Guidelines About Student Volunteers

The guidelines for soliciting student volunteers are as follows:

• Volunteers cannot replace paid work: Voluntary service must be intended to contribute to the educational, social or moral development of the student and must not be intended solely to fill deficiencies in a unit’s staffing.
• Volunteers cannot perform necessary, routine, or core unit tasks: Students cannot be compelled to work voluntarily, so reliance on volunteerism to complete necessary tasks is not advised. Projects solely of a routine or clerical nature should be performed by paid student workers to ensure their effective completion.
• Voluntary service counts as experience for student worker consideration: Certain projects require both paid student workers and volunteers (e.g. Model United Nations) in which paid student workers have helped staff coordinate the service of volunteer workers. In such instances, paid student workers may be selected, in part, on the basis of past voluntary service to the project.
• Service should not conflict with classes: Students must not be excused from class to engage in GU-Q sanctioned voluntary activities without the approval of the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs.
• Individual departments recruit volunteers: Student Employment is not involved in the recruiting of student volunteers and leaves it to hiring departments to ensure that appropriate approvals, standards and practices are met.