Where Leaders Learn to Make a Difference

At Seton Hall, students learn lessons through community service that can't be taught in any classroom.

As a university, in keeping with our Catholic mission, we perform over 25,000 hours of community service a year.

Seton Hall's Division of Volunteer Efforts (DOVE) regularly coordinates groups of volunteers — students, staff and priests — who work in orphanages in some of the poorest communities in El Salvador and Haiti.

Each year, our students, along with administrators and staff, collect, wrap and then ship Christmas gifts to more than 700 local children and families in Appalachia.

As part of Seton Hall's Service on Saturdays during the fall semester, nearly 1,200 students go out to 20 local community organizations and volunteer by painting, tutoring, landscaping, completing park and river clean-ups, and assisting in local food banks.

Developing Servant Leaders

At Seton Hall, we dedicate ourselves to educating students in all aspects of their lives. We give them myriad opportunities to develop fully — in mind, heart and spirit.

Our core curriculum, volunteer programs and community life are geared toward developing well-rounded individuals who can succeed not just in a career but also in life – as individuals who apply their talents to making a difference in the world.

We give students opportunities to see, firsthand, the daunting challenges — of poverty, hunger, disability, and loneliness — that people in our society face on a day-to-day basis.

We show them how their own actions, today, can change lives.

Whether it's planting a garden with local school children, sponsoring a "senior prom" for a group of local senior citizens, or traveling more than 2,000 miles to San Miguel, El Salvador, to work with orphans, Seton Hall students perform meaningful service.

Servant Leaders in Action

Seton Hall graduates take the lessons they learn about giving back, absorb them and apply them to the world around them. Some examples:

Jerry Pecoraro '10
A top "30 under 30" accountant, Gerry still finds the time to serve as a youth minister in his church.

Susan Feeney ’78
One of the "Top 50 Lawyers" in New Jersey, Susan has vowed, as the NJ Bar Association's president, to bridge the space between the state’s legal community and its lower-income residents.