FAQs: Scholarship Service Hours

30 service hours must be completed during the course of the academic year (first day of the fall semester - the last day of the spring semester). No more than 10 hours may be completed on-campus annually. Hours completed during the summer DO NOT QUALIFY for service hours.

• On-campus hours benefit the UC campus community (ex. the Bearcats Pantry). On-campus hours are limited to 10 hours per academic year. 
• Off-campus hours benefit the wider community. Opportunities organized by UC organizations that benefit those outside of our Bearcat community can qualify for off-campus hours, even if the service takes place on-campus (ex. American Cancer Society on Campus). Students are strongly encouraged to complete service hours off-campus.
  
  To avoid further tax penalties under IRS regulations, the university must not normally pay a wage for any on-campus service you provide.

All service hours can be recorded on UC's Volunteer Portal through the "Add Hours" function. The Student Financial Aid Center pulls service hours directly from the site for official records.

The Center for Community Engagement offers volunteer opportunities for students with a scholarship service hours requirement; however, CCE does not operate scholarships. If you have a question regarding your Cincinnatus, UC Global, or UC National Outreach status, please contact the Student Financial Aid Center by emailing scholarships@uc.edu.

After completing the volunteer work, click "Add Hours" in the top of your profile. You will be asked if the hours are in response to a need found on volunteer.uc.edu. 

• If yes, choose the respective "need" and fill out the short form, which will be sent to the agency manager for approval.
• If no, fill out the details, which will be reviewed and approved/denied by Finacial Aid once a month.

If you were asked to "check in" when you attended a volunteer opportunity, you do not need to track your hours. The hours will be added to your profile automatically. 

Go to volunteer.uc.edu and click "Add Hours." You will be asked, "Are these hours in reference to a need you responded to on this site?" Select "No," and fill out the details of your service, including the contact information for an agency representative who can confirm.

Student Financial Aid Center approves service hours once a month. If you submitted service hours within the last two weeks and they have still not been approved, please be patient before contacting financial aid. If the issue persists, send an email to scholarships@uc.edu.

Rejected hours could have resulted from an accident, oversight, or miscommunication.

If you responded to a need on the volunteer portal, please contact the the organization manager responsible for the volunteer activity. Contact info for organization managers can be found on volunteer.uc.edu.

If individuals hours you entered were rejected, please contact the Student Financial Aid Center by emailing scholarships@uc.edu.

• Clean Up Cincy is a student-led effort; it is not a program of the Center for Community Engagement (CCE).
• CCE supports the student leaders who pull together Clean Up Cincy events, and we are in an ongoing discussion with the student organizers of Clean Up Cincy to make the community service hours reporting process go more smoothly in the future.
• Clean Up Cincy can be reached at cleanupcincy@gmail.com. If you don't hear back from them in a reasonable time, let us know what the problem is, and we will see if we can resolve it for you.