Volunteer Note-Taking
Why Should I Volunteer Note-Take?
Community Service
Volunteer Note-Taking allows you to serve the Southern Miss Community and promote an accessible campus for all students.
Establish Partnerships
Volunteer Note-Taking is an opportunity for you to collaborate with SAS and establish long-lasting, professional partnerships with your professors!
Volunteer Credit
SAS awards volunteer hours for each class you volunteer for! This can easily equal 40-60 hours each semester!!
How Do I Become a Volunteer Note-Taker?
Most professors will ask for volunteers for students that have a note-taker accommodation. You may see these notifications via your student email (@usm.edu), Canvas, or it may be mentioned by your professor in class. If you wish to volunteer and your professor has not asked, just reach out to your professor during their office hours or via email to inquire if they need a volunteer note-taker for their class.
If you have been asked to become volunteer note-taker, please complete our online Application for Volunteer Note-takers.
How Do I Submit Notes?
Unless instructed otherwise by your professor or SAS staff please upload your notes by signing into myAccess, which you will be able to access to after you complete the online Application for Volunteer Note-takers. Once a class is assigned to you by our staff, you may upload your notes to this site throughout the semester. The student who needs the notes will receive an email notification each time you upload notes to the site.
Please note there is a maximum file upload size. If you have issues uploading the
files, most likely the file size is too large. It is recommended you upload .pdf documents.
If your notes are hand-written, you can take a photo of them with a smart phone and
use a "camscanner" phone app to automatically save the files as .pdf's.
If you experience technical difficulty uploading your notes, please contact SAS at
sas@usm.edu or 601.266.5024.
How Do I Recieve Community Service Hours?
At the end of the semester, please complete our Note-taker Community Service Request Form. You will receive an official letter from our office that outlines the number of hours you completed as a volunteer note-taker. The USM Center for Community Engagement can process these letters if needed. Hours are determined by calculating the number of days you uploaded notes multiplied by the number of hours the class met. So if you upload 15 days of notes for a class that meets for 1.25 hours a session, you would recieve a letter for 19 hours in total. If you did not sign up via our website, we will need to confirm with your professor and the student(s) who received notes to confirm your participation.