The document describes the core activities of the Bonner Program, which is run by the Corella & Bertram Bonner Foundation. It outlines the key program elements from recruitment through a student's senior year, including orientation, a first-year service trip, a second-year exchange, third-year leadership opportunities, a senior capstone project, and guidance for summer service placements. For each element, it provides an overview and tips, and references additional resources on the Bonner website to support program implementation.

1. The Bonner Program:
Cornerstone Activities
“Access to Education,
Opportunity to Serve”
A program of:
The Corella & Bertram Bonner Foundation
10 Mercer Street, Princeton, NJ 08540
(609) 924-6663 • (609) 683-4626 fax
For more information, please visit our website at www.bonner.org

2. Cornerstone Activities:
Overview
• Recruitment & Selection
• Orientation
• First-Year Trip
• Recommitment Exercise
• Second-Year Exchange
• Summer of Service
• Third-Year Leadership
• Senior Capstone
• Summer Service Placement
www.bonner.org

3. Cornerstone Activities:
Overview
• Resources
• Best Practices
• Self-Assessment & Evaluation
www.bonner.org

4. Cornerstone Activities:
Recruitment & Selection
• Fully engage the admissions and financial aid office
• Develop materials that include accurate and
inspiring information about Bonner
• Create a selection process that involves students
and community leaders
• Consider inviting and interviewing applicants on
campus
• Design process so Bonner serves as a yield tool
• “You can do your work now or do your work later.”
www.bonner.org

5. Cornerstone Activities:
Orientation
• Orientation occurs before the beginning of school and
other first year activities
• Full agenda (a minimum of two full days) to offer
opportunities for fellowship, team building, training and
inspiration
• Consider having at least part of it off campus
• By end of orientation students should know what they
are getting into and have their fall placement established.
• Engage upper class students and community leaders in
orientation
• “Just remember where you start has a lot to do with where
you end up.”
www.bonner.org

6. Cornerstone Activities:
First Year Service Trip
• Plan for after school year finishes
• Book end the first year orientation
• Time to rebuild community
• Encounter a community of difference
• Chance away from campus to reflect on the past
year.
• Time to plan for the upcoming year both individuals
and as a class.
• “Few want to do this event, but everyone is glad they
did it”
www.bonner.org

7. Cornerstone Activities:
Second-Year Exchange
• Awareness of the larger Bonner network
• Engaging in a different culture (don’t just go next
door or to a school just like your own)
• Exchange of program ideas and sharing of best
practice
• Opportunity for personal and group growth
• Role as a member of a larger student movement
• “What you put into this is what you will get out of it.”
www.bonner.org

8. Cornerstone Activities::
Summer of Service
Connect passion and interests
•
A summer placement should connect with what a student has been
•
doing and what they hope to do when they return
Full time service Emersion service experience for an extended time
•
Develop skills and contacts that will be helpful when they return to
•
school
Explore career opportunities and future decision-making
•
Build strong resume
•
Do something and go somewhere they otherwise might not have
•
done
Don’t over-rely on summer camp placements
•
“Summer Placements can be the most profound experience of a college
•
career.”
www.bonner.org

9. Cornerstone Activities:
Recommitment Exercise
• Establish as an expectation of this event from the
beginning
• Be clear that renewal is not automatic, it is earned
• Students reflect on the first half of their experience
• Plot a course for the sound half of their experience
• Create an honorable way out for students to leave
— whose interests have changed, who never quite
knew what they were getting into, or who never
quite stepped up to the challenge
• “Being in the Bonner Program is a privilege, not a right.”
www.bonner.org

10. Cornerstone Activities:
Third Year Leadership
• Undertake an identifiable leadership role on campus
connecting the community
• Take responsibility for involving other students
• Collaborate with other student leaders
• Work with other student leaders to plan campus
wide service program. Participate in planning and
leading Bonner Program activities
• Connect relationships outside of Bonner program
(fraternity, team, etc) with service activities
• “Serving in a leadership role is both an expectation and
a requirement.”
www.bonner.org

11. Cornerstone Activities:
Senior Presentation of Leadership
• Culmination of service worth thought-out college
• Articulate personal growth and community impact
• Connect a significant level of engagement to the issue /
agency works with (writing a grant, oral history, annual
report, community based research project)
• Present findings to the Bonner community
• Documentation should be such that it can be left
behind for others to use and learn from
• “The SPS is not just an after dinner speech or a scrap book.
It is a tool for reflection, development and capturing a
journey of served e that is ongoing.”
www.bonner.org

12. Cornerstone Activities:
Resources & Best Practices
Bonner Partners
•
Implementation Guides:
•
- Co-Curricular — Orientation,Trip, Exchange
- Community Partnerships — Third Year Leadership
- Vocation — Recommitment, Senior Presentation
In Good Form sample forms
•
Recipes for Change: Building a Strong Bonner Program
•
Funding:
•
• Bonner Summer Service funding (where available)
• Bonner Junior/Senior Leadership Fund (where available)
Summer Leadership Institute — All Bonner Service Option
•
www.bonner.org

13. Cornerstone Activities:
Relevant Self-Assessment Items
First-Year Service Trip:
Successfully takes first-year (and/or new) Bonners through an immersion
experience in a different context, including preparatory educational, service,
reflection, and group building activities
Second-Year Exchange:
Effectively provides an opportunity for students to come together with students
from another campus for an experience involving reflection, action, and/or
education that also provide a larger context for students’ understanding
Third-Year/Upper-Level Leadership:
Opportunities and structures for third-year or upper-level leadership in the
Bonner Program; students’ effectively demonstrate civic leadership
(committees, Congress, class projects, project coordinator roles, mentorship,
and reflection)
Senior Capstone Experience:
Students have a capstone-level experience in the fourth year; students create a
final presentation of learning.
www.bonner.org

14. Cornerstone Activities:
Best Practices & Examples
• Jim Ellison, Laughlin Chapel
• Kevin Buechler, Davidson College
• Laura Megivern, Johnson State University
• Rina Tovar, Stetson University
www.bonner.org

15. Student Development:
First Year Trip
• Tips: • Use resources:
• The Basics:
• Involve students • Bonner
• Full immersion—service,
in pre-trip Partners (found
culture, learning—for the
learning and online) can be
class of students in a new
planning actively involved
place and context
• Teamwork, • Co-Curricular
• Build around deeper
community Implementation
themes (e.g., poverty,
building, and guide—section
global) that also connect
resolving on Trip
to home context
conflicts are a
• In Good Form
• Have the key elements part of an
samples
planned in advance— effective trip
housing, service project,
• Recipe for
• Connect service
transportation, Change
with policy or
reflection, intentional
broader analysis
learning
www.bonner.org

16. Student Development:
Second Year Exchange
• Tips: • Use resources:
• The Basics:
• Involve • Second Year
• Team up with one or
Congress or Exchange
more campuses and
student leaders Guide, under
design full immersion—
in planning Useful
service, learning, analysis
Documents
—building on First Year • Can be a (online)
Trip sophomore
class project • In Good Form
• Spark students’
samples
knowledge and interest in • Design activities
the student service that emphasize • All Bonner
movement cross-campus Service Event
and big vision option (at SLI)
• Learn unique and best
learning
elements about each
other’s campus and
Bonner Program
www.bonner.org

17. Student Development:
Third-Year Leadership
• Use resources:
• The Basics: • Tips:
• Utilize available
• Third-year students need • Third-years can
funding, like Jr/
structured options for play many roles
Sr Leadership
leadership—project in mentoring and
Fund or
coordinator roles, leading peers
innovation
Congress, Student
• Take advantage grants
Leadership Team
of national
• Project
• Juniors can design and networking
Coordinator
implement a campus- opportunities
guide
wide project (through (conferences,
class meetings) Congress)
• Congress
webpages,
• Third-year should
Facebook,
communicate higher
Student Best
expectations for
Practices
students’ skills and
leadership
www.bonner.org

18. Student Development:
Senior Presentation of Learning
• Tips: • Use resources:
• The Basics:
• Build planning • Guidelines and
• Seniors create innovative
into Senior modules in
presentations that
Class Meetings Vocation
represent their
or even a Implementation
internalization of the
Retreat Guide
Bonner experience
• Build delivery • In Good Form
• Structured guidelines
into Awards examples
encourage students to
Ceremony and
articulate their service
• Student Essays
campus-wide
and developmental and other
programming
journey reflections
• Integrate family
• Presentations generate
and partners
inspiration and energy for
other Bonners,
community, and campus
www.bonner.org

19. Student Development:
Summer Service
• Tips: • Use resources:
• The Basics:
• Utilize the • In Good Form—
• Students identify a full-
Bonner examples of
time internship that
Partners to Summer Service
builds into their overall
identify good placement
Bonner experience
options documents
• Placement process meets
• Integrate into • Recipes for
the same standards as
advising and Change
rest of partnerships—
other meetings examples
strategic, developmental,
strong CLAs, use BWBRS
• Move beyond • Bonner Partner
low-level database
• Staff and student work
placements
together to solidify
• Bonner funds
summer placement where available
www.bonner.org