BRISTOL -- Between game-show night and an ice-cream social came the highlight of Robert Auger's college orientation.

The 17-year-old freshman spent a day last week cleaning elevators at an assisted-living facility not far from his school, Roger Williams University.

"I think it's awesome, to help the community and give back," said Auger, of Pelham, N.H., as he chatted with the elderly residents shortly before they had lunch together. "When you're going to a great college in a great place like Bristol, you should give back. Plus, I'm meeting more people. So this is good in every way."

First-year students entering Roger Williams this fall were required to participate in a daylong community service project. About 1,160 freshmen and transfer students and 150 faculty and staff took school buses to 66 sites throughout Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts last Monday.

Students landscaped the grounds of Middletown Public Library, built a stonewall and dug a drainage trench at the Norman Bird Sanctuary and washed furniture at AIDS Project Rhode Island in Providence.

Increasingly, colleges and universities around the country are embracing community service as an integral part of the college experience, according to the Campus Compact, a national coalition of 975 college and university presidents based at Brown University that promotes public and community service.

A recent survey by Campus Compact of 500 of its member colleges found that the vast majority -- 91 percent -- included civic engagement and community service in their mission statements. The survey also found a higher percentage of students were participating in programs -- 82 percent last year.

The trend is especially strong in Rhode Island, said Karen Partridge, communications manager of Campus Compact. All the colleges in Rhode Island are members of the compact.

"Institutions go through trends," Partridge said. "When colleges started, their mission was preparing public citizens. Then the model swung a little bit, and some universities became more research focused and removed from societal concerns."

But in the past decade, the pendulum has swung back, and now colleges and universities see a benefit in connecting to their home communities, Partridge said.

"In some places, colleges and universities are the institution in their area, and they provide a lot of the jobs and resources," she said. In addition, community service by students can build goodwill between a community and a college and diminish so-called town-gown frictions.

IN SOME CASES, college presidents have driven the expansion of community service. Roy J. Nirschel, president of Roger Williams, strongly promotes it. Nirschel visited several of the volunteer sites last week, pitching in to paint a Bristol firehouse and chatting with students volunteering at the assisted-living center.

"You want the freshmen to be bonding with each other through social programs and dancing and music," Nirschel said. "But you also want them to bond with this notion of service to others and helping the community."

Colleges can become insular, he said.

"But I want our students to treat Bristol as their own community," Nirschel said. "I want them to come downtown, to visit Colt State Park, to ride on the bike path. The more bridges we can build, the better."

Community service projects address many needs at once, including enriching the orientation experience for new students, introducing students to the region and providing hundreds of hours of volunteering to area organizations, said K.C. Ferrara, coordinator for the service learning program at Roger Williams.

The university decided to incorporate the projects as part of orientation two years ago, to emphasize community service as a core value of the institution, Ferrara said.

"We are educating citizens, as well as professionals," she said. "Our students are learning that they have a place in the greater community. This really connects them to other people."

OTHER TIMES, students push for increased community service.

In 1991, two freshmen at Providence College came up with the idea to start Urban Action, a three-day community service project that precedes orientation. The program, which began in the fall of 2001 with 17 volunteers has become so popular that the college has to turn away dozens of applicants each year, said Sharon Hay, PC's director of student activities. This year, about 150 freshmen and 25 upperclassmen cleaned parks and painted school rooms in six locations in Providence.

Those who are not accepted are encouraged to join a student organization, also called Urban Action, where students volunteer for various projects one Saturday a month throughout the school year.

Hay said that students entering PC today expect to do some form of volunteering during their college years. Several high schools in Rhode Island and elsewhere now require community service as a graduation requirement.

"Many students come into college with community experience behind them," said Partridge. "They are demanding that their coursework be relevant to their lives, so they want to see a connection between what they are studying and how it will apply to real life."

SOME COLLEGES HAVE also integrated community service into their graduation requirements. Salve Regina University, a Catholic college run by the Sisters of Mercy, emphasizes service and requires students to volunteer for 10 hours during their freshman year. The community service relates to a student's coursework. Education majors might volunteer to tutor elementary or middle-school students in Newport public schools. The students also have to write an essay about the experience, said Kristine Hendrickson, spokeswoman for Salve.

"We find that many of our students go far beyond the required 10 hours and participate in many community service projects," Hendrickson said.

Many upperclassmen volunteer for Salve's CommUniversity Day, a daylong cleanup effort of area parks that kicks off the fall semester, Hendrickson said.

The University of Rhode Island requires "service learning" projects of all freshmen as part of the university's one-credit URI 101, a course designed to acclimate students to college life. Often, the projects relate to a student's major. Marine biology majors may participate in the International Coastal Cleanup, collecting trash off South County beaches. Information about what was collected is entered into an international database on trash collected on beaches throughout the world on that day, which in turn helps scientists and environmentalists, said Merith Weisman-Ross, coordinator of URI's service learning program.

"Even though the project is a one-shot deal, the idea is to inspire a commitment to the community that goes beyond the semester and lasts throughout their entire lives," Weisman-Ross said.

The university also offers 48 3-credit classes in 17 academic programs that incorporate service learning.

For these efforts, URI, along with Johnson & Wales University and Brown University, wereincluded in Colleges With A Conscience: 81 Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement, which was published by the Princeton Review earlier this year.

"Our students are creative, they are problem solvers and they love to get real experience," Weisman-Ross said. "They have the skills to make a difference and they want to do that."

jjordan@projo.com / (401) 277-7254