Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand said he won't pursue this session legislation that would require students attending public and private colleges in North Carolina to spend at least 20 hours a semester tutoring or mentoring public school students.

Rand said he would try to rework his bill for next year after hearing a lot of concern from college officials. He said he wants it to be more "volunteer oriented" and not something that creates a new bureaucracy for volunteerism.

"It would require a great deal of planning," said Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat.

Rand filed his bill after two college students were recently killed by gunfire in the Triangle: UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson and Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato. The community service program would be named after them.

It would have required most students entering UNC system schools and private colleges in the fall to begin volunteering. Private colleges would have had to participate or lose out on two state financial aid programs.

By Jan. 1, 2012, all bachelor's degree recipients would have had to have completed the community service requirement.

Those seeking a bachelor's degree in the state's public and private colleges and universities would be required to spend 20 hours a semester tutoring or mentoring students in public elementary, middle or high schools if legislation introduced by Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand becomes law.

Rand's legislation seeks to honor two students recently killed by gunfire in the Triangle: UNC-Chapel Hill Student Body President Eve Carson and Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato. The community service program would be named after them, Dan Kane reports.

Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, said the legislation would serve a twofold purpose: to instill a sense of community and responsibility in college students and to provide help to struggling public school students.

"In our public schools, we always say if we could get the family involved how much better everything would be," Rand said. "Well, some of our children in public schools don't have families. Sometimes the family doesn't want to be involved. And so programs involving these college students in the schools would be a real boost."

More after the jump.

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