“The common theme I see with students today is a strong desire to help other people. They want to find ways to make a difference,” said Hill, an associate director at IU Bloomington’s Career Development Center and Arts and Sciences Career Services.

Hill believes the increasing push for civic engagement fits with characteristics frequently attributed to “Millennials,” the term used in describing the current generation of college students. Generational theorists categorize Millennials as youth with a birth year of 1982 to 1998.

As with any attempt to apply broad characteristics to a generation, there are stereotypes forming. For past generations—i.e. Baby Boomers or Gen Xers—overriding themes have emerged as sticking points: Baby Boomers as “self-absorbed,” Gen Xers as “cynical.”

In the case of Millennials, generalities are being applied as well, but this time around the labels are more positive. In the book Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation (Vintage 2000), generational theorists Neil Howe and William Strauss pinpoint emerging trends that suggest Millennials are on the path to seek out more opportunities to engage in civic life.

“Unlike Gen Xers, they believe in their own collective power. By a huge ten-to-one majority, they believe it’s their generation—and not their parents’—that will do the most to help the environment over the next 25 years,” Howe and Strauss explain in Millennials Rising.

Based on Hill’s experiences counseling students, she is seeing, at least anecdotally, the same attributes Howe and Strauss have outlined in their research.

“Time is going to tell more than anything. We can try to predict behavior, but it really is just a prediction,” said Hill, who has shared her understanding of Millennials during campus panels, dubbed “Y” Me: Understanding and Serving Millennials” and “Talkin’ ’bout Y Generation.”

“This generation, for all the seemingly negative qualities, is poised to be the next great generation. I see very similar patterns between Millennials and their grandparents, the generation that is often known as the ‘Greatest Generation’ for its contributions to civic life.”

Howe and Strauss, who just recently released a second book, Millennials Go to College: Strategies for a New Generation on Campus (American Association of Collegiate Registrars, 2003), say Millennials are team players, they accept authority, are optimistic and smart, qualities that lead them to conclude: “The Millennial future is what America is destined to become—and soon…Hope abounds. Older people should thrill at what today’s kids already are, and what they may become.”