Service in higher education did not start with a campus volunteer fair. It grew out of national decisions about poverty, civic responsibility, and what it means to serve your country. Federal laws and programs created the structure and funding that later made campus service, service learning, and AmeriCorps positions possible.
The timeline below walks through key moments in that story. It starts with President Kennedy’s call to service and the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which launched VISTA as part of the War on Poverty. It moves through the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, which formalized AmeriCorps and expanded support for service programs. It then jumps to a 2004 article that looks back on the first decade of service learning and ends with a 2025 news story about AmeriCorps funding cuts and their impact on communities.
As you scroll through the timeline, pay attention to:
How leaders describe the purpose of service at each point in time
What problems service is supposed to solve or respond to
How the tone shifts from hopeful expansion to concern about funding and the future
You can click into each item to read, listen, or skim. The goal is not to memorize every detail, but to see how policy, politics, and funding decisions slowly built the “industry of service” that campuses now treat as normal.