While some colleges have forcefully increased student volunteering through graduation prerequisites and mandates, Brandeis has never had such dramatic requirements-it has not had to. Broad support for volunteering already exists on campus, said Diane Hannan, Brandeis' community service director. Yet a divide between volunteer and activist has continued to grow in recent years, and, though both categories are individually strong, a clear bridge between the two is needed or else all of their passionate and well-intended efforts will be for naught.The great success of the civil rights movement in the 1960s was a powerful combination of political involvement and a push for social justice on an individual humanitarian basis. Groups like the Student National Coordinating Committee were particularly adept at expressing their goals in personal and individualistic terms. Even though they personified a broad goal with a political end, they encompassed the individual voices of thousands. Volunteering was an essential component of this mix, as they sought to address hands-on some of the problems they saw.

Yet so many today perceive these two complementary fields as supplementary options to each other. Condemning volunteers as mere Band-Aids, "pure" activists rush into the political fray and wonder why they don't find the broad support and success that the groups they wish to emulate received. Stating that lofty political goals are impossible to achieve, volunteers abandon broad activism and instead attempt to help as many individuals as possible. Hannan said this situation has actually increased over the 15 years she has spent at Brandeis. More people are seeing themselves as either volunteers or activists rather than both, and this distinction is clearly ingrained in their minds as they begin to get involved. We then wonder why so many people find our generation so lethargic. Clearly, that's not the case; our efforts simply are not accumulating.

At Brandeis in particular, we have many activist groups that stage protests; however, cynical letters to the editors and op-ed pieces in the Justice and the Hoot have recently accused groups such as Positive Foundations and STAND of wasting time and effort on large, unreachable, yet certainly laudable, goals. These writers view the problems in Darfur and the rest of Africa as distant, impersonal and unreachable. Cheryl Robison '07, a coordinator of Habitat for Humanity for the Waltham Group, said that volunteer work "can be a primary tool for education and a connection between ideals and day-to-day life." In effect, volunteering, getting out of one's comfort zone and directly interacting with the people one wishes to help can be an eye-opening experience. Obviously, this is difficult to do when aiding African children; still, activists should never lose sight of the human face that they are advocating and agitating for. Volunteering thus provides the essential soul to the intellectual components of a movement.

Hillel's Tzedek/Social Justice Coordinator Bryan Wexler '09 said that people volunteer not only for the satisfaction that they receive from helping someone else, but also for the personal gains and rewards. When students realize that volunteering also helps build up the social, emotional and perceptual self that is so vital in life, this should be obvious. Yet these are the exact skills that should be prominent in a great activist: One must be able to excite and galvanize both individuals and masses and interact fluently with both. It is equally plain, however, that no one would volunteer were it not for the feeling that some sustentative goal could be reached. Logically, there is no point spending resources helping individuals if broader social problems cannot eventually be repaired. In this sense, the volunteer's energy and devotion is worn down without the systematic changes that social agitation can bring.

Simply put, we cannot see these two facets as divided and in competition. All activists should have the soul of the volunteer inside of them, and all volunteers should keep one eye raised toward the changes that are needed to bring help to not just individuals, but the broader community as well. But there's definitely hope. Laura Bonaccorsi '07, a coordinator of general tutoring for the Waltham Group, observed no clear distinction between activists and volunteers; she identified herself as both. If more individuals in both the realms of volunteering and activism are won over to this perspective, then perhaps we will see a return of the concerted efforts of the 60s. In the end, we have both the soul of the revolutionary and the heart of the altruist coursing through our bodies. It's just a matter of finding the proper balance between these two equally important elements.