Campus Compact » Program Models Community Service Centers – Establishing And Maintaining

Community Service Learning Center

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A comprehensive program in a public research university serving curricular and co-curricular needs related to community service learning and civic engagement.

website:http://cslc.wsu.edu

Contact: Melanie Brown, Director, melanieb {at} wsu(.)edu

Office for the Community Agenda: a model of campus support for community engagement

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One of the clearest signs that an idea is valued on campus is that it has its own office. Just a few years ago, campuses with designated offices for community service were the exception. Today, they are the rule, with the vast majority of Campus Compact member institutions reporting that they have a centralized office for community service-learning on campus. Some of these centers focus on providing support to student service projects. Others provide support to faculty service-learning efforts. Still others focus on their relationship with the community.

The Office for the Community Agenda based at the Maricopa Community Colleges District puts a whole new twist on these models. Part community collaborator, part education reformer, part campus innovator the Office for the Community Agenda offers a distinctive example of campus support for community engagement.

The Office for the Community Agenda was founded in the spring of 1996 to directly advise Maricopa Chancellor Paul Elsner. Central to its founding mission was the support and initiation of community collaborations at the various community colleges overseen by Maricopa. Unlike most centers, however, the Office for the Community Agenda doesn t focus on maintaining programs. Instead, it works to generate new ideas and develop new collaborations which, once off the ground, can be sustained by other offices in the Maricopa District.

The office is regularly initiating studies and discussions with community groups to explore potential partnerships for the Maricopa campuses. In one case, through discussions with the mayor and city council of Phoenix and the Arizona Film Institute, the office initiated the construction of a multimedia/video production center. In another case, a study center was formed through a consortium of the Maricopa Community Colleges, the city of Phoenix, and the city s Fire Fighters Association to examine ways that Phoenix neighborhoods can be made or remain livable and viable. Another effort generated by the office focuses on ways to address the needs of Native American tribes in the Phoenix area.

A second aspect of the office s work is as education reformer. The office treats community engagement as an integral part of larger changes in education. Much of its initial work has focused on providing better educational service to urban and minority populations of youth and adults. This includes change both on and off campus. Off campus, the college has begun work with the community on projects such as an NFL Youth Education Training Center and the development of a proposed Urban Survival Program, both to be made available for all elementary and middle schools in Maricopa County. On campus, its work includes the creation of learning centers, and exploration of ideas like a College Without Cost, which uses volunteers and existing structures to deliver higher education at little or no cost.

The third role of the Office for the Community Agenda is as campus innovator. All of the work and ideas generated by the office are framed by its resolve to take a proactive and forward-thinking approach to education and community engagement. The Office for the Community Agenda bills itself, above all, as a medium for innovation to prepare to face and incorporate the paradigm shifts of the 21st century, planning change rather than accepting it, experimenting rather than waiting. Within this office, change on campus and in the community come together around an innovative attitude towards education.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Website: Office for the Community Agenda http://www.dist.maricopa.edu/comm/

Academic Service Learning at the University of California at Berkeley

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The serivce-learning research and development center will contact all UC Berkeley Deans and Department Chairs to identify faculty who teach or who are considering teaching service-learning courses. The Center will then contact all identified faculty to offer support for their service-learning activities. Service-learning resources available through the service-learning center, the Cal Corps Public Service Center and the Office of Educational Development include consultation on curriculum development and assessment; customized lists of relevant community agencies at which students can be placed; service-learning instructional minigrants of up to $1,000; and opportunities to network with other service-learning faculty through seminars and forums. They will utilize the WRCCC minigrant to fund efforts to initiate or expand service-learning for the entire UC system, UC Berkeley will lead a system-wide effort among the nine UC campuses to develop a compendium of service-learning activities throughout the system.

Website: http://gse.berkeley.edu/research/slc/

Building Service-Learning

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College of the Canyons proposes to provide development grants and training for five faculty members with the goal of increasing the number of faculty who integrate service learning within existing courses and programs. The five courses will expose approximately 160 students per semester to service-learning opportunities. The increase in service-learning opportunities for students will increase the number of placements in community agencies in the Santa Clarita Valley. Also, the five faculty development grants and training will increase the number of faculty who intergrate service-learning from one to six, a 500 percent increase. A volunteer, community service and service-learning center will be established by the college. It is hoped that they will be able to move from a level I institution to at least a Level II institution by the end of the three-year effort.

Website: http://www.coc.cc.ca.us/offices/sl/aboutus.asp

Center for Community-Based Service Learning (CCBSL)

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One of several priorities identified in the University s 1997-1998 Shared Vision process, initiated by President Stephen Weber, was the establishment of The Center for Community-Based Service Learning (CCBSL). The mission of the CCBSL is to enhance learning and civic responsibility through community engagement. We believe that community-based service learning provides structured opportunities for students to learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized involvement that: 1) is conducted in the community and meets mutually identified needs; 2) is integrated into and enhances the academic experience of students by relating academic content to community issues; 3) fosters civic responsibility; 4) integrates reflection on the interrelationships between course content and community-based learning activities. Since the fall of 1998, the Center has developed partnerships among students, community partners, and faculty. The CCBSL provides a database of 144 community partners that meet student volunteer or service needs, a bank of community projects suitable for faculty to include within their courses, information on relevant grant opportunities, reference resources for research and course design, and a referral system to other campus resources. The Center promotes civic education and the ethic of giving back to the community by: assisting faculty who wish to develop and enhance classes that integrate academic study with community service, working with student organizations on community efforts, and providing information on volunteer opportunities for students. Two advisory boards review policies and support the CCBSL and programs. They assist in communicating the goals of the Center to the campus community and voice faculty and students concerns surrounding community service learning. Associated Students, a member of Campus Outreach Opportunities League, played a key role in the development of the CCBSL. In addition, they oversee the CCBSL Student Advisory Board.

SDSU Service Learning home: http://servicelearning.sdsu.edu/
E-mail: servicelearning {at} sdsu(.)edu

Establishing an Office of Community Services Programs (CSP): developing community service-learning on campus

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We decided that the approach had to be systematic. First, a number of community service programs were consolidated into a single office. As a result, Cooperative Education, Human Corps, and internships were merged into the Office of Community Services Programs (CSP). Second, a new director was recruited to manage the CSP Office and charged to proceed with all deliberate speed. Third, to support her efforts, the University and the CSUB Foundation funded three half-time positions for the office.

The new director has lived up to our expectations. Almost immediately after her appointment she applied for and received a Campus Compact grant, and an outside grant that will provide a strong support base for the CSP activities over 5 years.

During the past year and a half, the CSP Director has put on three workshops that have trained thirty faculty on how to integrate community service learning into their classes. For the first workshop, Campus Compact monies allowed us to bring in an expert to the campus to advise the faculty on the myriad of possibilities in community service-learning. Since the first workshop, CSUB has relied on its own faculty to facilitate the workshops. Campus Compact and outside grant money also provided small internal grants to assist faculty in revising their courses. The CSP Office has provided the oversight and coordination for each of the faculty involved. This effort has significantly expanded our community service capabilities. Twenty courses have already been revised to include a community service learning option. Another 10-15 will soon follow. Participating faculty have come from many disciplines, including Psychology and Sociology, disciplines that one would expect to be interested, but also from Chemistry, Art, and Mathematics. We expect to bring 10 to 15 faculty into this process each year.

The CSP Office has also been busy developing potential placements in the area. The Director and the part-time staff have been at the center of this broad-based activity. The placements being secured fit into several categories. Some are paid cooperative education placements at nearby corporations; others are internships directly related to particular majors; finally there are placements that fall broadly under human service and community service-learning. While there is still much to be accomplished, the time is now in sight when enough placements will be available to support a university-wide requirement.

This two-year effort has heightened our community services capability across the institution and much progress has been made. However, much remains to be done. We are confident that community service-learning is here to stay at CSUB, thanks to the efforts of key faculty and staff who have pushed hard during the initial phase these past two years.

Website: http://www.csub.edu/CSP/

A president brings together “”consciousness and conscience”" on campus

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Joel Jones, President of Fort Lewis College in Colorado, sees the task of a liberal arts education as one of joining consciousness and conscience. President Jones strives to weave awareness of community into the fabric of academic life at the college, so that it permeates the lives of faculty, students, and staff. In order to carry this out, he has established a service-learning center on campus, worked to recruit a diverse student body, and instated seminars on diversity for faculty and staff. President Jones himself teaches a senior seminar highlighting with individual students, the ideas that he has built into Fort Lewis College as a whole.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

The Center for Service Learning: develop symbiotic, non-hierarchical partnerships

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The Center for Service Learning at Fort Lewis College works to develop symbiotic, non-hierarchical partnerships between the college and the local/regional community in order to develop cross-disciplinary institutes around pressing community needs and problems. The institutes are a means of mobilizing the resources of the college into the community to aid community partners in multifaceted dimensions of community/building/social change and utilizing community members in the college’s efforts to engage students in meaningful, participatory and education experiences based on civic values. Current projects include: America Reads tutoring program; regional coalition on poverty and homelessness; regional behavioral risk study for San Juan Basin Health Department; economic development in Silverton, CO; ethnographic study on migrant families for Colorado Department of Education; project development and curriculum integration for service learning courses in Sociology, Psychology, English, Economics, Chemistry, Writing program and Art.

Web page: http://www.fortlewis.edu/acad-aff/geninfo/acadsupp.html#service

Dwight Hall

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At many colleges and universities, student service has a history of coming from outside the academy. In New Haven, Connecticut, Dwight Hall serves as an independent community service center for Yale University students. Located on campus but not technically accountable to the university, the service center epitomizes the high degree of student leadership that is necessary for successful co-curricular service-learning. The students who run the center are motivated by their responsibility to maintain longstanding relationships with New Haven agencies. Students develop proposals and include plans for how the program will continue after they graduate. Learning and reflection regularly take place through student publications and forums sponsored by the Center.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

web site: www.yale.edu/dwight

e-mail: dwighthall {at} yale(.)edu

The Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy

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The Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy is a multidisciplinary, academic center that is dedicated to teaching, research, and community collaborations that foster active citizenship and community leadership in a multicultural, democratic society. Directed by an advisory board composed of college and community representatives, the center oversees three major areas: 1) The Program in Community Action (PICA), 2) Community Learning Course Development, 3) Community Partnerships and Public Policy.

The Holleran Center also promotes the development of community learning courses at the College. Community learning takes many forms, including internships, action research, and courses with required service components. The common denominator is the deliberate linking of service, academic study, and structured reflection. The Center and the College s Office of Volunteers for Community Service have strong relationships with community based organizations and municipal governments and offer support to faculty for the development of community learning and assist with the training, placement, and supervision of students at service sites.

The Center fosters institutional community engagement and has entered into a number of Community Partnerships and Public Policy initiatives in areas of education, health and wellness, economic development, and art, culture and public space. The Center and the College s Office of Community and Public Policy sponsor the Common Ground/Common Hour, a series of dialogues about innovations in public policy with leading experts from public life and the academy. Community members join students, staff, and faculty in these vigorous dialogues.

Contact person: Margaret Sheridan, Director, Holleran Center for Community Action & Public Policy, mkshe {at} conncoll(.)edu

Web: http://www.conncoll.edu/academics/centers/hollerancenter/index.html

College-wide Infrastructure with Professional Staff to Promote Service and Community Involvement

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Realizing that promoting civic responsibility and fulfilling our civic mission requires time, resources, and the commitment of dedicated professionals, Miami-Dade Community College (M-DCC) established a Center for Community Involvement that has a full-time college-wide Director and three full-time campus directors. The role of the Center is to promote and administer service-learning, America Reads, and community involvement activities at our six campuses. In addition to the full time directors, each Center is staffed by part-time coordinators, a “”Service-Learning Faculty Coordinator,”" student ambassadors, and a number of student assistants. Creating this infrastructure is the most critical element in systematically responding to higher education s civic mission and allows us to create a number of promising practices.

Faculty, Student, Community Involvement in Service-Learning:
Service-learning has become an integral and widespread teaching-learning strategy at the college that involves more than 100 faculty and 3,000 students each year. These students contribute, on average, more than 60,000 hours of service to several hundred community agencies. Extensive training is offered to both college faculty and community partners to ensure program effectiveness.

Contact: Joshua Young, College-Wide Director, Center for Community Involvement, jyoung {at} mdcc(.)edu

CCI web site: www.mdcc.edu/cci/

Partners in Action and Learning project: Support Services for Service-Learning

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Service-Learning Centers
Eventually, each campus will have its own service-learning center. At present, centers exist at the Kendall, Wolfson and North campuses. These centers maintain a listing and description of over 160 service sites. Staff are available to assist faculty members in identifying appropriate placements for their students. Each center also maintains a reference library containing relevant articles, course syllabi, and key texts related to service learning.

Student Handbook
This is a comprehensive collection of information for the student engaged in a service-learning project. It contains general information about the strategy, a summary of students’ rights and responsibilities as a volunteer, sections for developing and presenting specific service and learning objectives, volunteer site applications, time sheets, contracts and evaluations, and student satisfaction questionnaires. These handbooks are valuable tools for successful implementation of service-learning. Contact the Service-Learning Center to order sufficient numbers for participating students.

Faculty Service-Learning Directory
This directory includes information regarding the service-learning initiatives of over fifty faculty members at MDCC. The projects are organized by discipline so that you can identify colleagues who might help you in your efforts to utilize service-learning in your specific academic area. The directory also is intended to recognize the efforts of service-learning faculty. It is regularly updated to reflect new initiatives as they are reported to the Service-Learning Center.

Ongoing Technical Assistance
A major focus of the Partners in Action and Learning project is to encourage and promote the effective utilization of the service-learning strategy at MDCC. In order to accomplish this, members of the project team regularly present workshops and conduct seminars to improve our understanding of the pedagogy. These efforts consist of a series of “”how to”" workshops, regular interactive seminars on various issues related to service-learning, and ongoing one-on-one consultation to assist you in your implementation efforts.

Website: http://www.mdcc.edu/cci/index.html

The Center for the Applied Liberal Arts (CALA)

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In the 1999-2000 academic year, we established the Center for the Applied Liberal Arts (CALA) to provide leadership for service-learning opportunities, off-campus internships, international education, and career planning and placement. Through this organizational structure, we are better able to provide students with more opportunities outside the classroom to enhance their learning. Equally important, we are better able to implement a comprehensive assessment model that will demonstrate the learning outcomes of our students and more fully reflect the outcomes where learning inside and outside the classroom are integrated throughout the curriculum.

Website: http://www.eckerd.edu/cala/

An Office of University-Community Partnerships

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In February 2000, Emory University launched the Office of University-Community Partnerships, which is designed to facilitate the integration of teaching, research, and community service, focusing on the Greater Atlanta region. The new office, undertaken at the direction of President William Chace and led by Provost Rebecca Chopp, represents a significant step toward fulfilling a goal first articulated in 1994, when Emory published a document that outlined the core values that would guide Emory in its pursuit of becoming one of the best universities in the nation and the world. A central objective of Emory is to cultivate rich ties with local, national, and global societies for the purpose of enhancing its teaching, research, and service missions and improving the well-being of people.

The new Office of University-Community Partnerships is directed by a faculty member, has a small staff, and an advisory board comprised of faculty, staff, students, and community leaders. The office will provide assistance to faculty seeking to add or enhance a theory-practice-learning component to their courses and also provide assistance to community-based agencies and organizations for research-oriented activities. The office will support 6-8 undergraduate courses next year and 2-4 community-based research projects. A key objective of the office will be to build a greater sense of community and awareness among the various schools at Emory (college of arts and sciences, medicine, public health, nursing, law, business, and theology) regarding the teaching, research, and service activities of Emory faculty, staff, and students, and also provide more responsive and intensive linkages between Emory and the community.

Contact person: Michael J. Rich, Director, Office of University-Community Partnerships, oucp {at} emory(.)edu

OUCP web site: http://oucp.emory.edu/

Building external “”bridges”": various partnerships and service activities

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Millikin University s 1994 strategic plan included as one of four priority initiatives the goal of building external “”bridges,”" especially to the local Decatur and Central Illinois communities. In the past five years, a range of mutually beneficial partnerships have been developed to supplement the University s long established role as a cultural and fine arts center and the traditional leadership efforts by the President, local trustees, and faculty and staff. In addition to establishing Millikin as a civic leader, these varied partnerships have frequently provided valuable opportunities for students to learn, practice, and reflect on the responsibilities of citizenship.

Launched in 1995 with initial funding from the Council of Independent Colleges, the Center for Service Learning is staffed by two full-time staff and the sixteen service scholars, students selected both for their high school service record and their four-year commitment to leadership at Millikin. Under the new Millikin Program of Student Learning, all incoming students and their faculty and student mentors participate in the Annual Day of Caring out in the community as part of orientation. Over 600 students spend the day at such places as the Children s Museum, the Zoo, the County Health Department, the United Way, the Decatur Memorial Hospital, the shelter for battered women and their children, and the Easter Seals pathways to independence facility. Some students continue their service commitment during the year by returning to the facility/agency they visited during First Week.

While many students develop their own personal service project as a result of their initial experience, all sections of the two University Seminars taught in the freshman and senior years incorporate a service project and related reflection components appropriate to the seminar s topic. Elementary school mentoring and literacy projects are especially popular. Many departments include service projects in courses required for their majors. Co-curricular activities such as the increasingly popular Alternative Break Program provide opportunities for sustained or intensive work in a community, whether in the Dominican Republic, areas of need in the United States, or local community organizations. Because of Millikin s century-long, mission-based commitment to experiential education and the integration of theory and practice, many service projects involve the application of discipline-based knowledge and skills. (Choir students and faculty, for example, have both sung and taught in schools and communities in Santo Domingo and the countryside.)

At their best, service-learning experiences at Millikin are beneficial for both the community and for the students. For many local community organizations, students augment service delivery, meet crucial human needs that might otherwise go unmet, and provide a basis for future citizen support. For students, community service affords an opportunity to enrich and apply classroom knowledge, explore one s vocational direction, develop civic and cultural literacy, improve citizenship, develop one s own style of learning, establish job links, and foster a concern for social problems, which leads to a sense of social responsibility.

Contact person: Michel Wakeland, Director, Center for Service Learning

Web site: http://www.millikin.edu/servicelearning/

Center for Service Learning: Mission Statement

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The Center for Service Learning exists to:

Website: http://www.millikin.edu/servicelearning/

Irwin W. Steans Center for Community-Based Service Learning

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Chicago banker Harrison Steans has committed $5 million to establish and endow the Irwin W. Steans Center for Community-Based Service Learning. DePaul hopes the money will help to double the number of courses and students involved in service learning over the next three to five years. DePaul is trying to revive some of the spirit of student activism that permeated the 1960s.

Irwin W. Steans Center for Community-based Service Learning Website: cbsl.depaul.edu/

Community Outreach through the Volunteer Center

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During the past year, there is no doubt that the continued practice of community outreach through the Volunteer Center has made a major impact on the college and the community. Students have participated in projects that have spanned from Community Hunger Homeless Cleanups, River and Stream Cleanups, mentoring in local high schools, arts and crafts programs with the developmentally disabled to the Alternative Spring Break to H.O.M.E. in Orland, Maine. The center has continued its practice of having a day devoted to a Freshman Class Community Project and having the Student Government Association identify an on-going volunteer project for each year. Each club will identify a project for the 2000-2001 academic year. The Volunteer Center has given people who care about their community, environment, and world the legitimacy they need to bond and unite. It has become “”cool”" to volunteer on the campus and in the community. It has brought the mayor and council into the campus community and shown local leaders that our students have real leadership qualities.

The Volunteer Center has been in contact with more than 50 non-profit agencies in the area and has participated in many civic events. In addition to serving on many of the mayor s projects, volunteers and contributions have been provided to local cultural festivals, Make a Wish, and MASSPIRG.

Contact person: Cindy Flynn, Coordinator, Volunteer Center
Volunteer Center web site: http://www.fsc.edu/sacc/volunteer_center.html

Community centers collaborating and sharing resources

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The campus-based community service center at Loyola College in Maryland is designed around a single, strong community relationship. The Center for Values and Service channels the vast majority of its resources into developing programs in collaboration with Beans and Bread, a local meal program and homeless outreach center. The two centers share one staff member, and the college rents a floor of the center s building. Since the beginning of the partnership in 1992, Loyola has participated in and enhanced the center s programs, adding Sunday meals and kids meals, and developing after-school tutoring and women s groups.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Contact person: Ms. Andrea Goicochea – Beans & Bread/Frederick Ozanam House Partnership Liaison, mgoicochea {at} loyola(.)edu

Web: www.loyola.edu/about/jesuitidentity/centerforvaluesandservice

Project SERVE: student-run service center

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When students work in the community, their leadership potential can shine. Student leaders can be found doing everything: from starting new projects to finding new ways to solve old problems; some student leaders have redefined service on their campus while others spearhead recruitment of hundreds of new participants. At the University of Michigan, student leaders simply do everything.

With 280 student leaders coordinating hundreds of community service and community engagement efforts, Project SERVE is one of the largest student-run service centers in the nation. The two staff advisors do, however, confess some level of confusion about their role within the university. The university tries to thank us for the excellent work that gets done. It is difficult, they explain, for a school to recognize that it is not professional staff, but its own students who lead a program as extensive and successful as Project SERVE. But they do.

Ten years ago, the university allocated funds for a service center for students, not necessarily run by students. Initially the office provided the typical information and referrals for students wishing to engage in activities to serve the Ann Arbor community, or those seeking careers in the nonprofit sector. Students who came in with their own suggestions were urged to turn them into projects. Quickly, the center built up a base of programs coordinated and led by students.

Staff soon found that when students pursue their own ideas, the projects that develop are richer and the commitment to them deeper than when staff invent projects. The natural hands-off tendency of Project SERVE staff soon developed into a student-run center. A core leadership of sixty students runs the office itself. The student leaders develop goals for the year and write the center s mission statement; they also recruit student volunteers and balance the department budget. The leadership is split up into six teams responsible for coordinating all events, ongoing placements, the largest breaks project program in the country, and other activities out of the center.

Every issue addressed by students from youth to elderly, arts to AIDS is coordinated, and was in most cases originally initiated, by student leaders. Students who might not have originally seen themselves as leaders receive encouragement and support from those who do. Students who are involved hold one another accountable for getting things done, and discuss strengths and weaknesses in order to improve practices.

The two professional staff work help by engaging in activities to bring out the leadership potential in students: providing clear feedback; placing trust in students; and discussing various theories and styles of leadership with students.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Website: http://www.umich.edu/~mserve/ProjectServe/HTML/index.html