“Service”
has become quite the theme in this election season. At their
conventions, both Barack Obama and John McCain emphasized their long
years of service to our country. On 9/11, they will make a rare joint
appearance at the Service Nation Summit in New York to discuss their
plans to encourage service and reinvigorate civic life.
It’s quite exciting, particularly for those of us in the service
movement. But a fair question to ask might be: what do the candidates
mean by “service?"
Barack Obama has said that national service “will be a central cause of
my presidency.” In his initial speeches on the subject, he talked of
service in exclusively civilian terms — volunteering, working in
non-profit organizations, serving in the Peace Corps, and so on. After
enduring a storm of criticism, he now carefully includes military
service alongside non-military endeavors.
As a veteran, John McCain naturally emphasizes military service, but has also called on every American to
embrace “a cause greater than yourself.” McCain differs from many in
his party by supporting national service programs such as AmeriCorps,
and like his rival he has called for expanding them.
Unfortunately, neither candidate has offered bold or innovative ideas to encourage a new generation to pursue perhaps the most important field of non-military service: working in government as a career. It seems the gap in top-level support for encouraging careers in government must be filled by other organizations, and indeed that is exactly what is happening.
The Service Nation coalition has embraced two innovative initiatives
aimed at inspiring a new generation of young people to pursue
government service as a career: the U.S. Public Service Academy and the
Roosevelt Scholars program.
The Public Service Academy would
realize George Washington’s dream of a national college for developing
civilian leaders. As the civilian counterpart to our five military
academies, it would offer 5,000 students per year an intensive,
federally-subsidized undergraduate education in return for a mandatory
five years of work in public institutions following graduation.
The Roosevelt Scholars program would target graduate students. Named
after the father of the modern civil service, Theodore Roosevelt, the
government-wide Roosevelt Scholarship would fund graduate-level study
in exchange for a federal service commitment in targeted “mission
critical” occupational areas.
Together, these initiatives will raise the visibility and prestige of
public service and develop a new generation of civilian leaders who
will be prepared to help our country meet the challenges of the
twenty-first century. We should want – no, we should demand – that
our best, most creative people are at the helm of our public
institutions, and we should expect our presidential candidates to offer
plans to encourage our brightest young minds to see government service as a
noble calling.
Chris Myers Asch is the Executive Director of the U.S. Public Service Academy.
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