Students may not have thought of applying to a national public service conference in previous years, but the recent announcement that Bill Clinton will be promoting student engagement on campus in April is beginning to have a visible impact.

Washington University will host 1,200 of the most public service-oriented students in the world for former president Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) April 5-7. The weekend will consist of two days of speeches and workshops and one day of community service.

Because the University is hosting the event, 200 positions will be reserved for its professional, graduate and undergraduate students. Dean of Campus Life Jill Carnaghi said she expects between 800 and 1,000 to apply from the University.

To offer students more information and to inspire projects, the University is holding four application workshops, the first two of which took place on Nov. 1 and Nov. 8.

The next application workshops will be on Nov. 12 at 5:30 p.m. on the School of Medicine campus and on Nov. 13 at 8 p.m. in College Hall.

The Nov. 8 workshop filled the Mallinckrodt multipurpose room with about 50 students.

“They just kind of laid out the framework for a good application. They let us know kind of what CGI is looking for,” senior Peter Birke said. “It was very helpful. I think both the fact that Wash. U. is the host and the fact that they’re [having] 200 spots reserved for Wash. U. [indicates] there’ll be a very strong pool of Wash. U. student participation.”

“There are a fair share of students who never would have applied for something like this,” Birke added. “It’s getting people to think about ways they can leverage their resources here and their friends to do an impactful project.”

Other students acknowledged that the campus-wide programming attracted them to the conference and led them to consider projects.

“I became interested just about two weeks ago when I was handed a flyer in the [Danforth University Center] talking about some of the workshops that they’re holding on campus for the application, and I thought that I might as well go and find out more information about the program,” senior Abby Traub said.

Traub said the workshop actually helped her come up with a public service project to pursue.

“Something that they emphasized in the workshop was making it very specific and something that can be easily implemented, so I was thinking about starting up sort of this peer mentoring for mental health services within St. Louis public schools,” Traub said. “This [idea] was pretty much 100 percent prompted by the workshop.”

Clinton will bring leading experts in the field of public service to campus to encourage and empower students to pursue projects in five focus areas: education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation, and public health.

Applicants from across the country must formulate a “commitment to action” in one of the five focus areas in their applications. They can apply as individuals or as a group, which can either be a defined student organization or just an informal group of friends.

Carnaghi encouraged students to be ambitious in their commitment to action. She said the criteria being sought by application reviewers are novelty, a timeline, logistics, location and the projected number of people who will be affected by the project. She also urged applicants to be bold yet realistic in their plans.

“The excitement of this conference comes from 1,200 people coming together from all over the world to discuss their passions in the five different focus areas and changing the world for the better,” Carnaghi said. “Of course, it also helps that people like Bill Clinton and, last year, Jon Stewart, Madeleine Albright and Usher, come to speak.”

Topics discussed at last year’s CGI U conference at George Washington University included the transformation of the Middle East, the global economic crisis and its impact on young people, recruiting and retaining teachers, and the famine in the Horn of Africa.

Washington University students and faculty will have the opportunity through a lottery to attend the plenary session with former president Clinton speaking about the power of public service. Students will also have opportunities to volunteer during the CGI U conference in various capacities, with more information to come closer to the conference.

The application deadline is Jan. 30, although applicants are encouraged to apply earlier.

With additional reporting by Alex Leichenger and Michael Tabb