Track Your Service Hours

As a student at LU, we encourage you to keep track of your service hours for a number of reasons. You can use them when applying for scholarships, to stand out against competitors in your job search and as a way to keep up with your service on your resume. You can track your service hours via LUHUB.

The Civic Engagement Office provides these guidelines to help you think about and plan your service. Developing an understanding of service is an ongoing process that we engage with as we encounter new questions and situations.

If you would like some additional guidance or have questions about a specific type of service, please contact Civic Engagement at 409-880-7775.

How to Track Service Hours

Service Hour Guidelines

Counts as Service

When reporting your hours, the following activities count as service:

  • Volunteering supervised by and coordinated with a Community Partner. This may include special event volunteering, coaching, tutoring, mentoring, camp counseling, child care, senior care, fundraising activities, presentations and performances, attendance at board meetings, setting up and taking down events.
  • Service hours undertaken with a faith based organization, as long as direct service is offered to the general population with no faith requirement. Examples include building houses with Habitat for Humanity, or guiding a church youth group as they work at a soup kitchen open to the public.
  • Time spent completing required training for a specific volunteer activity. For example, required confidentiality training and orientation or on-boarding with a community partner.
  • Volunteer firefighters or uncompensated first responders may log ¼ of their shift hours and 100% of their actual time on a response.
  • Citizenship activities, such as voter registration drives or tutoring for citizenship courses
  • Providing support services to students with disabilities
  • Pro bono professional services to non-profit organizations or community residents

Does Not Count as Service

The following activities do NOT count as service:

  • Any effort for which the student is paid or receives other significant compensation.Driving time to and from volunteer experiences and travel, leisure, and sleep time on a service trip.
  • Time spent in service learning classrooms or doing class work that will be turned in for credit.
  • Shadowing experiences or self-improvement experiences. Examples include Red Cross CPR training, leadership courses, job shadowing, and in class preparation for service learning projects.
  • Internal service to a student organization or time spent in general student club or organization activities without a community partner, fundraiser for the student organization, tabling, and meetings.
  • Service to family members and neighbors that has not been coordinated in some way through a Community Partner does not constitute community service.
  • Faith based service benefiting only those of a specific congregation or creed, or time spent studying or persuading a specific faith.
  • Partisan political activities, such as volunteering on campaigns.
  • Hours served to fulfill court-ordered community service
  • Activities for which you received financial compensation or class credit

Do you have service hours to submit? Track them now on LUHUB!

Make sure that the service hours you submit adhere to the university’s guidelines on what counts as community service. Refer to Service Hour Guidelines to learn more.

There are two different ways to track service hours:

  • Events
    • Listed from LUHUB
  • Experiences
    • Events that happened off campus or were not an event in LUHUB

How to Track Service Hours for Events Listed in LU HUB

You can track your volunteer hours by events that have been listed in LUHUB.

Refer to the Service Hour Guidelines to see which events would count as volunteer hours.




How to Track Off-Campus Service Hours

Volunteer hours that you complete either off campus with a service agency (ex: Foodbank) by yourself or with your organization off campus will be entered in LUHUB as an Experience.

Refer to the Service Hour Guidelines to see what would count as volunteer hours.