one aspect, our organization bridges because our members are not chosen by the chapter and are diverse with respect to majors, interests, backgrounds, gender, and ethnicity.  On the other hand, we bond over the fact that we are all caddies from modest backgrounds.  My job as chapter president entails constantly urging members to evaluate the different communities that they're involved in and and to find ways to get involved.  I use this as a mechanism to get members excited to help support our chapter community.  For example, we held our annual Stephanie Hummer Memorial Golf Tournament last weekend and raised over $5500 for off-campus safety projects.  I was very proud of the way our chapter came together to hold this extremely successful and fun event.