How to Write the Community Essay – Guide with Examples (2023-24)

September 6, 2023

community essay examples

Students applying to college this year will inevitably confront the community essay. In fact, most students will end up responding to several community essay prompts for different schools. For this reason, you should know more than simply how to approach the community essay as a genre. Rather, you will want to learn how to decipher the nuances of each particular prompt, in order to adapt your response appropriately. In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that, through several community essay examples. These examples will also demonstrate how to avoid cliché and make the community essay authentically and convincingly your own.

Emphasis on Community

Do keep in mind that inherent in the word “community” is the idea of multiple people. The personal statement already provides you with a chance to tell the college admissions committee about yourself as an individual. The community essay, however, suggests that you depict yourself among others. You can use this opportunity to your advantage by showing off interpersonal skills, for example. Or, perhaps you wish to relate a moment that forged important relationships. This in turn will indicate what kind of connections you’ll make in the classroom with college peers and professors.

Apart from comprising numerous people, a community can appear in many shapes and sizes. It could be as small as a volleyball team, or as large as a diaspora. It could fill a town soup kitchen, or spread across five boroughs. In fact, due to the internet, certain communities today don’t even require a physical place to congregate. Communities can form around a shared identity, shared place, shared hobby, shared ideology, or shared call to action. They can even arise due to a shared yet unforeseen circumstance.

What is the Community Essay All About?             

In a nutshell, the community essay should exhibit three things:

  • An aspect of yourself, 2. in the context of a community you belonged to, and 3. how this experience may shape your contribution to the community you’ll join in college.

It may look like a fairly simple equation: 1 + 2 = 3. However, each college will word their community essay prompt differently, so it’s important to look out for additional variables. One college may use the community essay as a way to glimpse your core values. Another may use the essay to understand how you would add to diversity on campus. Some may let you decide in which direction to take it—and there are many ways to go!

To get a better idea of how the prompts differ, let’s take a look at some real community essay prompts from the current admission cycle.

Sample 2023-2024 Community Essay Prompts

1) brown university.

“Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (200-250 words)”

A close reading of this prompt shows that Brown puts particular emphasis on place. They do this by using the words “home,” “College Hill,” and “where they came from.” Thus, Brown invites writers to think about community through the prism of place. They also emphasize the idea of personal growth or change, through the words “inspired or challenged you.” Therefore, Brown wishes to see how the place you grew up in has affected you. And, they want to know how you in turn will affect their college community.

“NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world-class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience.

We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community. Please respond in 250 words or less.”

Here, NYU places an emphasis on students’ “identity,” “backgrounds,” and “diversity,” rather than any physical place. (For some students, place may be tied up in those ideas.) Furthermore, while NYU doesn’t ask specifically how identity has changed the essay writer, they do ask about your “experience.” Take this to mean that you can still recount a specific moment, or several moments, that work to portray your particular background. You should also try to link your story with NYU’s values of inclusivity and opportunity.

3) University of Washington

“Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW. (300 words max) Tip: Keep in mind that the UW strives to create a community of students richly diverse in cultural backgrounds, experiences, values and viewpoints.”

UW ’s community essay prompt may look the most approachable, for they help define the idea of community. You’ll notice that most of their examples (“families,” “cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood”…) place an emphasis on people. This may clue you in on their desire to see the relationships you’ve made. At the same time, UW uses the words “individual” and “richly diverse.” They, like NYU, wish to see how you fit in and stand out, in order to boost campus diversity.

Writing Your First Community Essay

Begin by picking which community essay you’ll write first. (For practical reasons, you’ll probably want to go with whichever one is due earliest.) Spend time doing a close reading of the prompt, as we’ve done above. Underline key words. Try to interpret exactly what the prompt is asking through these keywords.

Next, brainstorm. I recommend doing this on a blank piece of paper with a pencil. Across the top, make a row of headings. These might be the communities you’re a part of, or the components that make up your identity. Then, jot down descriptive words underneath in each column—whatever comes to you. These words may invoke people and experiences you had with them, feelings, moments of growth, lessons learned, values developed, etc. Now, narrow in on the idea that offers the richest material and that corresponds fully with the prompt.

Lastly, write! You’ll definitely want to describe real moments, in vivid detail. This will keep your essay original, and help you avoid cliché. However, you’ll need to summarize the experience and answer the prompt succinctly, so don’t stray too far into storytelling mode.

How To Adapt Your Community Essay

Once your first essay is complete, you’ll need to adapt it to the other colleges involving community essays on your list. Again, you’ll want to turn to the prompt for a close reading, and recognize what makes this prompt different from the last. For example, let’s say you’ve written your essay for UW about belonging to your swim team, and how the sports dynamics shaped you. Adapting that essay to Brown’s prompt could involve more of a focus on place. You may ask yourself, how was my swim team in Alaska different than the swim teams we competed against in other states?

Once you’ve adapted the content, you’ll also want to adapt the wording to mimic the prompt. For example, let’s say your UW essay states, “Thinking back to my years in the pool…” As you adapt this essay to Brown’s prompt, you may notice that Brown uses the word “reflection.” Therefore, you might change this sentence to “Reflecting back on my years in the pool…” While this change is minute, it cleverly signals to the reader that you’ve paid attention to the prompt, and are giving that school your full attention.

What to Avoid When Writing the Community Essay  

  • Avoid cliché. Some students worry that their idea is cliché, or worse, that their background or identity is cliché. However, what makes an essay cliché is not the content, but the way the content is conveyed. This is where your voice and your descriptions become essential.
  • Avoid giving too many examples. Stick to one community, and one or two anecdotes arising from that community that allow you to answer the prompt fully.
  • Don’t exaggerate or twist facts. Sometimes students feel they must make themselves sound more “diverse” than they feel they are. Luckily, diversity is not a feeling. Likewise, diversity does not simply refer to one’s heritage. If the prompt is asking about your identity or background, you can show the originality of your experiences through your actions and your thinking.

Community Essay Examples and Analysis

Brown university community essay example.

I used to hate the NYC subway. I’ve taken it since I was six, going up and down Manhattan, to and from school. By high school, it was a daily nightmare. Spending so much time underground, underneath fluorescent lighting, squashed inside a rickety, rocking train car among strangers, some of whom wanted to talk about conspiracy theories, others who had bedbugs or B.O., or who manspread across two seats, or bickered—it wore me out. The challenge of going anywhere seemed absurd. I dreaded the claustrophobia and disgruntlement.

Yet the subway also inspired my understanding of community. I will never forget the morning I saw a man, several seats away, slide out of his seat and hit the floor. The thump shocked everyone to attention. What we noticed: he appeared drunk, possibly homeless. I was digesting this when a second man got up and, through a sort of awkward embrace, heaved the first man back into his seat. The rest of us had stuck to subway social codes: don’t step out of line. Yet this second man’s silent actions spoke loudly. They said, “I care.”

That day I realized I belong to a group of strangers. What holds us together is our transience, our vulnerabilities, and a willingness to assist. This community is not perfect but one in motion, a perpetual work-in-progress. Now I make it my aim to hold others up. I plan to contribute to the Brown community by helping fellow students and strangers in moments of precariousness.    

Brown University Community Essay Example Analysis

Here the student finds an original way to write about where they come from. The subway is not their home, yet it remains integral to ideas of belonging. The student shows how a community can be built between strangers, in their responsibility toward each other. The student succeeds at incorporating key words from the prompt (“challenge,” “inspired” “Brown community,” “contribute”) into their community essay.

UW Community Essay Example

I grew up in Hawaii, a world bound by water and rich in diversity. In school we learned that this sacred land was invaded, first by Captain Cook, then by missionaries, whalers, traders, plantation owners, and the U.S. government. My parents became part of this problematic takeover when they moved here in the 90s. The first community we knew was our church congregation. At the beginning of mass, we shook hands with our neighbors. We held hands again when we sang the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t realize our church wasn’t “normal” until our diocese was informed that we had to stop dancing hula and singing Hawaiian hymns. The order came from the Pope himself.

Eventually, I lost faith in God and organized institutions. I thought the banning of hula—an ancient and pure form of expression—seemed medieval, ignorant, and unfair, given that the Hawaiian religion had already been stamped out. I felt a lack of community and a distrust for any place in which I might find one. As a postcolonial inhabitant, I could never belong to the Hawaiian culture, no matter how much I valued it. Then, I was shocked to learn that Queen Ka’ahumanu herself had eliminated the Kapu system, a strict code of conduct in which women were inferior to men. Next went the Hawaiian religion. Queen Ka’ahumanu burned all the temples before turning to Christianity, hoping this religion would offer better opportunities for her people.

Community Essay (Continued)

I’m not sure what to make of this history. Should I view Queen Ka’ahumanu as a feminist hero, or another failure in her islands’ tragedy? Nothing is black and white about her story, but she did what she thought was beneficial to her people, regardless of tradition. From her story, I’ve learned to accept complexity. I can disagree with institutionalized religion while still believing in my neighbors. I am a product of this place and their presence. At UW, I plan to add to campus diversity through my experience, knowing that diversity comes with contradictions and complications, all of which should be approached with an open and informed mind.

UW Community Essay Example Analysis

This student also manages to weave in words from the prompt (“family,” “community,” “world,” “product of it,” “add to the diversity,” etc.). Moreover, the student picks one of the examples of community mentioned in the prompt, (namely, a religious group,) and deepens their answer by addressing the complexity inherent in the community they’ve been involved in. While the student displays an inner turmoil about their identity and participation, they find a way to show how they’d contribute to an open-minded campus through their values and intellectual rigor.

What’s Next

For more on supplemental essays and essay writing guides, check out the following articles:

  • How to Write the Why This Major Essay + Example
  • How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example
  • How to Start a College Essay – 12 Techniques and Tips
  • College Essay

' src=

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

  • 2-Year Colleges
  • Application Strategies
  • Big Picture
  • Career & Personality Assessment
  • College Search/Knowledge
  • College Success
  • Costs & Financial Aid
  • Extracurricular Activities
  • Graduate School Admissions
  • High School Success
  • High Schools
  • Law School Admissions
  • Medical School Admissions
  • Navigating the Admissions Process
  • Online Learning
  • Summer Program Spotlight
  • Summer Programs
  • Test Prep Provider Spotlight

College Transitions Sidebar Block Image

“Innovative and invaluable…use this book as your college lifeline.”

— Lynn O'Shaughnessy

Nationally Recognized College Expert

College Planning in Your Inbox

Join our information-packed monthly newsletter.

Sign Up Now

role in community essay

What is 'community' and why is it important?

Article highlights.

.@tobyjlowe shares his thoughts on what 'community' means & why its an important concept for those interested in #socialchange

.@tobyjlowe defines a community as "a group of people who share an identity-forming narrative", but why is this a helpful concept for understanding & creating social change?

"Community is an important concept for social change because it helps us to see that social change requires a change in some of the most important stories we tell ourselves" @tobyjlowe

Partnering for Learning

We put our vision for government into practice through learning partner projects that align with our values and help reimagine government so that it works for everyone.

The following thoughts are a brief summary of my PhD. The PhD was written in the 1990s but its central theme — the use and misuse of the term “community” in politics — seems not to have gone away. So, for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on what “community” means and why it’s an important concept for people interested in social change…

The word “community” has a strange power to it. It conveys a sense of togetherness and positivity. It speaks both of solidarity and homeliness. For example, attach the word “community” to “policing” and it turns the legitimate monopoly power of the state over the use of force into something warm and cuddly.

You will hear “community” from the mouths of politicians, officials and other people with microphones in their hands. They speak of “the community” and how important it is to listen to, consult with or hear the voice of this strange collective thing. You will never hear someone in this context say that “community” is a thing that can be ignored or should be feared. And you will, almost never, hear people say what they mean by “community”.

The word “community” has a strange power to it. It conveys a sense of togetherness and positivity. It speaks both of solidarity and homeliness.

So — what does community mean? And why is it important?

Here are the things that I think a definition of community must be able to explain in order to reflect the various communities in the world, and to be useful as a tool for social analysis.

A definition of community must be able to account for the different types of communities that exist in the world. For example, it must be able to account for both a community of place, and something more dispersed, like “the academic community” or “the Islamic community”.

It must be able to account for the positive feelings that people have about “community” (e.g. the sense of togetherness) but without saying that “community” is necessarily good (after all, one of the best examples of a community is the Mafia, and even with the kindest reading of their activities, you’d struggle to argue that, on balance, they are a force for good in the world).

It must be able to explain the sense of identity and belonging associated with “community”. It must explain the feeling of pride or hurt we feel when a community of which we are part is praised or attacked. And it must explain the in group/out group nature of this identity — why some people are part of a particular community, and others are not.

It must be able to explain why “community” has the normative (moral) power that it does –how communities shape our sense of what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ means. For example, our community shapes our understanding of what being a good neighbour, means — the shared understanding of how we should treat people around here.

It must be able to explain why “community” is different from other social groups — such as “society”, “family” or just a group of people.

It must be able to account for the fact that people can be part of different communities simultaneously.

Given that framing, I offer this as my definition of “community”:

A community is a group of people who share an identity-forming narrative.

This means, a group of people who share a story that is so important to them that it defines an aspect of who they are. Those people build the shared story archetypes (characters) of that community into their sense of themselves; they build the history of those communities into their own personal history; and they see the world through the lens of those shared stories.

So, one of the communities that I consider myself to be part of is the community based around the city of Newcastle. The manifestations of this are that I take pride in showing people around the city. I feel slighted when people say horrible things about it. I feel at home whenever I hear a Geordie (Newcastle) accent (despite not having one myself). And so on.

But what makes me part of this community is my choice to write Newcastle’s stories into my own story: the character traits for how Geordies are supposed to behave (be friendly, talk to strangers at bus stops, support Newcastle United etc etc) are character traits that I have adopted. I take part in shared events where this story is played out — such as attending football matches at St James Park and other cultural events in the city. I feel that arguments about the future of the city (should this building be built here? What green spaces does the city need? etc etc) are arguments about my own future. I see arguments about the UK’s future through the lens of the future of Newcastle.

It is this choice to participate in the making and remaking of these stories about the city that makes me part of the community of Newcastle. It’s not just about where you live, or where you work: it is possible to live and work in Newcastle without doing these things, without becoming part of this community. And there are many people who are from Newcastle originally, but who now live elsewhere, who would still consider themselves part of the Newcastle community because they still take an active part in conversations about what it means to be a part of this community.

Newcastle upon Tyne

Let’s see how this definition works against the six key criteria for being an accurate and useful definition of “community”:

It can account for all the different kinds of community — what people call “communities of interest” and “communities of place”. The essence of community is a shared story — that story can be about a place, or it can be about a religion, or any other social practice. It challenges the notion of “communities of identity” by saying that all communities are communities of identity, so “community of identity” isn’t a helpful concept (it’s tautological).

It can account for the positive feelings people have about being part of a community. The sense of a shared identity, of being part of something larger than we are, is well known as a source of good feeling. But it is also morally-neutral. Being part of a community is just part of how we live our lives. Communities can be positive social forces, doing good in the world, and they can be negative, doing harm (and they can be both of those things at once). Community is not, in and of itself, morally praiseworthy. It just is.

This definition of community explains the nature of shared identity in communities, and highlights the specific mechanism by which this occurs. It is the process of telling a story about yourself that draws on the shared cultural story archetypes which creates and maintains a shared identity. It is the process of a set of people sharing (and arguing) about a particular set of stories — their meaning, interpretation and value — that reinforces those social bonds and creates the shared cultural resources.

It explains why community has the normative (moral) force that it does, because it is our narratives that provide us with our explanations for what good/bad look like. A good neighbour is someone who fits the story we tell ourselves about how a good neighbour behaves, a good colleague is someone who fits with the archetype of how that character behaves etc. Our narratives provide our moral framing.

It explains why “community” is different from other types of social groups. A community is a group with a shared identity-forming narrative. This is different from the set of people who live in a place, or have a shared interest. A group of people waiting at a bus stop have a shared interest, but they are not a community. (Unless they’ve been waiting for a really long time…)

The definition understands that people can be part of many communities simultaneously, and also how they can become part of (and drift away from) particular communities. It also is able to account for the tension that people can feel when they are part of multiple communities — when different aspects of their identity-defining stories clash, for example.

A group of people who share a story that is so important to them that it defines an aspect of who they are. Those people build the shared story archetypes (characters) of that community into their sense of themselves; they build the history of those communities into their own personal history; and they see the world through the lens of those shared stories.

Why does this matter?

On one level, this is simply a plea for a more precise use of language. I am not saying that “community” is the only (or even most important) social grouping, but it is a particular type of social grouping that explains the strong sense of shared identity that people feel, and membership of particular groups give us a lens through which we see the world.

Sometimes, this will make “community” important to our political (policy/management) conversations. Many times community will not be relevant. In those cases people should stop using the word “community” just to generate a warm fuzzy feeling, or as a euphemism for talking about poor people. If you mean “people”, say “people”. If you mean “community”, say which community you mean, and say why those identity-forming narratives are important to what you’re trying to do.

Why ‘community’ is a helpful concept for understanding and creating social change

I think my key message is that community is an important concept for social change because it helps us to see that social change requires a change in some of the most important stories we tell ourselves. Social change requires that we rewrite our communal narratives. Social change is change in community.

SOCIAL CHANGE IS ALWAYS PARTICULAR — IT LOOKS AND FEELS DIFFERENT DEPENDING ON THE COMMUNITIES OF WHICH YOU ARE PART

Our communities shape our understanding of the world. If you’re looking to create change in the world, it is these meanings and understandings which have to change. This applies whether the change you seek is macro scale (like gender equality) or micro scale (like making this street a better place to live).

It is easy to understand why changing people’s sense of community is important on the micro scale (if you want to change how it is to live on this street, you need people’s sense of what it means to live on this street, and what is possible for the people who live here —  like this story of change in Granby ).

It is less immediately obvious why ‘community’ is important for macro change like gender equality. I think it is important because what gender equality looks like will be different for each community. Translating gender equality from the abstract language of human rights into the concrete practices of people requires each set of stories that define men and women’s roles in each community to change (and also the stories that construct our sense of what men and women are). It is change in these stories that makes macro change real.

NARRATIVE CHANGE IS (PART OF) SOCIAL CHANGE

This understanding helps us to understand that a key part of social change is narrative change. It helps us to ask the following types of question: what are the stories that define our understanding of how life should be lived in this context? Who and what shapes those stories? Where are they told, and who tells them? In technical language, social change must include the politics of narrative construction.

Obviously, these aren’t the only important questions. But if they’re not addressed, social change becomes significantly harder.

CHALLENGING OUR OWN NARRATIVES

If social change involves narrative change for each community, then it is up to members of those communities to challenge and refresh their own narrative construction processes. We know that imposing change on the stories of others is perilous (and usually counter-productive). That gives each community a responsibility to (critically) reflect on their own stories, and on the story-making process. What do our stories have to say about justice/care/kindness (whatever value is the subject of reflection)? Who is involved in this process? Who gets to explore and tell their stories? Whose voice counts?

Community is an important concept for social change because it helps us to see that social change requires a change in some of the most important stories we tell ourselves. Social change requires that we rewrite our communal narratives. Social change is change in community.

FREEDOM, DIVERSITY AND TOLERANCE

We can also view other questions through the lens of community. What’s our attitude to those who don’t share our stories? What can we learn from the narratives of others? What is required for people to have a voice in our shared story-making?

And finally, community helps us to understand what freedom means. It means being free to write your own story — and that is both an individual and collective process. It means being free to find the community that best suits you, and it means participating in the creation of narratives that enable others to be free.

In conclusion

I hope that’s been useful. Inevitably, some of the shortcuts I’ve taken in order to fit this into any kind of readable length mean I’ve also skipped over a range of important ideas and questions too quickly. But I hope some of the key ideas are expressed with enough clarity to be useful.

My grateful thanks to Pritpal Tamber for giving helpful feedback on drafts of this. Go check out his excellent work on Health and Community .

This piece is also published on Medium here .

Written by:.

role in community essay

You may also be interested in...

role in community essay

Nobody Left Behind: solutions for the community, by the community

role in community essay

What governments can learn from football about building community

role in community essay

Progressive Thinking: Ten Possible Futures for Public & Community Services

role in community essay

How can we help?

PrepScholar

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write a great community service essay.

author image

College Admissions , Extracurriculars

feature_essaywriting

Are you applying to a college or a scholarship that requires a community service essay? Do you know how to write an essay that will impress readers and clearly show the impact your work had on yourself and others?

Read on to learn step-by-step instructions for writing a great community service essay that will help you stand out and be memorable.

What Is a Community Service Essay? Why Do You Need One?

A community service essay is an essay that describes the volunteer work you did and the impact it had on you and your community. Community service essays can vary widely depending on specific requirements listed in the application, but, in general, they describe the work you did, why you found the work important, and how it benefited people around you.

Community service essays are typically needed for two reasons:

#1: To Apply to College

  • Some colleges require students to write community service essays as part of their application or to be eligible for certain scholarships.
  • You may also choose to highlight your community service work in your personal statement.

#2: To Apply for Scholarships

  • Some scholarships are specifically awarded to students with exceptional community service experiences, and many use community service essays to help choose scholarship recipients.
  • Green Mountain College offers one of the most famous of these scholarships. Their "Make a Difference Scholarship" offers full tuition, room, and board to students who have demonstrated a significant, positive impact through their community service

Getting Started With Your Essay

In the following sections, I'll go over each step of how to plan and write your essay. I'll also include sample excerpts for you to look through so you can get a better idea of what readers are looking for when they review your essay.

Step 1: Know the Essay Requirements

Before your start writing a single word, you should be familiar with the essay prompt. Each college or scholarship will have different requirements for their essay, so make sure you read these carefully and understand them.

Specific things to pay attention to include:

  • Length requirement
  • Application deadline
  • The main purpose or focus of the essay
  • If the essay should follow a specific structure

Below are three real community service essay prompts. Read through them and notice how much they vary in terms of length, detail, and what information the writer should include.

From the Equitable Excellence Scholarship:

"Describe your outstanding achievement in depth and provide the specific planning, training, goals, and steps taken to make the accomplishment successful. Include details about your role and highlight leadership you provided. Your essay must be a minimum of 350 words but not more than 600 words."

From the Laura W. Bush Traveling Scholarship:

"Essay (up to 500 words, double spaced) explaining your interest in being considered for the award and how your proposed project reflects or is related to both UNESCO's mandate and U.S. interests in promoting peace by sharing advances in education, science, culture, and communications."

From the LULAC National Scholarship Fund:

"Please type or print an essay of 300 words (maximum) on how your academic studies will contribute to your personal & professional goals. In addition, please discuss any community service or extracurricular activities you have been involved in that relate to your goals."

body_penwriting

Want to write the perfect college application essay? Get professional help from PrepScholar.

Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We'll learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step. At the end, you'll have a unique essay that you'll proudly submit to your top choice colleges.

Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now :

Craft Your Perfect College Essay

Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas

Even after you understand what the essay should be about, it can still be difficult to begin writing. Answer the following questions to help brainstorm essay ideas. You may be able to incorporate your answers into your essay.

  • What community service activity that you've participated in has meant the most to you?
  • What is your favorite memory from performing community service?
  • Why did you decide to begin community service?
  • What made you decide to volunteer where you did?
  • How has your community service changed you?
  • How has your community service helped others?
  • How has your community service affected your plans for the future?

You don't need to answer all the questions, but if you find you have a lot of ideas for one of two of them, those may be things you want to include in your essay.

Writing Your Essay

How you structure your essay will depend on the requirements of the scholarship or school you are applying to. You may give an overview of all the work you did as a volunteer, or highlight a particularly memorable experience. You may focus on your personal growth or how your community benefited.

Regardless of the specific structure requested, follow the guidelines below to make sure your community service essay is memorable and clearly shows the impact of your work.

Samples of mediocre and excellent essays are included below to give you a better idea of how you should draft your own essay.

Step 1: Hook Your Reader In

You want the person reading your essay to be interested, so your first sentence should hook them in and entice them to read more. A good way to do this is to start in the middle of the action. Your first sentence could describe you helping build a house, releasing a rescued animal back to the wild, watching a student you tutored read a book on their own, or something else that quickly gets the reader interested. This will help set your essay apart and make it more memorable.

Compare these two opening sentences:

"I have volunteered at the Wishbone Pet Shelter for three years."

"The moment I saw the starving, mud-splattered puppy brought into the shelter with its tail between its legs, I knew I'd do whatever I could to save it."

The first sentence is a very general, bland statement. The majority of community service essays probably begin a lot like it, but it gives the reader little information and does nothing to draw them in. On the other hand, the second sentence begins immediately with action and helps persuade the reader to keep reading so they can learn what happened to the dog.

Step 2: Discuss the Work You Did

Once you've hooked your reader in with your first sentence, tell them about your community service experiences. State where you work, when you began working, how much time you've spent there, and what your main duties include. This will help the reader quickly put the rest of the essay in context and understand the basics of your community service work.

body_distressedwriter

Not including basic details about your community service could leave your reader confused.

Step 3: Include Specific Details

It's the details of your community service that make your experience unique and memorable, so go into the specifics of what you did.

For example, don't just say you volunteered at a nursing home; talk about reading Mrs. Johnson her favorite book, watching Mr. Scott win at bingo, and seeing the residents play games with their grandchildren at the family day you organized. Try to include specific activities, moments, and people in your essay. Having details like these let the readers really understand what work you did and how it differs from other volunteer experiences.

Compare these two passages:

"For my volunteer work, I tutored children at a local elementary school. I helped them improve their math skills and become more confident students."

"As a volunteer at York Elementary School, I worked one-on-one with second and third graders who struggled with their math skills, particularly addition, subtraction, and fractions. As part of my work, I would create practice problems and quizzes and try to connect math to the students' interests. One of my favorite memories was when Sara, a student I had been working with for several weeks, told me that she enjoyed the math problems I had created about a girl buying and selling horses so much that she asked to help me create math problems for other students."

The first passage only gives basic information about the work done by the volunteer; there is very little detail included, and no evidence is given to support her claims. How did she help students improve their math skills? How did she know they were becoming more confident?

The second passage is much more detailed. It recounts a specific story and explains more fully what kind of work the volunteer did, as well as a specific instance of a student becoming more confident with her math skills. Providing more detail in your essay helps support your claims as well as make your essay more memorable and unique.

Step 4: Show Your Personality

It would be very hard to get a scholarship or place at a school if none of your readers felt like they knew much about you after finishing your essay, so make sure that your essay shows your personality. The way to do this is to state your personal strengths, then provide examples to support your claims. Take some time to think about which parts of your personality you would like your essay to highlight, then write about specific examples to show this.

  • If you want to show that you're a motivated leader, describe a time when you organized an event or supervised other volunteers.
  • If you want to show your teamwork skills, write about a time you helped a group of people work together better.
  • If you want to show that you're a compassionate animal lover, write about taking care of neglected shelter animals and helping each of them find homes.

Step 5: State What You Accomplished

After you have described your community service and given specific examples of your work, you want to begin to wrap your essay up by stating your accomplishments. What was the impact of your community service? Did you build a house for a family to move into? Help students improve their reading skills? Clean up a local park? Make sure the impact of your work is clear; don't be worried about bragging here.

If you can include specific numbers, that will also strengthen your essay. Saying "I delivered meals to 24 home-bound senior citizens" is a stronger example than just saying "I delivered meals to lots of senior citizens."

Also be sure to explain why your work matters. Why is what you did important? Did it provide more parks for kids to play in? Help students get better grades? Give people medical care who would otherwise not have gotten it? This is an important part of your essay, so make sure to go into enough detail that your readers will know exactly what you accomplished and how it helped your community.

"My biggest accomplishment during my community service was helping to organize a family event at the retirement home. The children and grandchildren of many residents attended, and they all enjoyed playing games and watching movies together."

"The community service accomplishment that I'm most proud of is the work I did to help organize the First Annual Family Fun Day at the retirement home. My job was to design and organize fun activities that senior citizens and their younger relatives could enjoy. The event lasted eight hours and included ten different games, two performances, and a movie screening with popcorn. Almost 200 residents and family members attended throughout the day. This event was important because it provided an opportunity for senior citizens to connect with their family members in a way they aren't often able to. It also made the retirement home seem more fun and enjoyable to children, and we have seen an increase in the number of kids coming to visit their grandparents since the event."

The second passage is stronger for a variety of reasons. First, it goes into much more detail about the work the volunteer did. The first passage only states that she helped "organize a family event." That really doesn't tell readers much about her work or what her responsibilities were. The second passage is much clearer; her job was to "design and organize fun activities."

The second passage also explains the event in more depth. A family day can be many things; remember that your readers are likely not familiar with what you're talking about, so details help them get a clearer picture.

Lastly, the second passage makes the importance of the event clear: it helped residents connect with younger family members, and it helped retirement homes seem less intimidating to children, so now some residents see their grand kids more often.

Step 6: Discuss What You Learned

One of the final things to include in your essay should be the impact that your community service had on you. You can discuss skills you learned, such as carpentry, public speaking, animal care, or another skill.

You can also talk about how you changed personally. Are you more patient now? More understanding of others? Do you have a better idea of the type of career you want? Go into depth about this, but be honest. Don't say your community service changed your life if it didn't because trite statements won't impress readers.

In order to support your statements, provide more examples. If you say you're more patient now, how do you know this? Do you get less frustrated while playing with your younger siblings? Are you more willing to help group partners who are struggling with their part of the work? You've probably noticed by now that including specific examples and details is one of the best ways to create a strong and believable essay .

"As a result of my community service, I learned a lot about building houses and became a more mature person."

"As a result of my community service, I gained hands-on experience in construction. I learned how to read blueprints, use a hammer and nails, and begin constructing the foundation of a two-bedroom house. Working on the house could be challenging at times, but it taught me to appreciate the value of hard work and be more willing to pitch in when I see someone needs help. My dad has just started building a shed in our backyard, and I offered to help him with it because I know from my community service how much work it is. I also appreciate my own house more, and I know how lucky I am to have a roof over my head."

The second passage is more impressive and memorable because it describes the skills the writer learned in more detail and recounts a specific story that supports her claim that her community service changed her and made her more helpful.

role in community essay

Want to build the best possible college application?

We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies . We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools , from state colleges to the Ivy League.

We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools .

Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in.

Get Into Your Top Choice School

Step 7: Finish Strong

Just as you started your essay in a way that would grab readers' attention, you want to finish your essay on a strong note as well. A good way to end your essay is to state again the impact your work had on you, your community, or both. Reiterate how you changed as a result of your community service, why you found the work important, or how it helped others.

Compare these two concluding statements:

"In conclusion, I learned a lot from my community service at my local museum, and I hope to keep volunteering and learning more about history."

"To conclude, volunteering at my city's American History Museum has been a great experience. By leading tours and participating in special events, I became better at public speaking and am now more comfortable starting conversations with people. In return, I was able to get more community members interested in history and our local museum. My interest in history has deepened, and I look forward to studying the subject in college and hopefully continuing my volunteer work at my university's own museum."

The second passage takes each point made in the first passage and expands upon it. In a few sentences, the second passage is able to clearly convey what work the volunteer did, how she changed, and how her volunteer work benefited her community.

The author of the second passage also ends her essay discussing her future and how she'd like to continue her community service, which is a good way to wrap things up because it shows your readers that you are committed to community service for the long-term.

What's Next?

Are you applying to a community service scholarship or thinking about it? We have a complete list of all the community service scholarships available to help get your search started!

Do you need a community service letter as well? We have a step-by-step guide that will tell you how to get a great reference letter from your community service supervisor.

Thinking about doing community service abroad? Before you sign up, read our guide on some of the hazards of international volunteer trips and how to know if it's the right choice for you.

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Get eBook: 5 Tips for 160+ Points

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

Student and Parent Forum

Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com , allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers.

Join the Conversation

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

  • For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

role in community essay

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”
  • 720-279-7577

role in community essay

‹‹ BACK TO BLOG

The Community Essay for the Common App Supplements

Mark montgomery.

  • July 24, 2023

community essay for the Common App

How do you write the community essay for the Common App? Many college applications require supplemental essays. A common supplementary question asks you to consider and write about a community to which you belong. 

The definition of community is open to interpretation and can be difficult to pin down. We each belong to a wide variety of communities ranging from our family and friend groups to being members of the global community.  

My Communities 

For example, I belong to a bunch of different communities. I sing in a choir, so I’m part of the community of the Colorado Chorale community (and within that community, I’m a member of the tenor section). I go to see plays a lot, so I’m a member of the “theater-going” community. Birdwatching can be fun, I find, so I belong to the “community of birdwatchers.” I belong to a club or two, so I’m a member or those communities. I belong to a political party, which is a community in a sense. I went to Dartmouth , so I belong to a community of alumni, both locally and globally. Same with my grad school: my friends and I still talk about belonging to the “ Fletcher Community .” 

role in community essay

When I lived in Hong Kong, I was a member of the American community, which was part of the large expatriate community. I speak French and live in Denver. Therefore, I’m part of the community of Denverites who speak French as a second language. I live in a specific neighborhood in the city of Denver in the State of Colorado in the United States. All of those communities define me in one way or another. Finally, at a more intimate level, I also belong to a family community that is very important to me.

Really, when you stop to think about it, we all belong to a large number of overlapping communities. Think of a Venn diagram with lots of overlapping circles—and we are at that tiny dot in the center where each of those circles overlaps. 

Why write the community essay for the Common App?

Why do colleges ask you to write this community essay? In writing about community as it relates to you, you reveal important details at the core of who you are. Colleges are hoping to bring students to their campuses who will contribute in a positive way to campus culture, whether intellectually, socially, or through their extracurricular activities. 

They want students who will be successful in their new community and enrich the college through their varied backgrounds, experiences, accomplishments, activities and behavior. Thus, the way you answer this prompt will help them imagine if you would be a good addition to their campus community.

Here are some examples of the community essay prompt:

  • Please complete the following, and have a little fun doing so: “I appreciate my community because …” (up to 300  characters)
  • At MIT , we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being good friends. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (200-250 words)
  • What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?  (up to 350 words)
  • Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.  (up to 300 words)
  • Macalester is a community that includes people from many different backgrounds, some who have lived around the world and others who have lived in one place their entire lives. Please write an essay about how your background, experiences, or outlook might add to the Mac community, academically and personally. (up to 500 words)*

* Note: this last prompt doesn’t ask about a community to which you currently belong, but rather asks you to reflect on what you will bring to the community. This essay is a mix of activities and community essays. However, this essay should emphasize what the applicant would add to the campus community.

The community essay vs. the community service essay

Notice that this essay is not narrowly focused on any service you might provide to your community. Of course, it is entirely possible that your involvement in a community may include some sort of involvement that helps to promote the community and the interests of its members in some way.  

However, the community essay prompts do not specifically ask you to talk about this service. The prompts want you to think about what it means to “belong,” and how you conceive of yourself in the larger world. A sense of community may, indeed, lead you to act in certain ways to advance a cause, donate your time, or exert your energies to meet the needs of your community. Your actions certainly may become part of this community essay as a way to demonstrate the ways in which you identify with—and contribute to—this community. But the focus of this essay is on that sense of belonging. 

Service to your community—or to someone else’s?

To put a finer point to it, it is possible to provide “community service” to communities to which we do not belong. We might donate time to the homeless community—but that does not make us homeless. We might spend time working with refugees, even if we, ourselves, are not refugees. Or while we might enjoy good health, we still might donate time to make meals for the critically ill.

So make sure that when you write the community essay you zero in on a community that defines you, and not on the service you devote to a community that is not your own.  

When preparing for the community essay for the Common App, DO THESE THINGS:

Think carefully about your choice of community.

The community you choose says a lot about you. Think carefully about what message even just the choice of community might convey to your reader. In fact, you may even want to start by asking yourself “What aspects of who I am do I want the reader to know?” and then pick the community that will do that in the best possible way. Think, too, how your choice can help you differentiate yourself and share important insight into who you are. 

Factors for you to consider as you brainstorm the community essay for the Common App:

  • Which communities are most important to you and why?
  • What do these communities say about you that you haven’t shared with your reader elsewhere in your application?
  • What roles have you played in these communities?
  • How would you measure the impact of your participation in these communities?
  • What does your participation in these communities say about your character, qualities, and how you interact with the world around you?
  • What does the overall message say about you as a future college student?

Use this as an opportunity to reveal more about yourself

This prompt isn’t just to elaborate on your community; this is another opportunity to reveal important qualities about yourself. Explain why this community is so important to you. Write about what you learned about yourself and how it has shaped who you are. Reveal how you have made contributions to this community.  

Show, don’t tell

Like every essay, the details show your reader what you want them to know about you. Be specific, but selective, with the details you include. Every word should contribute to the message you want to share with your reader. If you have space, share an anecdote to help the reader visualize the qualities that you are trying to share.

Ensure you answer the prompt fully and directly

Some of these prompts are simple and short, but other schools have long prompts. Don’t get lost in answering the first part of the prompt and forget about the remainder. Re-read the prompt after you have drafted your ideas to make sure you’ve addressed everything. 

In addition, sometimes, if you have multiple applications that ask a “community” question, you may be tempted to simply repurpose the same exact essay from one application to the other. Beware! Each prompt will have different nuances to it, and you will need to ensure that you are actually answering the prompt that is being asked. You can certainly re-use the content from one application to the next, but you should tailor how you express those ideas so that they match the prompt.

When drafting the community essay for the Common App, DON’T DO these things

Don’t be afraid to “think outside of the box”.

Think outside the box when you write the community essay

Some communities to which we belong are obvious because we participate in them on a daily basis. These would include our families and our friend groups. Others are obvious because they are clearly defined: the football team or student government. But what about those informal communities, occasional communities, or hard-to-define communities to which you might belong? Are you a crafty person who blogs about your creations with an online community?

Do you belong to a book group in your neighborhood? Are you a classic car connoisseur? Even writing about things that might not seem like natural “communities” can work quite well as long as they reveal important aspects of who you are. For example, we’ve read a successful “community” essay about a student who belonged to a community of anonymous subway riders. We read another about a community of students who wear crazy socks to school. 

Don’t share obvious details

The detail about the community is not the most important part of your response, even if the prompt does say to “describe a community to which you belong.” Consider only sharing those details about the community that ties into what you are trying to share about yourself. For example, most drama groups put on performances for the public.

But not all drama groups are community-based and have participants ranging in age from 9 to 99. If part of your story is about this multi-generational community, then this detail plays a part in your story. Include those details that play a role in why the community is important or impactful for you.

Video Course for College Admissions

Remember these things about the community essay for the Common App

No matter which community you choose to write about, you want to be sure that you reflect deeply about why this community is important to you. If you have a longer word count, you can consider using an anecdote to share with the reader, but for the shorter prompts, keep your writing personal, but just more to the point.

And don’t lose sight of the reason that you are writing this essay. You are applying to be a part of a new community. You want to show that you have a deep appreciation for the sense of satisfaction, dedication, and attachment that comes with being a member of a community. The purpose is to demonstrate that you know how to nurture the community and how you nourish others’ sense of belonging in that circle.  

Colleges want to know that you will keep the flame of that college community alive, even as you graduate and move on with your life. The admissions office wants to know that you will cherish and contribute to the community that they already call their own. Convince them that you deserve to belong.

Mark Montgomery

Archive by Date

Recent posts.

  • How Long Should a College Admissions Essay Be?
  • The Perfect College Essay: Focus On You
  • The Perfect College Essay: Tell a Good Story
  • Supplemental Essays Are Important!
  • Advice for Students on the Wait List

role in community essay

Join our Facebook Group ›› Stay informed about college admissions trends and ask questions of experts who can give you Great College Advice.

role in community essay

  • Core Convictions
  • Daisaku Ikeda
  • Staff & Leadership
  • Ikeda Forum
  • Dialogue Nights
  • Indigo Talks
  • Global Citizens Seminar Series
  • Ikeda Center Youth Committee (ICYC)
  • Education Fellows
  • Find Resources
  • Founding Lecture
  • Founder's Messages
  • Ikeda/Soka Studies in Education Bibliography
  • Exam Copies

What Is Community, and Why Is It Important?

In 2005, the Center asked several people whose work involves community building this simple question, and got some not-so-simple answers.

Riché C. Zamor, Executive Director, Latin American Health Institute, Boston

To me a community is a group of individuals connected to each other by one or more attribute(s). The element that links them together is at the core, and is the essence of the group. Just as denoted by the root and the suffix of the word (common-unity), a certain segment of the population is united by a familiar thread. In the field of Public Health, we see community as a group of folks that are at risk of being infected or affected by certain types of diseases based on their demographic, social, and economic status. A community is a familiar thread used to bring people together to advocate and support each other in the fight to overcome those threats. As human beings, we need a sense of belonging, and that sense of belonging is what connects us to the many relationships we develop. Communities are also rich in resources, that is where their collective aspect comes into play. We are all members of many communities (family, work, neighborhood, etc.), and we constantly move in and out of them, depending on the situation. Community is where we find comfort in difficult times. When things are not going well in one community, we have the option to move to another. For me, the community is where one finds the balance between physical and mental fitness.

Sarah Michelson, Teen Intern with The Food Project

Most people in today’s world rely on a community for practical purposes. The necessities of life rarely come from one’s own hands, but rather from a complicated “web of mutuality,” as Martin Luther King, Jr. once phrased it. While most people need to be part of a community for life’s necessities, most people want to be part of a community because there is something indescribably lovely about being a part of a group of people who share something more substantial than geographical location… something they feel passionately about. Something that, when shared, makes individuals seem less lonely. A community is a safe place.

But there is something potentially dangerous about communities. A community that is safe, comfortable, and trusting can be so enticing that individuals can forget about the world outside of their community, or regard other communities with subtle prejudices.

I am a member of the Sudbury community, an affluent suburb of Boston. While I work to give back to my community, I also need to spend some time away from Sudbury, to know what life is like in Bolivia, in the American South, or in Roxbury, the inner city neighborhood where the Food Project does a lot of its work. I need to go to these places to remind myself that this way of life I am used to is not the only way or the best way. I need to be reminded that, while I give to my community, other communities are no less deserving. I need to be reminded that when I form a connection with someone based on common experience, it is not because that someone is from Sudbury. It is because we are both human beings, and I am part of a global community.

Alan O’Hare, Schenachie (Celtic Storyteller) and Director Life Story Theatre

In the silence of an early morning walk recently, the crystal song of a scarlet red cardinal atop an oak tree awakened me more fully. As I stood listening to him and his mate in a nearby tree serenading each other, a couple walking their dog joined me. Without speaking a word, it was clear we were enchanted by the gift of their song, and we joined together briefly in a community of celebration for the gifts of Nature.

The new light, the morning hymn, and the momentary connection with other travelers evoked images from other communities. Each of these whether for learning, work, healing, prayer, or friendship creates for us a safe experience of belonging, purpose, and shared values. In them, each of us encounters who we are and what our gifts are.

In the Sufi tradition, it is taught that the primary purpose of life is to awaken to the essence of who we are. Once we do so, we are invited to lovingly embrace this realization. The gift of community is that it offers each of us the fire of affirmation and support to achieve this… even on those days when we feel no fire.

But at that time we can recall the words of Thich Nhat Hanh: “I ask all of you to hold up your hands and tell me the truth. Do you believe, as I do, that someone in our hamlet is keeping the fire alive?”

Frances Moore Lappé, Author of Democracy’s Edge

Community — meaning for me “nurturing human connection” — is our survival. We humans wither outside of community. It isn’t a luxury, a nice thing; community is essential to our well being.   Inclusion in the social life of society is community’s foundation. By inclusion I mean universal access to entry, starting with legal protections against exclusion — racial discrimination, for example — but going far, far beyond. Inclusion means access to jobs with fair pay, decent shelter, effective schools, and reliable health care. If you deprive “a man of a job or an income,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., “you are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist…it is murder, psychologically…”   Yet today the ethic in ascendance is exclusion. We have allowed the government to let the minimum wage lose a quarter of its value in thirty years. One out of every five jobs in the U.S. will not lift a family of four out of poverty. And we’ve allowed health care to become unattainable by so many that America now ranks 42nd among the world’s nations in infant survival.   This profoundly disturbing assault on community calls us to accept an irony: We must risk exclusion — alienating or at least disturbing others — to become advocates for inclusion in community. That may mean speaking our minds even if  doing so triggers discomfort in others, reaching out to those excluded even when it feels awkward, engaging in visible civic public action such as a vigil or door-to-door education even where we risk angry rejection.   Appreciating that community is essential to human well being calls us to a particular kind of courage: walking with our fear of exclusion in order to stand up for inclusion.

Lisa R. Fortuna, Staff Psychiatrist, Cambridge Health Alliance

Community is about growing with others. I grew up surrounded by a culturally rich and loving community which has shaped my identity and pride as a black Latina woman. I have been blessed to be around young people and families ever engaged in improving the vitality of their community. Now, thirty five years into my life, I am a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Everyday, I get to meet with young people. I have the opportunity to be there in their lives during some of their most difficult and distressing moments. Because of who these young people are, and because of the love I have received, I strive to be the best physician I can be and to serve those who need me most.

In the process, my spirituality has been a central stabilizing and informing force in my life, one that has been very personal, very quiet and that has nevertheless guided every one of my life choices. This interface between community, medicine, and personal faith started with an early and long-standing fascination with the world around me. My mind was ignited by a love of science and medicine, and reliant on the power of community and deep respect and appreciation for healing. This attitude towards the world was inspired by my grandmother my mother, and the elders around me who took the time to care. This is what community is about… taking care of each other.

Shirley Tang, Assistant Professor, Asian-American Studies & American Studies, UM ass Boston

I accepted the invitation to write for the BRC newsletter as a way to reflect briefly upon my own questions about community-building after twelve years of teaching and developing Asian American Studies in both university and street settings with students from urban immigrant/refugee communities. I was first drawn to Asian American Studies, and ethnic studies in general, because of its revolutionary commitments to community-building, justice-centered education, and hands-on, practical work. I have always felt that the best places to learn/teach are not behind the closed doors of an ivory tower but where people are experiencing marginalization and exclusion from decision-making power and resource-rich opportunities.

Several years ago, that was all theory. After I listened carefully to how young people and their families experienced problems first-hand and after I realized that they had always been at the forefront in fighting for a just and healthy community for all, I had begun to see things from their perspective and apply myself to keeping their—our—dreams alive. Since I started working at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, I have become a U.S. resident, and like many of the students and community members that I work with, I also found my life becoming more and more tied to the political and social situation of immigrant communities/communities of color in U.S.  society.

So, why is community important? Because community saves us from the isolation and alienation we fear. Because in the real world people have no choice. Because community is about finding each other and a place we can call home. But we are also compelled to build community not only because we are survivors in an existing world order but because we bring differences to a society that erases our differences. By dealing with differences we confront the question of the social and economic foundations of our society. By building community we put some order in the fragmented world.

Participants engage in dialogue at the 2019 Ikeda Forum

Interdependence

It’s a simple idea with vast implications. Known in Western society as interdependence, the concept has been known for millennia in Buddhism as “dependent origination.” Because of the light it sheds on all manner of living relations, Ikeda returns time and again to it in his writings, speeches, and dialogues.

Learn more

How it works

Transform your enterprise with the scalable mindsets, skills, & behavior change that drive performance.

Explore how BetterUp connects to your core business systems.

We pair AI with the latest in human-centered coaching to drive powerful, lasting learning and behavior change.

Build leaders that accelerate team performance and engagement.

Unlock performance potential at scale with AI-powered curated growth journeys.

Build resilience, well-being and agility to drive performance across your entire enterprise.

Transform your business, starting with your sales leaders.

Unlock business impact from the top with executive coaching.

Foster a culture of inclusion and belonging.

Accelerate the performance and potential of your agencies and employees.

See how innovative organizations use BetterUp to build a thriving workforce.

Discover how BetterUp measurably impacts key business outcomes for organizations like yours.

A demo is the first step to transforming your business. Meet with us to develop a plan for attaining your goals.

Request a demo

  • For Individuals

Best practices, research, and tools to fuel individual and business growth.

View on-demand BetterUp events and learn about upcoming live discussions.

The latest insights and ideas for building a high-performing workplace.

  • BetterUp Briefing

The online magazine that helps you understand tomorrow's workforce trends, today.

Innovative research featured in peer-reviewed journals, press, and more.

Founded in 2022 to deepen the understanding of the intersection of well-being, purpose, and performance

We're on a mission to help everyone live with clarity, purpose, and passion.

Join us and create impactful change.

Read the buzz about BetterUp.

Meet the leadership that's passionate about empowering your workforce.

For Business

Community for the win — how collective solutions help individual problems

Understand Yourself Better:

Big 5 Personality Test

Find my Coach

Jump to section

What is community?

Why are communities so important, 8 types of communities, importance of communities and mental health.

Benefits of community

Start building

The word “community” is used so often today, it’s reached buzzword status. And when the term is thrown around in countless contexts, it’s easy to lose sight of the importance of community—and how to develop communities that add purpose and joy to our lives.

So, what exactly is community? In its simplest form, it’s a group of people with something in common. That shared factor could be family, geography, faith, race, or life stage. It could also be an overlapping interest, passion, or profession. 

But for a group of people to form a true community that enriches the lives of its members, the individuals involved must also feel a shared sense of trust, connection, and caring for one another . 

Strong communities are critical because they’re often an important source of social connection and a sense of belonging. Participating in a community bonded by attitudes, values, and goals is an essential ingredient to enjoying a fulfilling life.

The absence of social connections can have profound effects on our overall health. An early study on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic showed that loneliness was one of the factors with the greatest psychological impact on people’s health. The impacts of low social connection on health include:

  • Elevated risk factors. Studies show people who lack strong social connections are also more likely to suffer from high levels of stress and inflammation, and face higher risk for suicide and early death.
  • Chronic disease. Research consistently links the lack of social connectedness with health conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, immune disorders and cancer. suicide and early death.
  • Mental health. Social isolation can also impact mental health and well-being . Strong social ties are crucial to mental health—they can lower stress and anxiety and help people thrive.

Ultimately, communities give people a supportive group to help them cope with difficult challenges, band together to solve problems, and celebrate life’s lighter moments.

subscribe

Communities exist in many forms, both formal and informal. Formal institutions such as faith-based organizations, schools, and governments might be some of the first types of community that come to mind. But informal groups, such as carpools or study groups, often play an important role in our lives, too.   

Informal groups in particular are an important resource for individuals who are part of underrepresented groups and may not have access to or feel comfortable in traditional organizations rooted in inequity. For those seeking safe, inclusive spaces, informal gathering places such as barber shops or online forums can become deeply meaningful sources of community. 

Because communities can align along many factors, such as location, identity, interests, or organization, you may already belong to several without even realizing it. Some common examples of communities include:

Some towns or neighborhoods are more tightly knit than others, but many people belong to a community that’s formed by virtue of a shared zip code or street. For some, the people you pass on the sidewalk or in the hallway every day might be strangers. But they can also be friends, allies or even people to turn to in times of trouble. 

  • Faith-based organizations

A group of individuals united by religious or spiritual beliefs is a longstanding community institution . Whether they meet in a church, synagogue, temple, or online, faith-based organizations may be one of the most easily recognizable forms of community because of their history, reach, and dense networks. 

  • Hobby-focused clubs

Cooking, reading, running, music—there are an infinite number of possibilities for groups centered around shared interests. Clubs or groups joined by interest or activity allow members to meet new people and foster newfound or longtime personal passions. The virtual options available make finding and participating in these groups easier than ever. 

  • Volunteer groups

Volunteering can take many different shapes, from phone banking to cleaning up a park. And volunteer work might be driven by a big national nonprofit organization or a tiny grass-roots effort that started in your own backyard. In any case, people working together on a cause that’s important to them often create a meaningful community.

women-serve-food-importance-of-community

  • Alumni networks

An alumni association or network typically exists in the context of an educational institution, and it combines several layers of shared experiences in one. Members might fondly recall their time on the same campus, the class requirements they all completed or the institutional traditions they participated in. Alumni networks provide social and professional connections long after individuals have graduated. 

  • Coworking spaces

While they’ve always been more than just a place to work, the traditional coworking space has recently undergone new shifts to become more than a physical space. Modern coworking spaces have evolved in design and approach like this cohort of founders launching places for people of color . Offering both inclusive physical spaces and digital communities, they highlight the importance of community development in the workplace.

  • Professional development groups

Career-focused networks exist for nearly every type of job or specialty imaginable, and they can often be a great resource throughout an individual’s professional life. These groups might gather for conferences, offer mentorship or training, explore industry issues and help members achieve their goals. Over time, these communities can serve as a critical form of support and guidance for individuals and even leave a mark on entire professions.     

  • Employee resource groups In organizations, an employee resource group (ERG) is an employee-led group that fosters inclusivity and builds community. The purpose of an ERG is to create a safe, supportive space for underrepresented employees who share a common identity, and they may be organized by certain shared characteristics like gender identity, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or age. As a community, ERG members and organizational decision-makers work to create an inclusive company culture, connection, and personal and professional growth.

In recent months, the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of community as it relates to mental health. As feelings of isolation , anxiety, and depression have increased during the pandemic, many people are seeking meaningful connections to help them cope—and that’s one of the most vital functions communities perform. 

Communities are inherently about relationships with others and a feeling of connectedness, which have a major impact on mental health . Without community, people may feel more isolated and lonely. 

One of the ways we can strengthen our mental health is by building community and creating the social connection and support to have more vulnerable conversations . By creating spaces where open dialogue is safe and encouraged, people can deepen their understanding of one another, work together to address challenges, and find the support they need to navigate tough times. 

8 benefits of communities

  • A support network

As a member of a community, you have access to a support network of peers. Whether you turn to your community to commiserate, seek advice, or simply share your story, having a supportive group in your life can have a powerful effect on your overall well-being.

  • Professional development

Members of a profession-based community can help drive growth and performance . ERGs in particular can develop internal leaders, educate employees, and have a positive impact on retention for members of underrepresented groups. 

  • Sense of purpose

With a secure sense of belonging comes a sense of purpose, something people are increasingly searching for due to the pandemic . Belonging and purpose can help increase feelings of solidarity and fulfillment, which can be important both personally and professionally. And a strong sense of purpose can even help you live longer .

  • Alleviate stress

Communities can be a source of joy! Coming together physically or virtually, finding points of connection with others, and enjoying moments of celebration and camaraderie can leave us feeling engaged and refreshed. Those positive feelings may help lower stress and anxiety.

women-share-laugh-after-workout importance-of-community

  • New inspiration and ideas Immersing yourself in a group of individuals exposes you to a diversity of ideas, viewpoints, and personalities. There’s bound to be something new to learn or an unexpected thought to appreciate from your fellow members.
  • Empowered decision-making

An empowering environment comes out of mutual trust and respect, which speaks to the importance of community development. In a strong community, where people have opportunities to build each other up and develop trust, people feel greater confidence and engagement within the organization and on an individual level.

  • Better communication skills

Effective communication requires connecting to others, a key pillar of a community. Developing relationships with fellow community members is an exercise in listening and building meaningful rapport.  

  • Greater resilience Resiliency is a quality impacting the way people respond to and manage change.  Belonging to a community offers a form of support that provides a buffer against the stresses on resilience .

Start building your communities

Communities can take many different shapes, and they’re formed on the basis of all kinds of commonalities—including shared interests, geography, or identity.

At their best, being part of a group provides social connections , friendship, and practical and emotional support. They can help us see the world in new ways and provide needed perspective.

Community involvement can enrich the lives of the people on your teams and help individuals overcome the obstacles in their way.

We all need community. You can show the importance of community to your teams through your own example. Start looking for ways to get involved with the communities in your life.

Not sure where to start? The beauty of communities is that you can contribute just by participating. Just showing up can enrich your life, the lives of others, and build more resilient organizations and societies.

inclusive-leadership-report-cta

Maggie Wooll

Thought Leader

The power of professional learning communities

How betterup is committing to social impact through pledge 1%, the power of coaching: turning transitions into transformations, collective trauma: developing resilience in the aftermath, celebrating art, allyship, and authors for black history month, the connection crisis: infographic, mental health in the black community: access, safety, and well-being, lgbtqia+ folks still aren’t comfortable bringing their full selves to work, supporting healthcare workers and educators with 1:1 coaching, similar articles, “i feel like i don’t belong”: how to find your community, what is an employee resource group and why do they matter, tools for allyship and dealing with trauma and grief, how companies are using coaching to build connection, community, and commitment, why connection is crucial for employees of color, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

3100 E 5th Street, Suite 350 Austin, TX 78702

  • Platform Overview
  • Integrations
  • Powered by AI
  • BetterUp Lead
  • BetterUp Manage™
  • BetterUp Care™
  • Sales Performance
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Case Studies
  • Why BetterUp?
  • Career Coaching
  • Communication Coaching
  • Life Coaching
  • News and Press
  • Leadership Team
  • Become a BetterUp Coach
  • BetterUp Labs
  • Center for Purpose & Performance
  • What is coaching?
  • Leadership Training
  • Business Coaching
  • Contact Support
  • Contact Sales
  • Privacy Policy
  • Acceptable Use Policy
  • Trust & Security
  • Cookie Preferences

Stanford Social Innovation Review Logo

  • Arts & Culture
  • Civic Engagement
  • Economic Development
  • Environment
  • Human Rights
  • Social Services
  • Water & Sanitation
  • Foundations
  • Nonprofits & NGOs
  • Social Enterprise
  • Collaboration
  • Design Thinking
  • Impact Investing
  • Measurement & Evaluation
  • Organizational Development
  • Philanthropy & Funding
  • Current Issue
  • Sponsored Supplements
  • Global Editions
  • In-Depth Series
  • Stanford PACS
  • Submission Guidelines

What Is Community Anyway?

Our understanding of community can help funders and evaluators identify, understand, and strengthen the communities they work with.

  • order reprints
  • related stories

By David M. Chavis & Kien Lee May 12, 2015

“Community” is so easy to say. The word itself connects us with each other. It describes an experience so common that we never really take time to explain it. It seems so simple, so natural, and so human. In the social sector, we often add it to the names of social innovations as a symbol of good intentions (for example, community mental health, community policing, community-based philanthropy, community economic development).

But the meaning of community is complex. And, unfortunately, insufficient understanding of what a community is and its role in the lives of people in diverse societies has led to the downfall of many well-intended “community” efforts.

Communities Creating Health

Adding precision to our understanding of community can help funders and evaluators identify, understand, and strengthen the communities they work with. There has been a great deal of research in the social sciences about what a human community is (see for example, Chavis and Wandersman, 1990 ; Nesbit, 1953 ; Putnam, 2000 ). Here, we blend that research with our experience as evaluators and implementers of community change initiatives.

It’s about people.

First and foremost, community is not a place, a building, or an organization; nor is it an exchange of information over the Internet. Community is both a feeling and a set of relationships among people. People form and maintain communities to meet common needs.

Members of a community have a sense of trust, belonging, safety, and caring for each other. They have an individual and collective sense that they can, as part of that community, influence their environments and each other.

That treasured feeling of community comes from shared experiences and a sense of—not necessarily the actual experience of—shared history. As a result, people know who is and isn’t part of their community. This feeling is fundamental to human existence.

Neighborhoods, companies, schools, and places of faith are context and environments for these communities, but they are not communities themselves.

People live in multiple communities.

Since meeting common needs is the driving force behind the formation of communities, most people identify and participate in several of them, often based on neighborhood, nation, faith, politics, race or ethnicity, age, gender, hobby, or sexual orientation.

Most of us participate in multiple communities within a given day. The residential neighborhood remains especially important for single mothers, families living in poverty, and the elderly because their sense of community and relationships to people living near them are the basis for the support they need. But for many, community lies beyond. Technology and transportation have made community possible in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Communities are nested within each other.

Russian_Matryoshka_dolls

Just like Russian Matryoshka dolls, communities often sit within other communities. For example, in a neighborhood—a community in and of itself—there may be ethnic or racial communities, communities based on people of different ages and with different needs, and communities based on common economic interests.

When a funder or evaluator looks at a neighborhood, they often struggle with its boundaries, as if streets can bind social relationships. Often they see a neighborhood as the community, when, in fact, many communities are likely to exist within it, and each likely extends well beyond the physical boundaries of the neighborhood.

Communities have formal and informal institutions.

Communities form institutions—what we usually think of as large organizations and systems such as schools, government, faith, law enforcement, or the nonprofit sector—to more effectively fulfill their needs.

Equally important, however, are communities’ informal institutions, such as the social or cultural networks of helpers and leaders (for example, council of elders, barbershops, rotating credit and savings associations, gardening clubs). Lower-income and immigrant communities, in particular, rely heavily on these informal institutions to help them make decisions, save money, solve family or intra-community problems, and link to more-formal institutions.

Communities are organized in different ways.

Every community is organized to meet its members’ needs, but they operate differently based on the cultures, religions, and other experiences of their members. For example, while the African American church is generally understood as playing an important role in promoting health education and social justice for that community, not all faith institutions such as the mosque or Buddhist temple are organized and operate in the same way.

Global migration has led to an assortment of communities based on people’s needs and desire for that sense of trust, belonging, safety, and caring for each other. For example, one group of new immigrants may form a community around its need to advocate for better treatment by law enforcement. Another group may form a community around its need for spiritual guidance. The former may not look like a community, as we imagine them, while the latter likely will.

The meaning of community requires more thoughtfulness and deliberation than we typically give it. Going forward, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers must embrace this complexity—including the crucial impact communities have on health and well-being—as they strive to understand and create social change.

Support  SSIR ’s coverage of cross-sector solutions to global challenges.  Help us further the reach of innovative ideas.  Donate today .

Read more stories by David M. Chavis & Kien Lee .

SSIR.org and/or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and to our better understanding of user needs. By closing this banner, scrolling this page, clicking a link or continuing to otherwise browse this site, you agree to the use of cookies.

Facebook

The Community Essay

Ivy Divider

“Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke.” 

As with every essay you ship off to admissions – think about something you want admissions to know that hasn’t been represented. What can you expand upon to show your versatility, passion and ability to connect with the world around you?

About CEA HQ

View all posts by CEA HQ »

Written by CEA HQ

Category: Admissions , College Admissions , Essay Tips , Essay Writing , Supplemental Essays

Tags: admissions essay , admissions help , application , application supplement , applications , brainstorming , college admissions , college admissions essay , college application , college application help , college applications , college essay , common application , supplemental essays

Email

Want free stuff?

We thought so. Sign up for free instructional videos, guides, worksheets and more!

role in community essay

One-On-One Advising

Common App Essay Guide

Common App Essay Prompt Guide

Common App Essay Guide

Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

YouTube Tutorials

  • YouTube Tutorials
  • Our Approach & Team
  • Undergraduate Testimonials
  • Postgraduate Testimonials
  • Where Our Students Get In
  • CEA Gives Back
  • Undergraduate Admissions
  • Graduate Admissions
  • Private School Admissions
  • International Student Admissions
  • Common App Essay Guide
  • Supplemental Essay Guides
  • Coalition App Guide
  • The CEA Podcast
  • Admissions Stats
  • Notification Trackers
  • Deadline Databases
  • College Essay Examples
  • Academy and Worksheets
  • Get Started

Think you can get into a top-10 school? Take our chance-me calculator... if you dare. 🔥

Last updated April 21, 2023

Every piece we write is researched and vetted by a former admissions officer. Read about our mission to pull back the admissions curtain.

Blog > Essay Advice , Supplementals > How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you're applying to college, there's a good chance you'll be writing a Community Essay for one (or lots) of your supplementals. In this post, we show you how to write one that stands out.

This post is one in a series of posts about the supplemental essays . You can read our core “how-to” supplemental post here .

When schools admit you, they aren’t just admitting you to be a student. They’re also admitting you to be a community member.

Community supplemental essays help universities understand how you would fit into their school community. At their core, Community prompts allow you to explicitly show an admissions officer why you would be the perfect addition to the school’s community.

Let’s get into what a Community supplemental essay is, what strategies you can use to stand out, and which steps you can take to write the best one possible.

What is a Community supplemental essay?

Community supplemental essay prompts come in a number of forms. Some ask you to talk about a community you already belong to, while others ask you to expand on how you would contribute to the school you’re applying to.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

1: Rice University

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community. The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

2: Swarthmore College

Swarthmore students’ worldviews are often forged by their prior experiences and exposure to ideas and values. Our students are often mentored, supported, and developed by their immediate context—in their neighborhoods, communities of faith, families, and classrooms. Reflect on what elements of your home, school, or community have shaped you or positively impacted you. How have you grown or changed because of the influence of your community?

Community Essay Strategy

Your Community essay strategy will likely depend on the kind of Community essay you’re asked to write. As with all supplemental essays, the goal of any community essay should be to write about the strengths that make you a good fit for the school in question.

How to write about a community to which you belong

Most Community essay prompts give you a lot of flexibility in how you define “community.” That means that the community you write about probably isn’t limited to the more formal communities you’re part of like family or school. Your communities can also include friend groups, athletic teams, clubs and organizations, online communities, and more.

There are two things you should consider before you even begin writing your essay.

What school values is the prompt looking for?

Whether they’re listed implicitly or explicitly, Community essay prompts often include values that you can align your essay response with.

To explain, let’s look at this short supplemental prompt from the University of Notre Dame:

If you were given unlimited resources to help solve one problem in your community, what would it be and how would you accomplish it?

Now, this prompt doesn’t outright say anything about values. But the question itself, even being so short, implies a few values:

a) That you should be active in your community

b) That you should be aware of your community’s problems

c) That you know how to problem-solve

d) That you’re able to collaborate with your community

After dissecting the prompt for these values, you can write a Community essay that showcases how you align with them.

What else are admissions officers learning about you through the community you choose?

In addition to showing what a good community member you are, your Community supplemental essays can also let you talk about other parts of your experience. Doing so can help you find the perfect narrative balance among all your essays.

Let’s use a quick example.

If I’m a student applying to computer science programs, then I might choose to write about the community I’ve found in my robotics team. More specifically, I might write about my role as cheerleader and principle problem-solver of my robotics team. Writing about my robotics team allows me to do two things:

Show that I’m a really supportive person in my community, and

Show that I’m on a robotics team that means a lot to me.

Now, it’s important not to co-opt your Community essay and turn it into a secret Extracurricular essay , but it’s important to be thinking about all the information an admissions officer will learn about you based on the community you choose to focus on.

How to write about what you’ll contribute to your new community

The other segment of Community essays are those that ask you to reflect on how your specific experiences will contribute to your new community.

It’s important that you read each prompt carefully so you know what to focus your essay on.

These kinds of Community prompts let you explicitly drive home why you belong at the school you’re applying to.

Here are two suggestions to get you started.

Draw out the values.

This kind of Community prompt also typically contains some kind of reference to values. The Rice prompt is a perfect example of this:

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community . The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

There are several values here:

a) Collaboration

b) Enhancing quality of life

c) For all members of the community

d) Residential system (AKA not just in the classroom)

e) Sharing unique life experiences and cultural traditions with other students

Note that the actual question of the prompt is “What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community?” If you skimmed the beginning of the prompt to get to the question, you’d miss all these juicy details about what a Rice student looks like.

But with them in mind, you can choose to write about a life perspective that you hold that aligns with these five values.

Find detailed connections to the school.

Since these kinds of Community prompts ask you what you would contribute to the school community, this is your chance to find the most logical and specific connections you can. Browse the school website and social media to find groups, clubs, activities, communities, or support systems that are related to your personal background and experiences. When appropriate based on the prompt, these kinds of connections can help you show how good a fit you are for the school and community.

How to do Community Essay school research

Looking at school values means doing research on the school’s motto, mission statement, and strategic plans. This information is all carefully curated by a university to reflect the core values, initiatives, and goals of an institution. They can guide your Community essay by giving you more values options to include.

We’ll use the Rice mission statement as an example. It says,

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to pathbreaking research , unsurpassed teaching , and contribution to the betterment of our world . It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor.

I’ve bolded just a few of the most important values we can draw out.

As we’ll see in the next section, I can use these values to brainstorm my Community essay.

How to write a Community Supplemental Essay

Step 1: Read the prompt closely & identify any relevant values.

When writing any supplemental essay, your first step should always be to closely read the prompt. You can even annotate it. It’s important to do this so you know exactly what is being asked of you.

With Community essays specifically, you can also highlight any values you think the prompt is asking you to elaborate on.

Keeping track of the prompt will make sure that you’re not missing anything an admissions officer will be on the lookout for.

Step 2: Brainstorm communities you’re involved in.

If you’re writing a Community essay that asks you to discuss a community you belong to, then your next step will be brainstorming all of your options.

As you brainstorm, keep a running list. Your list can include all kinds of communities you’re involved in.

Communities:

  • Model United Nations
  • Youth group
  • Instagram book club
  • My Discord group

Step 3: Think about the role(s) you play in your selected community.

Narrow down your community list to a couple of options. For each remaining option, identify the roles you played, actions you took, and significance you’ve drawn from being part of that group.

Community: Orchestra

These three columns help you get at the most important details you need to include in your community essay.

Step 4: Identify any relevant connections to the school.

Depending on the question the prompt asks of you, your last step may be to do some school research.

Let’s return to the Rice example.

After researching the Rice mission statement, we know that Rice values community members who want to contribute to the “betterment of our world.”

Ah ha! Now we have something solid to work from.

With this value in mind, I can choose to write about a perspective that shows my investment in creating a better world. Maybe that perspective is a specific kind of fundraising tenacity. Maybe it’s always looking for those small improvements that have a big impact. Maybe it’s some combination of both. Whatever it is, I can write a supplemental essay that reflects the values of the university.

Community Essay Mistakes

While writing Community essays may seem fairly straightforward, there are actually a number of ways they can go awry. Specifically, there are three common mistakes students make that you should be on the lookout for.

They don’t address the specific requests of the prompt.

As with all supplemental essays, your Community essay needs to address what the prompt is asking you to do. In Community essays especially, you’ll need to assess whether you’re being asked to talk about a community you’re already part of or the community you hope to join.

Neglecting to read the prompt also means neglecting any help the prompt gives you in terms of values. Remember that you can get clues as to what the school is looking for by analyzing the prompt’s underlying values.

They’re too vague.

Community essays can also go awry when they’re too vague. Your Community essay should reflect on specific, concrete details about your experience. This is especially the case when a Community prompt asks you to talk about a specific moment, challenge, or sequence of events.

Don’t shy away from details. Instead, use them to tell a compelling story.

They don’t make any connections to the school.

Finally, Community essays that don’t make any connections to the school in question miss out on a valuable opportunity to show school fit. Recall from our supplemental essay guide that you should always write supplemental essays with an eye toward showing how well you fit into a particular community.

Community essays are the perfect chance to do that, so try to find relevant and logical school connections to include.

Community Supplemental Essay Example

Example essay: robotics community.

University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (Required for all applicants; minimum 100 words/maximum 300 words)

From Blendtec’s “Will it Blend?” videos to ZirconTV’s “How to Use a Stud Finder,” I’m a YouTube how-to fiend. This propensity for fix-it knowledge has not only served me well, but it’s also been a lifesaver for my favorite community: my robotics team(( The writer explicitly states the community they’ll be focusing on.)) . While some students spend their after-school hours playing sports or video games, I spend mine tinkering in my garage with three friends, one of whom is made of metal.

Last year, I Googled more fixes than I can count. Faulty wires, misaligned soldering, and failed code were no match for me. My friends watched in awe as I used Boolean Operators to find exactly the information I sought.(( The writer clearly articulates their place in the community.)) But as I agonized over chassis reviews, other unsearchable problems arose.

First((This entire paragraph fulfills the “describe that community” direction in the prompt.)) , there was the matter of registering for our first robotics competition. None of us familiar with bureaucracy, David stepped up and made some calls. His maturity and social skills helped us immediately land a spot. The next issue was branding. Our robot needed a name and a logo, and Connor took it upon himself to learn graphic design. We all voted on Archie’s name and logo design to find the perfect match. And finally, someone needed to enter the ring. Archie took it from there, winning us first place.

The best part about being in this robotics community is the collaboration and exchange of knowledge.((The writer emphasizes a clear strength: collaboration within their community. It’s clear that the writer values all contributions to the team.))  Although I can figure out how to fix anything, it’s impossible to google social skills, creativity, or courage. For that information, only friends will do. I can only imagine the fixes I’ll bring to the University of Michigan and the skills I’ll learn in return at part of the Manufacturing Robotics community((The writer ends with a forward-looking connection to the school in question.)) .

Want to see even more supplemental essay examples? Check out our college essay examples post . 

Liked that? Try this next.

post preview thumbnail

How to Write Supplemental Essays that Will Impress Admissions Officers

post preview thumbnail

How to Write a College Essay (Exercises + Examples)

post preview thumbnail

Extracurricular Magnitude and Impact

"the only actually useful chance calculator i’ve seen—plus a crash course on the application review process.".

Irena Smith, Former Stanford Admissions Officer

We built the best admissions chancer in the world . How is it the best? It draws from our experience in top-10 admissions offices to show you how selective admissions actually works.

Private Prep

Test Prep, Tutoring, College Admissions

How to Write the “Community” Essay

A step-by-step guide to this popular supplemental prompt.

role in community essay

When college admissions officers admit a new group of freshmen, they aren’t just filling up classrooms — they’re also crafting (you guessed it) a campus community. College students don’t just sit quietly in class, retreat to their rooms to crank out homework, go to sleep, rinse, and repeat. They socialize! They join clubs! They organize student protests! They hold cultural events! They become RAs and audition for a cappella groups and get on-campus jobs! Colleges want to cultivate a thriving, vibrant, uplifting campus community that enriches students’ learning — and for that reason, they’re understandably curious about what kind of community member they’ll be getting when they invite you to campus as part of their incoming class.

Enter the “community” essay — an increasingly popular supplemental essay prompt that asks students to talk about a community to which they belong and how they have contributed to or benefited from that community. Community essays often sound something like this:

University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (250 words)

Pomona College: Reflecting on a community that you are part of, what values or perspectives from that community would you bring to Pomona?  (250 words)

University of Rochester: Spiders are essential to the ecosystem. How are you essential to your community or will you be essential in your university community? (350-650 words)

Swarthmore: Swarthmore students’ worldviews are often forged by their prior experiences and exposure to ideas and values. Our students are often mentored, supported, and developed by their immediate context—in their neighborhoods, communities of faith, families, and classrooms. Reflect on what elements of your home, school, or community have shaped you or positively impacted you. How have you grown or changed because of the influence of your community? (250 words)

Yale: Reflect on a time when you have worked to enhance a community to which you feel connected. Why have these efforts been meaningful to you? You may define community however you like. (400 words)

Step 1: Pick a community to write about

Breathe. You belong to LOTS of communities. And if none immediately come to mind, it’s only because you need to bust open your idea of what constitutes a “community”!

Among other things, communities can be joined by…

  • West Coasters
  • NYC’s Koreatown
  • Everyone in my cabin at summer camp
  • ACLU volunteers
  • Cast of a school musical
  • Puzzle-lovers
  • Powerlifters
  • Army brats who live together on a military base
  • Iranian-American
  • Queer-identifying
  • Children of pastors

Take 15 minutes to write down a list of ALL the communities you belong to that you can think of. While you’re writing, don’t worry about judging which ones will be useful for an essay. Just write down every community that comes to mind — even if some of them feel like a stretch.

When you’re done, survey your list of communities. Do one, two, or three communities jump out as options that could enable you to write about yourself and your community engagement? Carry your top choices of community into Step 2.

Step 2: Generate content.

For each of your top communities, answer any of the following questions that apply:

  • Is there a memorable story I can tell about my engagement with this community?
  • What concrete impacts have I had on this community?
  • What problems have I solved (or attempted to solve) in this community?
  • What have I learned from this community?
  • How has this community supported me or enriched my life up to this point?
  • How have I applied the lessons or values I gleaned from this community more broadly?

Different questions will be relevant for different community prompts. For example, if you’re working on answering Yale’s prompt, you’ll want to focus on a community on which you’ve had a concrete impact. But if you’re trying to crack Swarthmore’s community essay, you can prioritize communities that have impacted YOU. Keep in mind though — even for a prompt like Yale’s, which focuses on tangible impact, it’s important that your community essay doesn’t read like a rattled-off list of achievements in your community. Your goal here is to show that you are a generous, thoughtful, grateful, and active community member who uplifts the people around you — not to detail a list of the competitions that Math club has won under your leadership.

BONUS: Connect your past community life to your future on-campus community life.

Some community essay prompts ask you — or give you the option — to talk about how you plan on engaging with community on a particular college campus. If you’re tackling one of those prompts (like Pomona’s), then you guessed it: it’s research time!

Often, for these kinds of community prompts, it will serve you to first write about a community that you’ve engaged with in the past and then write about how you plan to continue engaging with that same kind of community at college. For example, if you wrote about throwing a Lunar New Year party with international students at your high school, you might write about how excited you are to join the International Students Alliance at your new college or contribute to the cross-cultural student magazine. Or, if you wrote about playing in your high school band, you might write about how you can’t wait to audition for your new college’s chamber orchestra or accompany the improv team for their improvised musicals. The point is to give your admissions officer an idea of what on-campus communities you might be interested in joining if you were to attend their particular school.

Check out our full College Essay Hub for tons of resources and guidance on writing your college essays. Need more personalized guidance on brainstorming or crafting your supplemental essays? Contact our college admissions team.

Caroline Hertz

What Is Your Role In Your Community? [See How To Make A Change]

what is your role in your community - lmshero

Your role in your community includes commitment and passion for others .

Commitment to being a responsible member and passion for helping others, especially the younger ones, mold their sense of responsibility.

In this article, I will discuss the community, your role, and the benefits of playing a role in your community.

Let’s get started.

How do you define a community?

Some people define a community as not a place but a connection among a group. In this group, people have a common sense of organization, trust, safety, and care for each other.

Nevertheless, a community is a physical location where a group has something in common . This could be heritage, culture, geographical location, or even a shared government.

Every community operates differently, whether to maintain a culture or to meet its members’ needs.

What is your role in the community?

Being an adult in a community means that you are a role model to many younger ones. Below is a list of roles you ought to play;

1. Being a good neighbor

neighbor - lmshero

Being a good neighbor to those around you plays a huge part in the community’s success. Your responsibilities include ensuring you make less noise, tidying your garden, and properly disposing of your garbage.

You can also connect with others from your workplace, place of worship, or neighborhood association to build friendships. In return, these people would also be helpful and friendly to you.

2. Getting involved in local or volunteer activities

volunteer - lmshero

Volunteering for various communal activities is another huge role you should play. This way, you make the community a better place while building trust and support among each other.

You can assist the organization with various volunteer work such as administrative tasks, safety, and security. Also, you can help with small clean-ups at the market or shops in the community.

3. Shop locally

Supporting local businesses is another way to ensure your money goes back into the community. This way, you keep business in your area booming while also creating some room for more employment for others.

Visit farmers in your community to get fresh products and buy clothes from local shops instead of big chain shops. Also, try eating at local restaurants or franchises around you.

4. Helping the schools

You can also help with the coursework if you have kids in school. Many schools offer events for students, and these events require funds.

You can help the school organize books, toys, or even food sales to raise funds. These funds may be used for several reasons, such as getting new equipment or field trips.

Furthermore, you can also bring your ideas or volunteer to help with event organization.

5. Looking after the environment

This is an important role to play. Contact any law enforcement agency if you notice anything odd or out of place.

Additionally, you can look out for the community by promoting awareness of the need for recycling. Recycling is done to reduce the energy and cost of getting raw materials from the earth.

What are the benefits of playing your roles in the community?

When you play your part in the development of the community, there are several benefits for you. They include;

1. Self-growth

You grow both mentally and physically in a healthy society. Furthermore, you associate with new friends, which is important for self-growth.

2. Networking and connection

Participating in various community activities helps you build better relationships with others. You meet people with the same interest in making the world a better and safer place.

These people could be great allies and help you further in your work later in life.

3. It can inspire and lead to a new passion

Fostering a deeper level of sensitivity for your community could play a huge role in inspiring new passion.

In some cases, voluntary work has taught many people leadership, paving the way for them to try politics.

4. Increases your self-confidence

Helping the community develop provides you with a sense of self-accomplishment.

Also, it gives you pride, identity, and self-confidence. And the better you feel, the more positive you feel about yourself and your future goals.

What is your role as a student in the community?

Your role as a student in the community is to seek knowledge and wisdom and then use them to develop yourself and the community .

What is the role of the community to the member?

The role of the community toward its members is to ensure their safety and create opportunities for all.

What is the role of youth in the community?

Your role in the community is to m aintain the status quo of society and communicate ideas to the current leaders to make life better for others .

In conclusion, your role in the community is multifaceted and essential to its growth and development. By actively participating in initiatives and activities, you can contribute to the betterment of your community through volunteering your time, resources, and skills.

Through these actions, you build a strong sense of civic responsibility and belonging, inspiring others to get involved and make a positive impact.

Whether mentoring a child, supporting local businesses, or organizing a charity drive, each small act of kindness and contribution can create a ripple effect that benefits the community.

As you continue to invest in your community, you foster a more empathetic, supportive, and vibrant environment that enriches the lives of all its members.

I hope you enjoyed this article; if you did, you should also see an understanding of professional learning communities .

Thanks for reading.

You may also like:

  • What Are Social Skills? [Definition, Types & Benefits]
  • 10 Essential Tips on How to Have Better Social Skills
  • Discover 10 Reasons Why Interpersonal Skills are Important for You
  • What Are People Management Skills: See 15 Ways To Demonstrate People Management Skills
  • How To Create And Sell Profitable Online Courses

People Also Read:

mandatory meeting - lmshero

Mandatory Meeting: Meaning, Purpose, Challenges, Implementation Strategies

ethically challenging situations - lmshero

Ethically Challenging Situations: Types, Examples, & Frameworks

what does of mean in math - lmshero

What Does “Of” Mean in Math: Meaning, Usage, Misconceptions, & Tips 

profession-vs-job - LMSHERO

Profession Vs Job: Key Differences, Similarities, And FAQs

do you need a front license plate in california - lmshero

Do You Need A Front License Plate In California?

institute and institution - lmshero.com

Institute Vs. Institution: Major Comparisons

The Role of Communities in People’s Life Essay

Definition of the community, etymology, and the role of community, loiza. puerto rico.

First of all, it is necessary to mention, that the amount of the definition of the word community several times overcomes the amount of the known dictionaries, as there are usually several definitions in each dictionary, and various researches define various etymology and origin of the word. Thus, Encyclopedia Britannica gives the following definitions:

  • A grouping of people living in an identical area and under the same supervision.
  • The region or vicinity in which such a group lives.
  • A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
  • A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color.
  • Similarity or identity: a community of interests.
  • Sharing, participation, and fellowship.

But despite such a great variety, all the definitions agree on the key meaning of the word, stating, that community means agreement or similarity.

The community was felt to be more instant than society, and it is usually regarded as an effort to differentiate the body of straight relations from the prearranged organization of the state. From the 19th century, the sense of immediacy or vicinity was powerfully expanded in the context of larger and more multifaceted industrial societies. It has been connected by the community (French) and Gemeinde or Gemeinschaft (German) to express particular kinds of relationships.

“Community” has been “the tenderly influential statement to explain an existing set of relations; or the affectionately influential word to explain an option set of relations. It looks like never to be used unfavorably and by no means to be given any optimistic contrasting or unique term.

The intricacy of the term “community”: recounts the tricky communication between the tendencies initially differentiated in the chronological expansion: on the one hand the meaning of direct ordinary apprehends; alternatively – the manifestation of different shapes of ordinary association.

As for the required community of Loiza in Puerto Rico, it is necessary to mention, that this area is regarded as the most well-known cultural and traditional destination point. It is a town that was abandoned for many years, but as tourists started discovering the rich inheritance and mesmerizing impression of Loiza, this destination in Puerto Rico started experiencing a new lease on life. Even though lots of inhabitants of Loiza live in poverty, their natural spirit for life and their approval of each day is exciting, particularly throughout the Fiestas Patronales.

Thus, talking on the issues of the role of the community, the only fact that is worth attention is that Puerto Rican communities inspire the whole world not to be desperate, and value every moment of life, as life is the most precious thing, that people possess. It is the only, and that is why such things as diets, wealth, career, realty, etc are transient, and life should be viewed as the greatest ever precious.

The influence of the community on the lives of the people, living in the regarded community is great. But speaking on the matters of community interaction, it is necessary to emphasize, that interaction itself is impossible without the participation of people. Thus, interaction is also claimed to change the lives of people, by changing the customs and traditions of the original community.

As for the Loiza, it is originally interlinked with the neighboring communities of Puerto Rico, and other Latin American societies. First of all, it is caused by the hot blood of the Hispanic population, the openness for interaction and communication among each other. Loiza is a destination point in Puerto Rico that has history, festivity, great beaches, amazing sights, culture, and out-of-this-world nature adventures. It is a town that should not be judged by its size on a map, but the size of its spirit. The philosophers have noticed long ago, that the spirit of the place always influences the spirit and the soul of the people, who live there, that is why it is possible to faultlessly judge, that the communities, which broadly interact with the Loiza Puerto Rican community areas openhearted and cheerful as the inhabitants of Loiza itself.

Another fact that is worth mentioning, is the closeness of the other recreational areas, which are less expensive and popular than Loiza but not less attractive. These are Carolina, Rio Grande, Trujilio Alto, Fajado and Ceiba.

Loiza – A Cultural Hub and Ideal Tourist Destination 2007 Loiza. Puerto Rico. Web.

Puerto Rico Vacation Rentals 2006. Web.

Loiza (Puerto Rico) 2004. Web.

Henrietta Yurchenco 1998 The Fiesta of Santiago in Loiza Aldea, Puerto Rico: A Caribbean Version of a 13th Century Spanish Pageant the City College of New York.

Rios de Puerto Rico 2003. Web.

  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, September 19). The Role of Communities in People’s Life. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-role-of-communities-in-peoples-life/

"The Role of Communities in People’s Life." IvyPanda , 19 Sept. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-role-of-communities-in-peoples-life/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'The Role of Communities in People’s Life'. 19 September.

IvyPanda . 2021. "The Role of Communities in People’s Life." September 19, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-role-of-communities-in-peoples-life/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Role of Communities in People’s Life." September 19, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-role-of-communities-in-peoples-life/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Role of Communities in People’s Life." September 19, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-role-of-communities-in-peoples-life/.

  • Etymology: Definition, History, Functions
  • History of Puerto Rican Immigration to New York
  • African Influence in Music of Puerto Rico
  • Quality of Life and Community Action in Puerto Rico
  • US Immigration: Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Philippines
  • Frontotemporal Dementia: Causes and Etymology
  • Discrimination in Puerto Rico
  • Comparative Education: Colombia and Puerto Rico
  • Puerto Rico under Spanish Rule
  • History of Puerto Ricans’ migration
  • Migrant Acculturation and Adaptation
  • The Nature of Contemporary Communication Theory
  • Power of Effective Communication
  • Arguments for Western Civilization
  • How Instant Messages Have Changed Communication

role in community essay

Search form

role in community essay

  • Table of Contents
  • Troubleshooting Guide
  • A Model for Getting Started
  • Justice Action Toolkit
  • Coronavirus Response Tool Box
  • Best Change Processes
  • Databases of Best Practices
  • Online Courses
  • Ask an Advisor
  • Subscribe to eNewsletter
  • Community Stories
  • YouTube Channel
  • About the Tool Box
  • How to Use the Tool Box
  • Privacy Statement
  • Workstation/Check Box Sign-In
  • Online Training Courses
  • Capacity Building Training
  • Training Curriculum - Order Now
  • Community Check Box Evaluation System
  • Build Your Toolbox
  • Facilitation of Community Processes
  • Community Health Assessment and Planning
  • Section 1. Learning How to Be a Community Leader

Chapter 14 Sections

  • Section 2. Developing and Communicating a Vision
  • Section 3. Discovering and Creating Possibilities
  • Section 4. Understanding People's Needs
  • Section 5. Building and Sustaining Commitment
  • Section 6. Influencing People
  • Section 7. Building and Sustaining Relationships
  • Section 8. Learning From and Contributing to Constituents
  • Section 9. Making Decisions
  • Section 10. Overcoming Setbacks and Adversity
  • Main Section

What is a community leader? Are you one?

Community leaders take responsibility for the well-being and improvement of their communities. Are you a community leader? Are you interested in becoming one? Try answering the questions in this leadership quiz. Are you someone who:

  • Wants to improve your community?
  • Has something to contribute?
  • Doesn't wait around for someone else to get the job done?

If you have answered "yes" to any of the above questions, you are most likely a community leader already, or on your way to becoming one. You don't have to run for office or be given a title to be a leader. All you need to do is decide to take responsibility for some corner (or bigger chunk) of your community.

Community leaders are often self-appointed. Even people who run for office first make a decision that they want to be a leader. You can probably take as much responsibility for your community as you are willing to.

Many community leaders learn by trial and error. That's not a bad way to go; people mostly learn from experience. Nonetheless, flying by the seat of your pants can be a bumpy ride. So why not get some help along the way?

Why should you be a community leader?

Why should you be a community leader? Leadership can be good for you. In fact, many people enjoy leading. You don't have to lead out of obligation. You can choose to lead and participate in ways that energize you and help you grow, instead of leading in ways that drain you. You can choose to work on issues that you care about. You can take on challenges that are fun, rewarding, or interesting. It's up to you.

Let's take a closer look at what you can gain from being a leader:

You can make a difference

Do you ever daydream that you are the one to save the day? Perhaps you are the passerby who dives into the water to rescue a drowning child. Maybe you are the person who deftly persuades the terrorist to put down the gun, just in the nick of time. It is human to want to make a significant difference in the world. And you can.

The day-to-day acts of community leadership are usually not as dramatic as described above, and they usually don't inspire a chorus of recognition. Still, as a community leader, you can make a profound contribution. Establishing a day care center, increasing job opportunities in your community, getting rid of a toxic waste dump, or empowering others to lead are all activities that are heroic in their own way.

When Isis Johnson of New Orleans was four years old she saw a news report about starving children in Ethiopia which made her feel the need to act. At five, with her grandmother at her side, she went knocking on doors asking for food donations for poor people in her community. When she was six she collected 1,600 items to give to people in need. The next year, she collected 4,000 items. When Hurricane Andrew hit she collected 1,648 pieces of clothing to send to people affected by the storm. Shortly after the hurricane, Isis's grandmother suggested she start a foundation. With the help of her grandmother and a lawyer she established the Isis Johnson Foundation. Isis was then eight years old. (from Karnes and Bean, Girls and Young Women Leading the Way , 1993.)

We may not all establish our own foundations by the time we are eight, but we can make a significant difference if we put our minds to it. Doing so can be infinitely satisfying.

You can grow

Often, people lead because it helps them grow and expand their lives. There is almost nothing as challenging as leading groups of people. As a leader, you may need to communicate to large numbers of people, negotiate, and handle dicey situations. You will become more confident in yourself and in your world if you take action to lead others around you.

Many successful leaders started without confidence or skills. Some people that are leaders today once had a hard time saying anything in a small group. If you are a shy person, take heart. You're not alone. You can figure out how to make your voice heard. It just takes some practice.

Leadership skills are built step-by-step. No matter what your skills are right now, you can become a better leader if you work at it. You may find yourself doing things you never imagined you would!

We need many community leaders

There is room in this world for more community leaders. The model of one leader at the top with everyone else at the bottom just doesn't work for communities. One or two leaders can't possibly solve all the complex problems that our communities face. With more community leaders, our communities will do better.

The more people become leaders, the more problems we will solve. We need community leaders to think about and organize around many issues: youth development, economic growth, substance use, crime, the environment, health care -- the list goes on and on. Each issue will require a troop of skilled leaders to handle them. We need leaders who are women, young people (we were all young once), people of color, low -income people, immigrants, people with disabilities and many others that have been told that they should follow others, not lead. We need leadership from all walks of life in order for ours to be a truly democratic society.

How will all those leaders work together? That is a skill that community leaders need to learn. We all have to learn to cooperate. We all need to put aside longings for turf, status, and power in order to achieve goals that benefit everyone.

Here are some community leadership examples:

  • A citizen speaks up at the city council open meeting. Her words reveal the key issue regarding a local problem; the resulting discussion leads to a workable solution
  • A few people in the neighborhood successfully organize to protest the cutting down of trees by the city
  • A family member generates a plan to help a loved one to stop smoking, enlisting the support of other family members
  • A young person organizes a kick-the-can game after dinner on the block

Of course, having a title can be useful, at times. The following are some examples of community leadership carried out by leaders who have formal positions or titles.

  • A group of ministers creates an anti-drug initiative in the community
  • A teacher periodically invites his students' parents to a potluck dinner to talk about school issues
  • A member of the city council proposes a task force to provide services for homeless people
  • The president of the high school drama club organizes students to do a play that addresses racial conflict among teens

What is true about all of the examples above is simply this: One or more people took responsibility for their communities.

When should you lead?

You can always lead. As we've said earlier, you can "lead" whether you are the designated leader or not. You can always think and act like a leader.

For example, while you are sitting in a committee meeting you can think about what will help move the group forward. Does the designated leader need some encouragement? Do people need a nudge to follow through? Do you need to take an unpopular stand on an issue?

People are hungry for others to help. If you take initiative to improve a situation, you will almost always delight, relieve, and surprise people.

You don't have to take over someone's leadership role in order to help things go well. In fact, one way of helping a group function better is by supporting the official leader. You can do this by organizing others to help with the work, by listening to the leader, and by encouraging the leader when she or he feels discouraged.

How do people learn how to lead?

Do you have to be a "born leader" in order to lead.

No. People learn how to lead. Even the people who seem to do it naturally had to learn the skills of leadership. They might have learned by watching their parents, teachers, or clergy. They might have been given a lot of responsibility when they were young and might have been expected to take charge. They might even have taken classes in "leadership development."

The point is this: If you don't feel that you are a "born" leader, don't let that stop you. You can become a leader by:

  • Jumping in and practicing
  • Observing others lead
  • Finding a mentor
  • Taking a class or workshop
  • Reading books about leaders and leadership
  • Remembering that people who are now successful leaders, once weren't leaders at all

Below is a list of what community leaders do. You don't have to be able to do all of these things right now. But most likely you are already doing some of them. You can pick up other skills as you go.

Dream big to create your personal vision

Maybe you didn't think that day dreaming was part of being a leader. Well, it is ! In fact, day dreaming is one of the first things you need to do as a leader.

If you are going to be a leader, it is necessary to dream big for yourself and for what you want to accomplish.

Lili Fini Zanuck, a film director and producer, said, "Nothing happens without a dream. The daydreaming mind will wander to something greater than the conscious mind could ever have imagined. The more you visualize your dream, the more you understand it. That's how you begin. Soon you're on the road to realizing your dream."

Young people often have big hopes and dreams for what they can do to improve their worlds. If each one of us could remember our dreams as children, we might recall that we had some ideas too.

Try these exercises: Interview a young person. Ask him or her what they would do to change the world if they could. Ask them what they wish were different. Try to remember when you were a teenager. What did you want to change in the world? Put aside practical considerations and fears. Brainstorm a list of dreams you would like to see come true.

So how do you take your dream and make it a reality?

You can start by creating your own personal vision statement. You put your dream into words that communicate to others a picture of what you want to do. Organizations have vision statements; and you, as a leader, can have your own vision statement, too.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Now that's a vision statement!

Now it's your turn. Write out a few sentences of how you want some part of your world to be. Your vision statement will remind you of where you want to be going. As you wade through the day-to-day tasks of community organizing, sometimes without recognition or encouragement, remember to, "keep your eyes on the prize."

Listen to people

Listen to what people have to say. You need their thoughts and input. They will grow in confidence and become more engaged if they know their opinions are valued.

Even the most difficult people have some important things to say. We just have to learn to listen well enough to find the kernels of truth among all the chaff.

Decide that you are the person to take responsibility for your community

You have to make a decision to lead and view yourself as a community leader. No one else can contribute what you can. You have a point of view that no one else has. You have a set of skills that is unique. Your corner of the world will be different if you decide to act on its behalf.

Give your vision a sharper image. Turn up the focus . Set some long-term and short term goals. That is how you carve a real path to your vision.

For example, if your vision is: "To create a community where every person can enjoy city parks in safety," then you might set goals like these:

Long-term goals:

  • Create more city parks
  • Reduce crime in city parks

Short-term goals:

  • Find out where the city parks are, who uses them, and what the crime levels are
  • Establish good working relationships with community police officers and park officials
  • Identify what actions might reduce park-related crime
  • Decide whether it will be preferable to start a new organization or work through existing organizations

Think about the individuals in the group

As a leader, you need to think about how each individual is affecting the group. Are there individuals whose talents are not being well used? Is someone acting in a way that is divisive or is draining the group of its energy? Is there a person who needs some help learning how to work in a team?

Think about the group as a whole

Someone has to think about the group as a whole. Is the group cohesive? Do people in the group have a shared vision? Is there trust and a sense of mutual support? Does the group need some training to help it function better? Are there some policies the group needs to strengthen it?

Propose programs and policies

Groups need direction and policies to keep them moving towards their goals. You don't have to be a dictator to make proposals. You can make proposals, then listen to people's responses and then make appropriate changes. Someone needs to take responsibility for moving the whole group forward.

Get the work done

Someone has to wade through the mud and do whatever it takes. This includes getting others to help, and making sure that all the bases are covered so that the job gets done right; when need be, it also means printing out labels, cleaning up the kitchen, making those extra phone calls, staying up late, or getting up very early.

Recruit and teach others to become leaders

Last, but not least: One of the central and long-term jobs of a community leader is to develop other leaders. Developing leaders is how we build a strong community of individuals that can work together to achieve goals. It is the basis for how a democracy works.

Developing leadership is a way you can have a legacy behind you – people who will continue to advance your cause and your goals after you have left the scene.

Community leaders should spend a good chunk of their time recruiting, encouraging, training, mentoring, and supporting others to become leaders.

Here are some steps you can take:

  • Find people who have leadership potential. There are people all around you who would love to be invited to lead something.
  • Help people view themselves as leaders. You can do this by helping them notice the informal leadership they have already taken in their lives. Are they parents? – that is certainly a leadership position.
  • Help people identify the reasons they want to lead. Listen to people talk about what is important to them and what they wish they could change.
  • Assist people to choose leadership goals that are attainable and that will help them build their confidence. Nothing succeeds like success.
  • Support people while they work to reach their goals. Listen to them talk about their successes and their feelings of discouragement; appreciate them and encourage them to keep going.
  • Support people when they make mistakes. Everybody needs help when they make mistakes. Help them get on the right track and encourage them to stick with it.
  • Challenge people to take the next step.

Leadership development is a long-term investment. Often community leaders have to put the development of other leaders ahead of achieving short-term goals. For example, it may be more important to take the risk of letting a relatively inexperienced person chair a small meeting and acquire new skills. If the meeting gets messy, perhaps that is not so bad. Leadership development is not a tidy endeavor.

So now we have a preliminary job description for a community leader. Does it seem overwhelming? Remember: You don't have to know how to do all these things when you start. You have the rest of your life to master them.

What are some qualities of successful community leaders?

You don't have to be a perfect human being to be a community leader, either. That's good, since none of us are. But it might be helpful for you to know a few of the characteristics that successful community leaders often have:

  • Integrity: To trust you, people have to know that you say what you believe and act accordingly. If people trust you, they may follow you to the ends of the earth.
  • Courage : It's okay to shake in your boots, but someone has to go slay that dragon, and it might as well be you. Leadership means that you show others the way through the dark, scary, forest. Go ahead and speak the truth--even when it's not popular.
  • Commitment : You have to stick with a task through the good times and the bad. Your commitment will serve as a model.
  • Ability to care about others : People will follow you if they know you care about them and about others. The greater your ability to care about all types of people, the more confidence they will have in you.
  • Creativity and flexibility : Every situation will call for a different response. Be ready to change and come up with new solutions.

Those are a few qualities of successful leaders. What are other leadership characteristics that you think are important?

Getting and giving support as a leader

All leaders need support from others to help them keep growing and get through the fears and discouragement they face. Also, leaders sometimes feel isolated in their jobs; they need others to listen to their thinking, and they need to listen to others' ideas.

You can develop relationships with people for sharing your leadership successes, discouragement, and for processing the pile of information you are exposed to in your leadership role. You can set up a regular time where you and another person or group of people can talk about being a leader.

This process can be informal and unstructured. However, sometimes a little structure in a leadership group can be helpful.

Here are some suggestions for leadership groups:

  • Start the meeting with each person having a chance to talk about what is going well – this starts you out with a positive tone.
  • Give each person a chance to talk about their leadership without being interrupted and without being given advice. Five to ten minutes works well. (This provides people a period of time to follow their own train of thought from beginning to end.)
  • What have you accomplished in the last period of time? (week, month)
  • What is the state of your group or organization?
  • Where do you have difficulties as the leader?
  • What are your goals during the next period of time?

A word on emotions

All humans that live in the modern age get stressed out now and then. And the demands of leadership can pile on even more stress.

Leaders have to figure out how to handle emotions due to the stress of their jobs. You might feel crabby after a day of dealing with a myriad of problems. In fact, the more challenges you take on as a leader, the more emotional fallout you may experience, and it isn't surprising that it becomes harder to think straight.

Under stress, we may all become frozen or confused in our fears, worries, and discouragement. When that happens it is easy to react without thinking. Sometimes our feelings cause us to avoid taking actions when actions are called for. Sometimes our fears drive us to act in ways that are unworkable.

It is not unusual for people in leadership positions to deal with built-up emotions by hurting themselves. We all are familiar with people who take drugs or alcohol, overeat, smoke, get sick, etc., when stresses get too overwhelming. Most of us have struggled with these issues ourselves.

But you are too important to let bad feelings damage you. Your own well-being is at least as important as the causes and people you are fighting for. Don't wait until you are in trouble before you deal with your emotions.

So, what do you do when stresses build-up? One thing you can do is unload them. Find someone you can talk to about what is going on. Tell someone what gets hard for you. If you get some good attention, then you can cast off some of the weight that hangs on you. You may feel renewed in your commitment and more able to think afresh about those difficult problems.

Talking helps. So does crying and laughing. A good cry or hearty laugh with a coworker or friend can clear a space in your brain to sort out some of those knotty problems.

And chances are, if you can tell someone else what is going on for you, they will be more than happy to come to you when they need some help. In fact, when you ask for help you are modeling effective leadership.

Here is a more formal version of the listening exercise described above: Find a friend or coworker you trust. Ask your friend to listen to you without giving advice or interrupting. Ask them to not judge you for your feelings. Ask them to keep your conversation confidential. Take a specific amount of time to talk. Ask the listener if they would like a turn to talk when you are finished. Setting up listening exchanges may feel awkward and embarrassing at first. Listening well to what people have to say is different from everyday conversation. The exercise above will take some practice, but it will definitely help you to think more clearly and feel more positive about the work you are doing.

It's just possible that community leadership is a job that is made for you. Remember, you are the one, and the only one, who can decide what kind of responsibility you would like to take to make sure things go well in your corner of the world.

Go ahead and dare to take hold of your dreams and do the work that is meaningful to you. You have the ability to make significant changes in the lives of the people with whom you work, live, and play. Don't deny the universe your unique contribution.

Online Resources

Am I a Transformative Leader? prompts 10 “yes” or “no” questions to determine if the respondent is a transformational coalition leader.

Biography of John Gardner  and  John W. Gardner Center  provide information and links related to a great teacher of leadership.

10 Concise Qualities of Great Community Leaders  is an Infographic by Mother Nature Network.

Four Types of Community Leaders  contains short descriptions of each type and what they have to offer, by Covering Communities.

A thorough  Guide for Conducting Community Leader Interviews , compiled by New Jersey Library Trustee Institute.

The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership  provides resources for understanding the principles and practices of servant leadership.

The Leadership Challenge  is a learning community with discussion forums that incorporate activities to analyze your own leadership experiences and style.

The Leadership Learning Community  is a national organization of people who run, fund, study and provide service to leadership development programs. "Knowledge Pools" and Learning Circles are offered in addition to resources.

CIO Magazine has a helpful article on " Total Leadership ."

Print Resources

Axner, M. (1993).  The community leadership project curriculum . Pomfret: CT. The Topsfield Foundation.

Gardner, J. (1990).  On leadership . New York, NY. The Free Press.

Jackins, H. (1987). The enjoyment of leadership . Seattle: Rational Island Publishers.

Kahn, S.  (1991). Organizing: A guide for grassroots leaders . Anapolis JCT, MD. NASW Press.

Karnes, F., &  Bean, S.(1993). Girls and young women leading the way: 20 true stories about leadership . Minneapolis, MN. Free Spirit Publishing, Inc.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Duke University

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

role in community essay

How to Write the Community Essay for UPenn

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Vinay Bhaskara and Aja Altenhof in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Writing about diversity, consider unconventional identities and perspectives, navigating the word count.

The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) requires applicants to submit supplemental essays in addition to the main Common App essay . For the second supplemental essay, UPenn asks students to respond to the following prompt:

How will you explore community at Penn? Consider Penn will shape your perspective and identity, and how your identity and perspective will help shape Penn. (150-200 words)

This article provides some tips to help you craft your response to this essay prompt, including strategies to avoid common topics, as well as tips to navigate the short word limit.

When approaching this prompt, many students first think to write about diversity, equity, and inclusion. While this topic can work in some cases, it is important to note that this prompt is not inherently about diversity. It is first and foremost a space to showcase the best parts of yourself outside of the classroom that will positively impact, and thrive within, the UPenn community.

Students who have a unique or interesting approach to answering this question typically tend to be the most successful when it comes to writing about diversity for this prompt. If you are interested in writing about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but your topic is not nuanced or particularly strong, you can consider other strategies and topics for this essay.

One strategic way to choose a topic for this prompt is by being unconventional in how you define your perspective or identity, especially when you consider your mindset and elements of your personality. 

As you consider your perspective, it can be helpful to explore how that perspective has been defined through your experiences. For example, depending on your background, you could consider what it is like to go through life as an athlete, as a journalist, or as a debater. 

Keep in mind that you will ultimately have to consider how that perspective impacts your engagement with the community around you, and the personality and values that you bring to the table.

In truth, this supplemental essay may be the trickiest of the three UPenn essays to write. This is because you have to address both parts of the prompt, how UPenn is going to shape your perspective or identity, and how your identity and perspective will shape UPenn, all within just 200 words. There are a few useful tactics that you can employ to help navigate this essay’s short word count.

One trick you can use to help you navigate this essay is by using a “call and response structure.” In this structure, you describe a trait that you have and then, within the same sentence, articulate a behavior or an outcome that this trait will cause on campus. You can also use this structure in the opposite way, to highlight an aspect of Penn’s campus experience and the way in which it will impact your own identity or perspective.

Furthermore, because this essay is on the shorter side, it can be difficult to tell a full story within it. That said, you certainly can hint at an anecdote or an experience that relates to the value, unique perspective, and opportunities and experiences that you will bring with you to UPenn.

For more information on writing UPenn’s supplemental essays, check out our post on How to Write the UPenn Supplemental Essays 2022-2023 .

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

role in community essay

JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.

Importance of Local Community Action in Shaping Development

Importance of Local Community Action in Shaping Development

Introduction

The need for local participation and the organization of local residents to meet the challenges facing their communities is of increasing importance. Extension professionals and policy-makers are more frequently faced with the task of establishing programs in settings characterized by conflict among different groups of stakeholders with very different needs, values, and policy preferences. In many communities, these conflicts are often rooted in differences between groups that seek to protect community quality and those that seek to exploit local resources (especially the local workforce and natural resource base) as a means of achieving economic development. Equally common is the consistent transfer of responsibilities for services from government agencies to the private community sector. Such conditions have resulted in local residents taking on a greater role in providing services and planning for future needs.  In response to the pressures and changes in our communities, activists, grassroots social change organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and coalitions of concerned community groups have emerged to shape and guide the development process. Similarly organized local residents have played instrumental roles in identifying new development options in localities that historically were presented with few such options. Small scale civil society organizations (SCSOs) sometimes develop in communities with holistic responses to community needs (McGovern, 2013; Olson and Brennan, 2018; Olson and Brennan, 2017). These and other types of community-based action in these and other settings is seen as essential to community development and to the social and economic well-being of the locale.

Community and the Action Process

The emergence of community involves both interaction among residents and community action.  Community action refers to the process of building social relationships in pursuit of common community interests and maintaining local life (Wilkinson, 1991).  Community action is seen as being the foundation of the community development process because it encompasses deliberate and positive efforts designed to meet the general needs of all local residents.  This process represents multiple and diverse interests in the locality, and consequently provides a more comprehensive approach to community development (Wilkinson, 1991). Therefore, the action process is intended to benefit the entire community and to cut across divides that may exist (class, race, social), often arising from an emotional or social need (Phillimore & McCabe, 2015).

In the process of community development, local action focuses on the improvement of social well-being and involves people working together in pursuit of their general interests.  This power is manifested in the ability of individuals to come together and work toward common goals. When diverse individuals and their organizations interact with one another, they begin to mutually understand the needs and wants that are common to all residents (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, and Luloff, 2011; McGovern, 2013; Phillimore & McCabe, 2015).  Such action provides local residents with the ability to retain community identities, maintain local control over decision-making, and address their own development needs. It is a central component of community and social well-being.

The existence of community action directs attention to the fact that local people acting together often have the power to transform and change their community (Gaventa, 1980; Bridger, Brennan, and Luloff, 2011; Olson and Brennan, 2018; Olson and Brennan, 2017; McGovern, 2013). Community action and corresponding development can be seen as the process of building relationships that increase the adaptive capacity of local people within a common territory.  This adaptive capacity is reflected in the ability of people to manage, utilize, and enhance those resources available to them in addressing their local issues (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, and Luloff, 2011; Luloff and Bridger, 2003; Phillimore & McCabe, 2015; McGovern, 2013). As long as people care about each other and the place they live, every community has the potential for such collective action.  This ability allows distinctions to be made between simple aggregates of people and actual communities.

The Community Action Process

To impact social well-being, community action must seek the development of community, not simply the individual elements within it (Summers, 1986; Christenson and Robinson, 1989; Wilkinson, 1991; McGovern, 2013; Olson and Brennan, 2018; Olson and Brennan, 2017). The community action process can be seen as containing far more than simple individual actions and efforts (Wilkinson, 1991; Seyfang & Smith, 2007; McGovern, 2013). Most effective action efforts proceed through a series of steps that focus on solving specific problems and bringing residents closer together.  Five stages of accomplishment, including initiation, organization of sponsorship, goal setting, recruitment, and implementation, can be identified within this process (Wilkinson, 1970; Wilkinson, 1991):

The first stage, initiation, focuses on promoting awareness of the issue related to the action. Initiation and spread of interest occur when community members recognize and define an issue as being a problem or need, and begin to discuss it as a potential focus for group action.

The second stage focuses on the organization of sponsorship. This step addresses the structures, organizations, and resources available within and outside of the community.  Such factors are important in relation to assessing community needs and the development of action efforts to address perceived problems.

The third stage is goal setting and strategy development. This stage develops targets for action and identifies strategies for achieving community decided goals.

The fourth stage is recruitment and mobilization of needed resources including people, money, and materials.  Community members possess a variety of experience, skills, funding, materials, networks, and other resources vital to achieving desired community goals.  Organizing and maximizing these resources significantly impacts the success of community action efforts.

The final stage involves the application of these resources in the implementation of plans to achieve the desired goals.  At this stage, specific actions are taken, assessed, adjusted, and implemented again.

Community action and the emergence of community should not be seen as representing romantic or idealized notions of local harmony and solidarity (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, and Luloff, 2011; Luloff and Bridger, 2003; McGovern, 2013; Olson and Brennan, 2018; Olson and Brennan, 2017). The truth is that focused and deliberate action represents something far different. Action emerges out of interaction between diverse social groups, who often have clashing or at least distinctly different points of view. Interaction facilitates the coming together of such groups to assess their common and general needs. From this they form plans for action that benefit all involved, and ultimately the community in general.

The importance of organizing diverse local residents to help shape local development cannot be overstated.  By providing a comprehensive assessment of local conditions that represents all segments of the community, more efficient and successful programs can be developed.  The input and guidance from local residents allows development to build on the unique conditions and character of the community and allow local decision making to remain in the locale.  All of these create an environment where active local residents directly shape the community and its well-being.

Bridger, J.C., Brennan, M.A., and Luloff, A.E. 2011. "The Interactional Approach to Community", Chapter 9, p. 85-100 included in J. Robinson and G. Green (eds.), New Perspectives in Community Development. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press.

Christenson, J. A. and J. W. Robinson. 1989. Community Development in Perspective. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.

Gaventa, J. 1980. Power and Powerlessness:  Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Luloff, A.E., and J. Bridger. 2003.  Community Agency and Local Development.  Pp. 203-213 in, Challenges for Rural America in the Twenty-First Century, edited by D. Brown and L. Swanson. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

McGovern, Pauline. 2013. "Cross-sector partnerships with small voluntary organizations: some reflections from a case study of a mutual support group." Voluntary Sector Review 4 (2): 223-240.

Olson, B. and Brennan, M.  2018. "From Community Engagement to Community Emergence: The Holistic Program Design Approach."  International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. 5(1): 5-19. 

Olson, B. and Brennan, M. 2017.  "From Community Engagement to Community Emergence:  A Conceptual Framework and Model to Rethink Youth-Community Interaction".  In:  The Comprehensive Handbook for Community Development. R. Phillips and B. McGrath, Editors. Taylor & Francis Publishers. 

Phillimore, J., & McCabe, A. 2015. Small-scale civil society and social policy: the importance of experiential learning, insider knowledge and diverse motivations in shaping community action. Voluntary Sector Review, 6(2), 135-151.

Seyfang, G., & Smith, A. 2007. Grassroots innovations for sustainable development: Towards a new research and policy agenda. Environmental politics, 16(4), 584-603.

Summers, G. 1986. "Rural Community Development." Annual Review of Sociology. 12:341-371.

Wilkinson, K. 1970. "Phases and roles in community action." Rural Sociology. 35 (1): 54-68.

Wilkinson, K. 1991. The Community in Rural America. New York, NY: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Useful Websites and Resources

Center for Economic and Community Development

Center for Regional Development

The Community Development Society

Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development

Southern Rural Development Center

UNESCO Chair in Community, Leadership, and Youth Development Program at Penn State

Mark Brennan

  • Community and Leadership Development
  • International Development
  • Research Methods and Statistics
  • Social Change/Social Movements
  • Rural Sociology
  • Environmental/Natural Resource Sociology

You may also be interested in ...

Extension Memories of the Twentieth Century

Extension Memories of the Twentieth Century

Understanding Community Engagement

Understanding Community Engagement

Photo credit: The Climate Reality Project with free to use license from www.unsplash.com

Identifying Local Power Structures to Facilitate Community Development

Group of young activists in a meeting; Photo credit: Antenna with free to use license from www.unsplash.com

Empowering Your Community, Stage 1: Initiation

Source: pixabay.com

Cómo ser un Líder Comunitario

Photo credit: CDC with free to use license from www.unsplash.com

A Community Approach to Disaster Preparedness and Response

Grant Writing: How to Find Funds and Write a Winning Proposal

Grant Writing: How to Find Funds and Write a Winning Proposal

In recognition of their work in eradicating Plum Pox Virus, research and industry partners received a USDA award. Pictured is Jim Lerew, one of the local growers recognized in the ceremony.

Plum Pox Eradication in PA - A Blueprint for Future Plant Disease Outbreaks

Apple PGRs - Prevention of Preharvest Drop in Apple Orchards

Apple PGRs - Prevention of Preharvest Drop in Apple Orchards

Plum Pox Virus - Replanting Stone Fruit in Sites Previously Affected by PPV

Plum Pox Virus - Replanting Stone Fruit in Sites Previously Affected by PPV

Personalize your experience with penn state extension and stay informed of the latest in agriculture..

  • Share full article Share free access

Advertisement

Supported by

As Buses of Migrants Arrive in Chicago Suburbs, Residents Debate the Role of Their Towns

In recent weeks, buses have been bypassing the city for its smaller outlying communities, where people are unaccustomed to the flow of newcomers.

Several people in dark shirts stand at tables and pack brown paper bags.

By Julie Bosman

Reporting from Wilmette, Ill.

In different times, the tiny brick Metra station in the town of Wilmette in suburban Chicago was just a place where commuters grabbed lattes and waited on black metal benches before boarding trains to the city.

These days, it has also become a welcome center of sorts for migrants.

Large cardboard boxes full of coats, hats and gloves are tidily arranged along one wall. Volunteers are working there daily, accepting donations of socks, puffy North Face jackets, snow pants and bars of soap. When busloads of migrants are dropped off in Wilmette — where their chaperones help them catch trains to downtown Chicago to be transferred to a shelter — they are first met by volunteers at the Wilmette station and given a few essentials.

The migrant crisis in Chicago is intensifying well beyond the city limits. For more than a month, city officials said, buses from Texas have avoided Chicago entirely, dropping hundreds of migrants in suburbs that have been given no warning that they are en route. In December, Chicago enacted penalties for bus operators who drop off passengers outside of designated times and locations or without a permit. The dynamic has played out elsewhere as well, sending some migrants to New Jersey suburbs of New York City.

As the suburban drop-offs near Chicago have grown in number, residents who are concerned about the well-being of the migrants have raised funds and collected supplies. Many municipalities have quickly passed rules limiting buses similar to the restrictions set in Chicago, hoping to stay out of the fray. And some suburban residents are approaching their elected officials with growing alarm, making their feelings clear: We don’t want any part of the migrant crisis.

In Wilmette, a town of 27,000 people where the median household income is about $183,000, dozens of residents have mobilized to help the migrants with clothing and other needs before they board trains for the so-called landing zone in downtown Chicago, where they are then routed to shelters around the city.

Jessica Leving Siegel, a nonprofit marketing consultant, lugged trash bags around the Metra station one evening last week and directed fellow volunteers. Ms. Leving Siegel, who wore a messy bun and a maroon T-shirt printed with the words “We are all refugees,” has organized clothing drives and helped migrants make money by shoveling snowy sidewalks in Wilmette.

“What I would like is for us to become the suburban landing zone,” she said.

Perhaps the town could also find landlords willing to rent to migrant families, she suggested. Or volunteers in Wilmette could open a “free store” modeled after those in Chicago that offer donated items to asylum seekers in need.

If Chicago is overwhelmed by the flow of migrants, Ms. Leving Siegel said, there should be a role for suburban communities, too.

“We clearly have so many people who want to help,” she said. “Instead of just saying, ‘As we shuffle you onto the Metra, we’ll throw a coat on you,’ I think there is a lot more that we could do.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago, who leads a city of 2.7 million people, has signaled that he wants other Illinois cities to help accommodate the newly arrived migrants.

On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson said he would like Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a fellow Democrat, to set up new shelters for migrants outside of Chicago. While there are already 28 shelters in the city, Mr. Johnson said Chicago’s resources are stretched by the number of new migrants in its care — more than 14,000, at last count — and he has no plans to create more shelters.

“Shelters do not have to solely be set up and built in the city of Chicago,” Mr. Johnson said . “The state can do it wherever they want.”

Oak Park, a city just west of Chicago, has devoted hundreds of thousands of dollars to support migrants, including federal funds, and last week it extended shelter aid for another month. Other suburbs have seemed far less eager to become involved.

Mayor Mike Turner of Woodstock, Ill., said that he felt sympathy for the migrant families who were unexpectedly dropped off in his town in late December and then transported on a commuter train to Chicago, about an hour to the southeast.

But Mr. Turner, who described himself as “a bleeding-heart-liberal conservative” in charge of a diverse city with a sizable Latino population, said the issue came down to resources.

“There’s folks who think, well, maybe we should be doing more,” he said. “We all agree that these people matter because they’re human beings. But we don’t have the ability to manage immigration long term.”

Woodstock, like many other small towns, does not have homeless shelters or a robust government infrastructure that could provide housing or other significant needs to migrants from Venezuela, the country where most asylum seekers have come from.

When Mr. Turner talks to other mayors in the Chicago area, he said, “We all agree that this is not something that we, as smaller municipalities, can manage.”

Mary May, a spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Management and Communications in Chicago, said that the last bus to drop newly arrived migrants in the city was on the night of Dec. 25. Because it violated city rules about drop-off hours and notification requirements — the bus was impounded, causing some to wonder if bus operators were now reluctant to enter Chicago. A similar phenomenon has played out in New Jersey, as busloads of migrants bound for New York City have been dropped in the suburbs to skirt city rules.

A spokesman for Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican who has pressed to send new migrants to cities like Chicago, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Buses are still allowed to take migrants to downtown Chicago, provided they follow the city’s rules, leading some people to wonder why the suburban drop-offs are becoming the norm.

“I think it’s just to cause more problems, to cause more confusion,” said Michele Carney, a volunteer with the nonprofit Nuevos Vecinos, as she picked up a surplus of donated items in Wilmette that she intended to bring back to migrants in the city. “They’re driving past Chicago to get all the way up to Wilmette. Why?”

In Naperville, a prosperous suburb of Chicago that is the fourth-largest city in Illinois, one City Council member has pushed back on the notion that any public funds should be used to support asylum seekers.

Josh McBroom, who describes himself as politically conservative, dryly suggested at a recent council meeting that Naperville residents who are in favor of helping migrant families were welcome to host them in their own homes.

In an interview, Mr. McBroom said that no one has taken him up on his idea so far.

Instead, he said, the unspoken wish by many residents is for migrants to leave Naperville as quickly as they arrive. “Get on the train, go to Chicago, nice to meet you but keep moving,” he said, voicing what he believes to be a dominant attitude in town.

Ida Fiore, a volunteer from Lake Forest, Ill., who has helped organize care packages for migrants, said that ever since a busload of migrants arrived in nearby Highland Park in December, city officials and residents have worked to gather supplies for them.

The migrant crisis that has been increasingly visible in Chicago since late 2022 — with families sitting on sidewalks in the Loop and other neighborhoods, asking for money on cardboard signs — has felt more distant in the suburbs until recently, she said.

“The crisis is so obvious in the city,” Ms. Fiore said. “We’re asking ourselves, ‘What is the housing scenario for these people? Can a suburb provide any support and relief in the long term?’ And we all look at each other and have a lot more questions than answers.”

Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest. More about Julie Bosman

A prestigious cancer institute is correcting dozens of papers and retracting others after a blogger cried foul

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has requested the retraction of six studies and corrections in another 31 papers after a scathing critique drew attention to alleged errors a blogger and biologist said range from sloppiness to “really serious concerns.” 

The allegations — against top scientists at the prestigious Boston-based institute, which is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School — put the institute at the center of a roiling debate about research misconduct, how to police scientific integrity and whether the organizational structure of academic science incentivizes shortcuts or cheating. 

The criticism also spotlights how artificial intelligence is playing a growing role in catching sloppy or dubious science.  

The allegations, which concern image duplications and manipulations in biomedical research, are similar to concerns aired last year against former Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who stepped down after an investigation . 

A biologist and blogger, Sholto David centered attention on Dana-Farber after he highlighted problems in a slew of studies from top researchers.

In early January, David detailed duplications and potentially misleading image edits across dozens of papers produced primarily by Dana-Farber researchers, writing in a blog post that research from top scientists at the institute “appears to be hopelessly corrupt with errors that are obvious from just a cursory reading.”

After the publication of David’s blog, Dr. Barrett Rollins, the institute’s integrity research officer, said in a statement emailed Wednesday that Dana-Farber scientists had requested that six manuscripts be retracted, that 31 manuscripts were in the process of being corrected and that one manuscript remained under examination. 

Rollins added that some of the papers flagged by David had already come up in “ongoing reviews” conducted previously by the institute.

“The presence of image discrepancies in a paper is not evidence of an author’s intent to deceive,” Rollins said. “That conclusion can only be drawn after a careful, fact-based examination which is an integral part of our response. Our experience is that errors are often unintentional and do not rise to the level of misconduct.”

Ellen Berlin, a communications director at Dana-Farber, wrote in an email that the allegations all concerned pure, or basic, science, as opposed to studies that led to cancer drug approvals. 

“Cancer treatment is not impacted in any way in the review of the Dana-Farber research papers,” Berlin wrote.

David is one of several sleuth scientists who read journal articles to seek out errors or fabrications. He compared his hobby to playing a game like “spot the difference” or completing a crossword.

“It’s a puzzle,” David said in an interview, adding that he enjoys looking at figures that show results of common biology experiments, like those involving cells, mice and western blots, a laboratory method that identifies proteins. 

“Of course, I do care about getting the science right,” he said.

Scientific errors in published work has been a focal point in the scientific community in recent years. The website Retraction Watch, a website that tracks withdrawn papers, counts more than 46,000 papers recorded in its database . The organization’s record of withdrawn work stretches back into the 1970s. A 2016 Nature article said more than 1 million papers in the biomedical field are published each year.  

The website PubPeer , which allows outside researchers to post critiques of research that has been peer-reviewed and printed in journals, is a popular forum for scientists to flag problems. David said he has written more than 1,000 anonymous critiques on the website. 

David said a trail of questionable science led him to Dana-Farber. In a prior investigation , David scrutinized the work of a Columbia University surgeon. He found flaws in the work of collaborators of the surgeon, which ultimately drew his attention toward the leadership team at Dana-Farber. 

David said he went through the leadership page of Dana-Farber’s website, checking the work of its top scientists and leaders. 

He found a slew of image errors, many of which could be explained by sloppy copy-paste work or a mix-up, but also others where images are stretched or rotated, which is more difficult to explain. Some errors were previously identified on PubPeer by other users. David combined those previous concerns with his own findings in a blog post taking aim at the institute. The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, was first to publish a news story about the accusations . 

David said images of mice in one paper looked like they had been digitally altered in ways that appeared intentional and could skew takeaways from the paper.  

“I don’t understand how that would come as an accident,” David said. 

Most of the errors are “less serious” and might have been accidents, he said. Still, the rash of mistakes, to David, indicates a broken research and review process if no one caught them before publication. 

“When you spot a duplication, that’s a symptom of a problem,” David said. 

Elisabeth Bik, a scientist who investigates image manipulation and research misconduct, said David’s work was credible.

“The allegations he’s raising are exactly the same thing I would raise. They’re spot on,” Bik said. 

Bik, who has been doing this type of sleuthing for about 10 years, said she is often frustrated by the lack of response from academic institutions when she flags errors. She said she was glad to see that Dana-Farber responded and had already taken proactive steps to correct the scientific record. 

“I’m very pleasantly surprised that the institute is taking action. I hope they will follow through with publishers,” Bik said. “I’ve reported many of these cases where nothing happened.”

In scientific communities, image manipulations have been under close watch, particularly after Stanford University’s Tessier-Lavigne stepped down from his post as the institution’s president after criticism of his past work in neuroscience. 

Tessier-Lavigne said he was cleared of fraud or falsifying data himself, but a probe found that members of his lab had inappropriately manipulated research data or engaged in “deficient scientific practices,” according to a report from a panel of outside researchers who evaluated the case. 

The report said Tessier-Lavigne’s lab culture rewarded junior scientists whose work produced favorable results and marginalized those who did not, a dynamic that could have caused young scientists to manipulate results and chase favor. 

Outside researchers said that type of culture is not uncommon at top institutions, where ambitious professors can lead sprawling laboratories with dozens of graduate students who are eager to please their superiors and who know publishing a splashy paper could rapidly advance their careers. 

Some scientists have grown increasingly concerned that limited opportunities for young scientists and a problematic system for publishing scientific work has incentivized corner-cutting for careerism. 

“There’s lots of incentive to produce mounds of research and publish in these high impact journals to make your name,” said Dr. Ferric Fang, a microbiologist and professor at the University of Washington. “We’re incentivizing this kind of behavior.”

Problems with images published in research are widespread. 

In a 2016 article published in the American Society of Microbiology , Bik and Fang evaluated images from more than 20,600 articles in 40 biomedical journals from 1995 to 2014. They found that about 3.8% of the journal articles contained “problematic figures” and that at least half of those had elements that were “suggestive of deliberate manipulation.” 

New tools are helping institutions and sleuths alike root out mistakes and potential misconduct. David used a program called ImageTwin to identify some of the questionable figures from Dana-Farber researchers. 

The artificial-intelligence-powered software can ingest a study, analyze its images and in about 15 seconds compare them against one another and also against about 50 million scientific images in its database, according to the ImageTwin’s co-founder Patrick Starke. 

The software has been commercially available since 2021. Starke, who is based in Vienna, said a few hundred academic organizations are using the tool to identify problems before publication. 

“It’s great if it’s caught and retracted, and it’s even better if it’s not published,” said Starke, who envisions the program used in academics with the same frequency as plagiarism checking tools that analyze text.

But Starke said it will be a challenge to stay ahead of those who cut corners or cheat. Studies have already shown that AI programs can generate realistic looking figures of common experiments like western blots, Starke said. His company is developing tools to look for AI-generated patterns in research images.

“If photos of faces can be realistically made by AI, it’s probably happening already in scientific literature,” Bik said. “That’s the next level of cheating. I’m not sure if we’re even ready for that.”

Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News. He can be reached at [email protected].

role in community essay

2024 Essay Contest

The Honorable Robert A. Katzmann Justice For All: Courts and the Community Initiative & the Appellate Courts Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association In Honor of Second Circuit Judge Rosemary S. Pooler

Home    |   2024 Essay Contest

In honor of Judge Rosemary S. Pooler and the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown , the theme for this year’s essay contest is “70 years of Brown v. Board of Education : The Promise of Equal Protection of the Laws.” Consistent with this theme, students are asked to consider how the federal courts have interpreted and applied Brown since that decision was rendered, and to think critically about how the principles motivating that decision and the decision itself have influenced and continue to influence individuals, communities, and American society.

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 following the Civil War, includes the Equal Protection Clause, which provides that the state shall not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

In Brown v. Board of Education , 347 U.S. 483 (1954), decided 70 years ago this year, the Supreme Court ruled that state laws that segregated students based on race violated the Equal Protection Clause. In so holding, the Supreme Court overruled an earlier decision in Plessy v. Ferguson , which held that if public facilities were equal, racial segregation did not violate the Equal Protection Clause.

In articulating its landmark decision in Brown, the Supreme Court explained that it “must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation[,]” and could not view the problem before it by “turn[ing] the clock back to 1868 when the [Equal Protection Clause] was adopted, or even to 1869 when Plessy v. Ferguson was written.” According to the Court:

[E]ducation is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

The Court went on to explain that racial segregation is harmful in and of itself. Separating students “from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” And this “feeling of inferiority” may affect certain children’s ability to learn and deprive them of the benefits they would otherwise receive from their education.

The Court concluded that,

in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed

Decisions informing Brown or that apply Brown:

  • United States v. Carolene Prod. Co. , 304 U.S. 144 (1938): In Carolene Products Company , the Supreme Court recognized that “prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities” thus requiring judicial intervention.
  • San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez , 411 U.S. 1 (1973): In Rodriguez , the Supreme Court upheld Texas’s system of financing public schools through property tax assessments, which created a disparity in resources between wealthier and poorer tax districts, against a challenge under Brown and the Equal Protection Clause. In reaching this decision, the Court reasoned that “where wealth is involved, the Equal Protection Clause does not require absolute equality or precisely equal advantages.”
  • Grutter v. Bollinger , 539 U.S. 306 (2003): In Grutter , the Supreme Court held that “student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions” at least to a limited extent. The Court recognized that the benefits of diversity in an educational setting included enabling students to better understand persons of different backgrounds, and that a diverse student body helped make classroom discussion “livelier, more spirited, and simply more enlightening and interesting”.
  • Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll. , 600 U.S. 181 (2023): In Students for Fair Admissions, the Supreme Court held that Harvard College’s and the University of North Carolina’s admission policies, which gave preference to certain applicants solely based on their race, were unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court reasoned that the contested admission policies “further[ed] stereotypes that treat individuals as the product of their race, evaluating their thoughts and efforts—their very worth as citizens—according to a criterion barred to the Government by history and the Constitution”, thus contradicting the “core purpose” of Brown and the Equal Protection Clause.

You may want to consider one or more of the following prompts:

  • Now, 70 years later, do you think that Brown’s promise of fully integrated public education has been achieved? If not, what else needs to be done?
  • What does it mean to afford individuals “equal protection of the laws”?
  • Brown concerned discrimination in school based on race. Do you think that students today face discrimination in school for reasons other than race? What can be done to change that?
  • Are there circumstances under which the federal judiciary should not let popular views or positions influence its decision making? If so, what are they? If not, why not?
  • When should the Supreme Court overrule prior cases, as it did when it overruled Plessy v. Ferguson in Brown ?
  • What types of diversity are meaningful in an educational setting?
  • Are there other benefits like public education that we think are so important that they should be provided on an equal basis as a matter of right?
  • In order to put their rulings into effect, judges often issue orders that require people or organizations to do certain things. Imagine you are a judge issuing an order to your school. What would you order to make your school a fairer place

Who May Enter : The contest will be open to high school students in New York. Students attending public, private, parochial, and charter schools, as well as home-schooled students of equivalent grade status, are all invited to participate. Note: Children of federal judges or federal judiciary employees are not eligible to participate.

Entry Information : Entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. on April 26, 2024. Essays must be submitted electronically as a PDF to [email protected] . Please submit the contest entry form, available here , as a separate PDF in your email. Please do not put your name on your essay .

Judging : Judging will be based on the following criteria:

  • Understanding of Brown v. Board of Education and how the federal courts have interpreted and applied Brown since that decision was rendered
  • Analysis of how the principles motivating the Brown decision and the Brown decision itself have influenced and continue to influence individuals, communities, and American society
  • Clarity and effectiveness in expressing the theme
  • Grammar, spelling, and composition
  • First place: $1,000
  • Second place: $400
  • Third place: $100

Winners will be presented with their awards at a federal courthouse. Additionally, the first-place essay will be published by the New York County Lawyers Association’s Appellate Courts Committee.

Release Forms : Contest finalists will be required to submit a release form allowing the Second Circuit to publish their essays in print publications and on public court websites (student essays published on public websites or documents intended for circulation to the public will be identified only by students’ initials).

Disqualification : Providing false information, failure to adhere to contest rules, plagiarism, off-topic essays, and failure to meet the submission deadline are all grounds for disqualification.

Essay Contest Flyer

These are just a few suggested resources. Students are encouraged to utilize other resources they may find as well.

  • Brown v. Board of Education
  • United States v. Carolene Products
  • San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez
  • Grutter v. Bollinger
  • Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College

https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/resource/conversation-constitution-brown-v-board-education

https://landmarkcases.c-span.org/Case/8/Brown-v.-Board-of-Education

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/brown-v-board-of-education-of-topeka

role in community essay

U.S. Court of Appeals Library Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse 40 Foley Square New York, NY 10007

role in community essay

(212) 857-8930

role in community essay

Justice For All: Courts and the Community.

  • International edition
  • Australia edition
  • Europe edition

Sholto David: ‘… the expectation is that the scientists who do this research have high standards and are very careful in what they do.’

‘A lot of it is sloppiness’: the biologist who finds flaws in scientific papers

Sholto David has flagged thousands of papers, most because of concerns over potential image manipulation

W hen Sholto David quit his job last autumn he could have looked for another post, taken time out to travel, or grabbed his tent and hopped on his bike. But David, a biologist living in Pontypridd, Wales , threw his efforts into a somewhat obscure hobby: finding flaws in scientific papers and doing his best to have them rectified.

The work, David says, is largely thankless. Academics often got defensive about their studies or refused to respond to his criticisms. Journal editors took a similar tack, ignoring his letters, rejecting them, or investigating on timescales bordering on the glacial.

But then came an announcement . Last week, one of the most prestigious cancer centres in the US, the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said it was seeking to retract six research papers and correct 31 more after David raised concerns in a blog about dozens of its studies. Many were conducted by top executives at the institute.

Of the rest of the papers David flagged, Dr Barrett Rollins, the integrity research officer at Dana-Farber, said one remained under investigation and three required no further action. Sixteen contained data generated in other laboratories and where possible, the heads of those labs had been contacted. “We will work with them to see that they correct the literature as warranted,” he said.

The move came as a “major surprise”, David said. “To the credit of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, I’m obviously glad they are going to do the corrections and retractions. But at the same time, it does leave a sour taste in the mouth. Most of the time this just doesn’t happen. People ignore you, institutions insist it takes years to do investigations, and journals drag their feet at every opportunity.”

According to Rollins, following usual practice to “review any potential data error and make corrections when warranted”, the institute had already taken “prompt and decisive action” in 97% of the cases David had flagged where its scientists were primary authors. Rollins himself is an author of some of the papers flagged and had been recused from any relevant investigations.

David, who did a PhD in molecular biology at Newcastle University, has long been fascinated by flaws in science. He started off finding errors in systematic reviews, meta-analyses and clinical trials, which he would flag to the scientists responsible and the journals that published them. When those efforts proved fruitless, he turned to posting on PubPeer , a website where scientists can comment on published papers.

It became more than a pastime. The biologist has flagged about 2,000 papers on PubPeer, most because of concerns about potential image manipulation. At first, he identified cases by eye, looking for duplications and questionable manipulations that stretch images, crop out specific features, or splice parts together. Now, he has help from Imagetwin, AI-based software that compares images with a database of more than 25m pictures that have appeared in open access journals.

“A lot of it is sloppiness and my thought is that people have higher expectations,” David said. “When people think about science, when they donate to science and cancer campaigns, the expectation is that the scientists who do this research have high standards and are very careful in what they do.”

The flurry of retractions and corrections follows a major project in 2021 which found that researchers could reproduce results from only half of the top pre-clinical cancer studies they looked at. In many cases, when the experiments were repeated, any positive outcomes were far smaller than originally claimed. “Maybe part of that is because the work being done isn’t high quality,” David said. “It all eventually filters through to a lack of replicability.”

David stopped short of alleging wrongdoing and stressed that he did not want to create an environment where scientists felt harassed or terrified of publishing. But equally, he said, repeated errors were troubling.

“How many errors are acceptable before we think something more worrying is happening?” he said. “If you comb through a lot of people’s papers you will find errors, but there has to be, at some point, a limit to how many sloppy mistakes you make before it’s something else, that it’s not something you can dismiss as an honest error.”

Rollins said: “The presence of image discrepancies in a paper is not evidence of an author’s intent to deceive. That conclusion can only be drawn after a careful, fact-based examination, which is an integral part of our response. Our experience is that errors are often unintentional and do not rise to the level of misconduct.”

As for David, he thinks he will return to more conventional work in a year or two. “I’m just spending some savings,” he said. “Maybe this year I’ll do some travelling. I sound well off, but I’m not. I’m just stretching my meagre savings and it’s cheap rent out here.”

  • Medical research

More on this story

role in community essay

Scientists call for review of UK’s 14-day rule on embryo research

role in community essay

Gut microbes may play role in social anxiety disorder, say researchers

role in community essay

Blood test to determine organ age could help predict disease risk

role in community essay

UK medicines regulator approves gene therapy for two blood disorders

role in community essay

AI could predict heart attack risk up to 10 years in the future, finds Oxford study

role in community essay

‘An exciting time’: US eye operation is just latest leap forward for transplants

role in community essay

Eating red meat twice a week may increase type 2 diabetes risk, study finds

role in community essay

Monkey survives for two years with pig kidney in ‘extraordinary milestone’

role in community essay

People may suffer ‘long colds’ more than four weeks after infection, study shows

Most viewed.

IMAGES

  1. How to Write the Community Essay: Complete Guide + Examples

    role in community essay

  2. Essay On Helping The Community

    role in community essay

  3. 💐 Community essay ideas. Community Essay Examples. 2022-10-04

    role in community essay

  4. Role Model Essay Example

    role in community essay

  5. How to Get Your Community Service Essay Crafted

    role in community essay

  6. 🌈 What is community essay. What Is A Community Definition Essay. 2022-11-26

    role in community essay

VIDEO

  1. Article on topic CO-Education

  2. Community Assignment

  3. Approaches to the study of Community Development in Urdu and English with Examples

  4. Reading: What is a Community?

  5. Role of Education, Literature and Society in the Current Global Scenario (Covid-19)

  6. The Problem With Applying to College

COMMENTS

  1. How to Write the Community Essay + Examples 2023-24

    UW Community Essay Example Analysis. This student also manages to weave in words from the prompt ("family," "community," "world," "product of it," "add to the diversity," etc.). Moreover, the student picks one of the examples of community mentioned in the prompt, (namely, a religious group,) and deepens their answer by ...

  2. How to Write the Community Essay: Complete Guide + Examples

    How to Write The Community Essay Step 1: Decide What Community to Write About Step 2: The BEABIES Exercise Step 3: Pick a Structure (Narrative or Montage) Community Essay Example: East Meets West Community Essay Example: Storytellers The Uncommon Connections Exercise Community Essay Example: The Pumpkin House (Plus Ethan's Analysis)

  3. What is 'community' and why is it important?

    The word "community" has a strange power to it. It conveys a sense of togetherness and positivity. It speaks both of solidarity and homeliness. So — what does community mean? And why is it important?

  4. How to Write a Great Community Service Essay

    #1: To Apply to College Some colleges require students to write community service essays as part of their application or to be eligible for certain scholarships. You may also choose to highlight your community service work in your personal statement. #2: To Apply for Scholarships

  5. The Community Essay for the Common App Supplements

    July 24, 2023 How do you write the community essay for the Common App? Many college applications require supplemental essays. A common supplementary question asks you to consider and write about a community to which you belong. The definition of community is open to interpretation and can be difficult to pin down.

  6. What Is Community, and Why Is It Important?

    To me a community is a group of individuals connected to each other by one or more attribute (s). The element that links them together is at the core, and is the essence of the group. Just as denoted by the root and the suffix of the word (common-unity), a certain segment of the population is united by a familiar thread.

  7. Essay Guide: What is a Community Essay?

    Talk About Your Role in the Community While you can probably talk about what your community does for days, your essay should actually focus on your specific role within it. How does it impact you? How do you impact the group? This is the time to get personal, as the Admissions Department wants to get to know you as a person.

  8. Importance of Community

    At their best, being part of a group provides social connections, friendship, and practical and emotional support. They can help us see the world in new ways and provide needed perspective. Community involvement can enrich the lives of the people on your teams and help individuals overcome the obstacles in their way.

  9. What Is Community Anyway?

    It's about people. First and foremost, community is not a place, a building, or an organization; nor is it an exchange of information over the Internet. Community is both a feeling and a set of relationships among people. People form and maintain communities to meet common needs. Members of a community have a sense of trust, belonging, safety ...

  10. How To Write The "My Community Essay" For College Applications

    Maybe you belong to a group whose mission is to provide clean water to people around the world. Duke's prompt this year provides a great example of how a community essay might be worded: "Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students ...

  11. How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

    1: Rice University Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community. The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings.

  12. How to Write the "Community" Essay

    Step 1: Pick a community to write about Breathe. You belong to LOTS of communities. And if none immediately come to mind, it's only because you need to bust open your idea of what constitutes a "community"! Among other things, communities can be joined by… LOCATION West Coasters NYC's Koreatown Rural Iowa Everyone in my cabin at summer camp

  13. The Role of Community in Society Essay

    The Role of Community in Society Communities are an essential part of our society, because we all depend and interact with each other. Communities are groups of people that help an individual to learn and develop new ideas.

  14. What Is Your Role In Your Community? [See How To Make A Change]

    2. Getting involved in local or volunteer activities Volunteering for various communal activities is another huge role you should play. This way, you make the community a better place while building trust and support among each other. You can assist the organization with various volunteer work such as administrative tasks, safety, and security.

  15. PDF Your Community

    Your Role in the Community Once you have identified the community, the next step is to think about your role within that community. One of the biggest traps that students fall into is making the essay about the community. Instead, the essay should focused on you and what you the community member!

  16. A Guide to University of Michigan's 'Your Community' Essay

    Defining Your Communities The University of Michigan's admissions officers want to learn about the type of person you are outside of the classroom so they can understand how you will fit into its student body. Through this essay, they will decide if you are the type of person they want at their university.

  17. How to Write the "Community" and "Issue" Yale Essays

    The first step in writing this essay is to introduce the community. Explain who is part of the community and what the community is like. Highlight the community's structure by demonstrating how you are part of it and how you interact with your peers, superiors, or inferiors within the group. It is also important to depict the community's ...

  18. The Role of the Community in Learning and Development

    Schools, families, and community settings play vital roles in children's learning and development. This chapter presents frameworks for school-community engagement across a continuum of intensity, from relationships with community providers of supports needed by students, and to coordinated services in schools.

  19. The Role of Communities in People's Life Essay

    The region or vicinity in which such a group lives. A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community. A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color. Similarity or identity: a community of interests. Sharing, participation, and fellowship.

  20. Section 1. Learning How to Be a Community Leader

    Online Resources. Am I a Transformative Leader? prompts 10 "yes" or "no" questions to determine if the respondent is a transformational coalition leader. Biography of John Gardner and John W. Gardner Center provide information and links related to a great teacher of leadership.. 10 Concise Qualities of Great Community Leaders is an Infographic by Mother Nature Network.

  21. How to Write the Community Essay for UPenn

    In truth, this supplemental essay may be the trickiest of the three UPenn essays to write. This is because you have to address both parts of the prompt, how UPenn is going to shape your perspective or identity, and how your identity and perspective will shape UPenn, all within just 200 words. There are a few useful tactics that you can employ ...

  22. Importance of Local Community Action in Shaping Development

    This paper is part of a series that will include specialized papers on civic engagement, community action, and other topics important to the development of community throughout Pennsylvania. ... Wilkinson, K. 1970. "Phases and roles in community action." Rural Sociology. 35 (1): 54-68. Wilkinson, K. 1991. The Community in Rural America. New ...

  23. essay about "my role in the community"

    The participation of every member of the community is important and very much needed to maintain a healthy and comfortable climate in a community. I am talking about my role in the community, namely within the environment where I live. The people around my house, including myself, are a community where each individual has a responsibility for ...

  24. As Buses of Migrants Arrive in Chicago Suburbs, Residents Debate the

    If Chicago is overwhelmed by the flow of migrants, Ms. Leving Siegel said, there should be a role for suburban communities, too. "We clearly have so many people who want to help," she said.

  25. A prestigious cancer institute is correcting dozens of papers and

    Jan. 26, 2024, 1:19 PM PST. By Evan Bush. The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has requested the retraction of six studies and corrections in another 31 papers after a scathing critique drew attention ...

  26. Justice For All: Courts And The Community

    In honor of Judge Rosemary S. Pooler and the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown, the theme for this year's essay contest is "70 years of Brown v. Board of Education: The Promise of Equal Protection of the Laws.". Consistent with this theme, students are asked to consider how the federal courts have interpreted and ...

  27. ICMS student earns third in essay contest

    Top-place finishers earned $100 for first place, $50 for second and $25 for third. Judges categorized winners for grades 6-8 and then winners for those in grades 9 through 12. Barcalow's essay ...

  28. Pakistan election 2024: Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan reverse roles

    Pakistan is in unprecedented times. Anger, disappointment, and hope are all intertwined. This Muslim-majority country of 241 million is about to vote in a civilian parliament for the third time in ...

  29. 'A lot of it is sloppiness': the biologist who finds flaws in

    Rollins himself is an author of some of the papers flagged and had been recused from any relevant investigations. David, who did a PhD in molecular biology at Newcastle University, has long been ...