University students' views of a public service graduation requirement

As New Orleans began to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University also began its recovery process. A new initiative in the recovery was the establishment of a public service graduation requirement for undergraduate students. Attitudes toward the requirement were assessed for 290 first-year and 257 advanced students in fall 2006. The survey was repeated with students beginning study in 2007 (n = 185) and 2008 (n = 195). First-year students' reasons for choosing the university and expectations for college reflected interest in community engagement, with little variation among the three cohorts, who all differed from the students entering before 2006. Students' positive views of the requirement varied as a function of gender, high school service experiences, and attitudes toward community engagement. Findings may be generalizable to other institutions and settings, depending upon the ways in which a requirement is justified and the extent to which students are offered options in meeting the requirement.