SLA Leadership Program

What SLAs Do

SLA roles last for one semester, but many students return for multiple terms, taking on new assignments as they go. Each course is different, so your duties may shift — but here’s a look at what SLAs typically do:

Build Strong Community Partnerships

You’ll help identify, strengthen, and evaluate service placements by:

• Confirming partnerships with local organizations
• Researching new potential partners and visiting sites
• Making sure there are enough meaningful placements for students
• Helping evaluate how the partnerships went at the end of the term

Support Student Placement & Communication

You’ll act as a go-to connector between students, faculty, and community partners:

• Prepare partner descriptions and present them in class
• Coordinate the student placement process and collect any needed forms
• Help orient students (in class or on site) to their roles and responsibilities
• Check in regularly with both students and partners
• Track hours and help troubleshoot any issues
• Hold “office hours” to support students throughout the semester

Help Students Reflect and Connect

You’ll work with faculty to make sure reflection is meaningful, not just a checkbox:

• Collaborate on reflection plans, assignments, and class discussions
• Read and/or summarize student reflections (if requested)
• Help students connect their service experiences to the course material

Contribute to Research (Sometimes)

In some courses, you may help with small research tasks, like:

• Gathering info through interviews, surveys, or focus groups
• Doing background research or organizing data
• Assisting with reports or write-ups

(Note: This isn’t a major focus for most SLA roles.)

Stay Engaged All Semester

You’ll stay involved from start to finish by:

• Attending class sessions or service activities as needed
• Keeping in regular contact with your faculty member
• Sharing a mid-semester update and final documentation
• Participating in SLA orientation and monthly check-ins
• Helping train new SLAs when possible
• Submitting a short final reflection

Work Schedule

SLA assignments vary based on the course and your availability. You may work with one or more courses per semester depending on your schedule and work-study allocation.

• Most SLAs work about 3–5 hours per week per course, though the workload can fluctuate. Some courses may require more time early in the semester for student placements and orientations.
• In most cases, the work is flexible and can be done on your own time. However, some tasks — like attending class sessions, making phone calls, or participating in partner meetings — may need to happen during business hours or at scheduled times.
• SLAs are expected to commit to at least one full semester and are often invited to return for future semesters.

Compensation

SLA positions are funded through federal or Duke work-study and are currently paid $18/hour.

• This role is classified as Student Assistant – Specialized
• SLAs are paid biweekly based on actual hours worked
• Time is logged via Duke’s student employment system

Eligibility

To apply, you must:

• Be a full-time Duke student (undergraduate or graduate)
  → Graduate students are especially encouraged to apply!
• Have a federal or Duke work-study award
• Be able to provide a work-study verification form for the academic year

What We’re Looking For

The strongest SLA candidates will have some of the following qualities:

• A broad range of intellectual interests
• Experience working with community organizations
• Confidence leading, mentoring, or supporting peers
• Comfort working closely with faculty
• Strong organizational and communication skills
• Ability to manage your time and work independently
• An interest in service-learning as a method of teaching and learning
  → (Past SLCE experience is helpful but not required!)

Reporting Requirements of the Program

SLAs are officially employed through the Program in Education, the administrative home of Duke Service-Learning. Our team will:

• Review applications and conduct interviews
• Make course assignments each semester
• Provide orientation, training, and ongoing support
• Collect and process time reports
• Assist with any questions related to compensation or logistics

SLA Responsibilities

SLAs are expected to:

• Attend required trainings and monthly check-in meetings
• Create a work plan at the start of the semester
• Submit accurate time reports on schedule
• Maintain clear, regular communication with their assigned course instructor(s)

Being an SLA is more than a Job for some students. Below, SLAs reflect on their experiences:

“It has been such an honor to serve in this role, and I will carry the things I’ve learned from this experience forever. I enjoyed getting to know you and the other SLAs over the course of the semester and absolutely loved how it felt like a family.” – Alexandria Swaine ’22

Service as a Gift: A Reflection from an SLA

Sometimes undergrads “give” more than their required 20 hours in service-learning courses. Sometimes they also give inspiration. The service-learning assistant (SLA) in Debby Gold’s Death and Dying class recently shared this personal reflection following her reading of reflections by students in the class.

She noted that as an SLA, she knows the flow of things now—the nuts and bolts—when partners need to be called, who should be emailed and who should be visited, how to assign seventy students to a site in under four hours.

“The only thing I did not really know how to do was visit at these sites—how to volunteer, how to give my time, how to show up as my students do, week in and week out,” she admits.

“This year, I wanted to change that, so I signed up to volunteer at Duke Hospice. For the past few decades, Duke Hospice has welcomed undergraduates from service-learning courses to volunteer with them. It is one of our most popular, but also specialized sites because volunteering at hospice means interacting with patients on hospice,” she says.

“Put more bluntly, it means confronting death in a very real, visceral way that volunteering at a nursing home does not always provide. It is the only site of its kind offered in Death and Dying, and as such, students who volunteer there often have one-of-a-kind experiences. Thus, when I read through their reflections, they stood out. I pictured them sitting vigil with a patient who was actively dying and had no family members to be with them. I heard the music they played at the bedside of patients who had lost all of their senses except their ability to listen to the tune of the flute or the stroke of the violin,” she explains.

“They have meaningful experiences and as I read their reflections, it caused me to reflect on my own life. It made me want to give of myself the way they have given of themselves, and so this year I am following their lead,” she says. “I decided to get oriented alongside them and we are serving together.

“Here are these students who, yes, are required to give twenty hours, but if you ask them if they feel like it is a burden, they would most likely say, ‘No.’ They bond with these people and they are changed for the better because of them. What they do not realize is that it is because of their ability to see service-learning as a gift and not a requirement, that I can too,” she says.

“Service-learning not only affects the students we work with, but everyone involved in the process,” she observes. “When all is said and done, that is what makes all of this worth it. You cannot help but be changed for the better.”

We’re so grateful for the incredible work our Service-Learning Assistants (SLAs) do each semester. Their behind-the-scenes support helps faculty, students, and community partners thrive in service-learning and community-engaged courses.

We truly couldn’t do this work without them. Read their stories here.