In a healthy partnership, each participant brings a distinctive contribution to the service, so that the two working together are able to do more than either could do alone; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The partnership that has formed between Gateway Community College and local air conditioning businesses in Phoenix, Arizona, serves as a good example.

In Phoenix, heat can cause health problems, especially for homebound elderly residents. Evaporative coolers do the job of cooling things down in most low-cost houses. However, when these coolers break, the fifty dollar repair bill is beyond the means of many low-income residents.

Enter: the partnership.

Gateway Community College offers HVAC (heating, ventilation, air-conditioning) certification among its associate degrees. Students training to get certification usually don t get experience working with evaporative cooling systems. They could get hands-on experience with these systems by providing repair services to residents whose air conditioning systems, and health, could be saved in the process. The college, however, has neither the material resources nor the transportation systems to provide these services. Local air conditioning businesses are inclined to develop strong relations with their customers, and help those in need. They have the materials and transportation needed to repair systems for paying customers. However, providing this service free of charge would be too time-consuming and costly, without the organizational services and support of the college students.

Six years ago, Professor Clyde Perry at Gateway put this set of needs and resources together: the need of elderly metro-Phoenix residents for functional air conditioners; the need of HVAC students at Gateway for hands-on experience working with evaporative cooling systems; and the resources of the college and the local businesses. Together, they formed the Evaporative Cooler Services Project, a day of service in March when air-conditioning technicians and students match up to provide services for residents throughout the area.

The project is now a staple in metro-Phoenix. Thirty-two HVAC students at Gateway participate in the specialized training that precedes the day of intense service. These 32 students are paired off with professional technicians. Using trucks and equipment donated by local businesses, each pair services up to four evaporative coolers in a single day, in homes of elderly residents who have requested the service.

Companies are able to build their customer relations through the program, and students receive essential practice in a skill they would not otherwise learn. Both have the opportunity to do so in an effort to better the community.

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

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

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

Website: http://nkla.sppsr.ucla.edu/

Each quarter, Santa Clara s Eastside Project enrolls roughly 500 students who take courses that integrate academic analysis and reflective experience with underserved people in our local area. The Eastside Project has, for example, the following characteristics:

As a guiding principle, it seeks to create a learning environment that integrates rigorous inquiry, creative imagination, reflective engagement with society and commitment to fashioning a more humane and just world.

It is a faculty initiative, rooted in the curriculum. Students enroll in regular departmental offerings with a service-learning component from disciplines across the university, including anthropology, psychology, accounting, philosophy and religious studies.

The pedagogy is academic, exploring the on-going dialectic between theory and practice, which leads to a continuous reformulation of both. The process also elicits a variety of perspectives on problems and issues. Students put in eight hours a week engaged in the community; this experience informs classroom study including discussion, writing and presentations. Note that the “”project”" is grounded in the academic enterprise, not merely in community service or volunteerism.

It aims at establishing a mutually beneficial partnership between the university and the community. The effectiveness of the Project depends on having credible members of both the university and the community guiding its development and on-going activities. The learning is not a one way street. As equal partners, the community and the university listen and learn from each other — a partnership that ultimately anchors the concern for justice firmly within the university s curriculum and scholarly activity.

The specific aim of the Project is for students, animated by compassion, to move beyond philanthropy and social activism to the discipline of rigorous inquiry that can provide a solid intellectual foundation for the reshaping of the social order so that it serves the common good of all members of society. The rationale for this aim comes from the fact that the very institution (University) which explicitly commits itself to exploring, distilling, articulating and enhancing universal human experience is prevented from doing so because not all human experience can pass over into the consciousness of the university. Often neglected are the poor, the powerless, the voiceless in society. This is a problem for any university, but doubly so for a university that claims to stand in the Catholic Jesuit tradition.

In a book entitled Successful Service-Learning Programs: New Models of Excellence in Higher Education, Eugene Rice of AAHE described it this way:

“”In the moving story of the Eastside Project at Santa Clara University, we see how community service in the university s own neighborhood led to the cultivation of a global perspective, where all involved became increasingly aware of the rich diversity, the painful struggles of immigration, and the widening gap between the privileged and the poor. The editor, Edward Zlotkowski, went on to say, ‘what makes this program [Eastside Project] especially significant is the way in which it has been constructed to capture the very essence of its institution s guiding philosophy.’ Furthermore, what the Eastside Project refers to as a preferential option for the poor directly links its activities to a form of Catholic social activism that could, if similarly adopted elsewhere, redefine the meaning of Catholic higher education.”"

Contact person: Catherine Wolff, Director, Arrupe Center (formerly the Eastside Project), cwolff {at} scu(.)edu

Arrupe Center web site: http://www.scu.edu/arrupe/

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

Stone Soup is a collaborative of dozens of area churches, schools, government agencies and nonprofits, all with the goal of improving the lives of the residents of El Dorado Park. California State University, Fresno joined this partnership in 1993 and has become one of the major contributors to the program.

Now a formal nonprofit, Stone Soup offers a vast array of year-round services to the El Dorado Park residents. There are dozens of academic enrichment and recreation activities, job training programs, a senior service center, medical and dental clinics, nutrition and parenting classes, and a number of other projects.

Approximately 70 faculty and staff and over 300 students volunteer with Stone Soup each year. Faculty and students come from a variety of academic disciplines, including: Counseling, Social Work, Sociology, Child and Family Studies, Gerontology, Liberal Studies/Education, Health Science, Nutrition, Criminology, Theater Art/Drama, and many more. Students participate at Stone Soup as volunteers or through dozens of different service-learning and internship courses. There are also a large number of students who work at Stone Soup as part of the Federal Work Study program and through different scholarship and grant requirements. Everyone involved has had the opportunity to enrich their own lives and enhance their level of civic engagement.

The university has also assisted Stone Soup with financial support through grant funding, and we have acted as the fiscal agent for other grants obtained by the nonprofit. The partnership between Stone Soup, California State University, Fresno, and the other cooperating organizations and agencies is a model for highly effective and efficient nonprofit partnerships. The organization has had a significant impact on the area, as represented by the greatly diminished crime rates, improved academic achievement of the area youth, and the steadily improving socio-economic status of the neighborhood.

In recognition of their outstanding achievements, Stone Soup of Fresno and the partnering organizations have been honored with several prestigious awards, including: the Herman Goldstein POP Award, the Youth Citizenship Award, and the John Martin Fresno Area Reading Council Award. One of the most prestigious awards received by the Stone Soup project is the President s Service Award, conferred by President Clinton in 1995. In recognition of the university s contributions to the collaborative, Stone Soup gave the award to the University for housing and display. The partnership between California State University, Fresno and Stone Soup has been one that greatly benefits everyone involved. Our faculty, staff and students have significantly increased their knowledge of, appreciation for, and involvement in the El Dorado Park neighborhood and the community at large. Stone Soup has benefited from the many resources, both human and otherwise, contributed by the University. First and foremost, however, the residents of El Dorado Park have seen a dramatic change in their neighborhood and their lives. This partnership with Stone Soup has helped provide residents with the opportunities and resources they need to improve and enrich their lives in many ways.

Students for Community Service web site: http://www.csufresno.edu/scs/

The impetus for Preuss came in the wake of California’s 1998 ban on affirmative action, which caused UCSD’s minority enrollment to drop a quarter. The university looked to recruit minority students through the traditional methods–faculty visits, fancy websites and brochures–but had little faith that these efforts would yield much. So UCSD started from scratch, donating land worth $8 million and securing $13 million in private donations to build Preuss and prepare its prospective minority students. The state and local school district agreed to pay faculty salaries and operating expenses. The school opened in fall 1999 with 150 students, out of 500 who applied, all of whom are poor enough to qualify for subsidized lunches. BY 2004, Preuss will serve 700 students in grades six through twelve.

Website: http://preuss.ucsd.edu/
Excerpted from Time Magazine’s “”Build It Yourself”", by Andrew Goldstein and reported by Jacqueline Savaiano. January 8, 2001

In Colorado, the Community College of Denver has responded to this reality by offering programs specially designed to meet the needs of community members who are on welfare. Through some modifications of the educational programming that it already offers, the college is able to provide the access, support, and individual attention that help meet the needs of this population.

The programs are offered at three of the college s technical education centers, each of which is located in a neighborhood with a high concentration of welfare recipients. Each year, the centers serve 2,000 welfare clients. The particular needs of the centers students demand a nontraditional method of instruction. Each center has been designed as a learning laboratory, a place where students work at their own pace according to their own schedule. Since participants often need to take breaks from their education in order to accept offers of immediate temporary employment, the program has been designed to allow them to leave and re-enter without disrupting the certification process.

Empowerment often requires more than just education. Basic job training is augmented with individual support and attention. Each student s program is designed to meet individual needs, and each student is assigned a case manager, who works with that student throughout the program.

After students complete the program, the college maintains a supportive role. If students choose to seek employment, they are offered assistance through the technical education centers. In some cases, the technical education center has identified local employers who have agreed to hire a certain number of graduates from the program. Job coaching is also available for students as they begin their new jobs. Students who wish to continue their education are given the option of enrolling at the college to pursue an associate s degree.

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

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

Contact: Dr. Wade O. Troxel at 970.491.6618 or wade {at} longs.lance.colostate(.)edu
]]> http://www.compact.org/program-models/program-models-miscellany/juvenile-offenders-help-on-a-domestic-solar-water-heating-system-project/1480/feed/ 0 http://www.compact.org/program-models/program-models-service-by-issue-hunger-andor-homelessness/world-hunger-course-service-in-nicaragua/1493/ http://www.compact.org/program-models/program-models-service-by-issue-hunger-andor-homelessness/world-hunger-course-service-in-nicaragua/1493/#comments Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 tdomf_26a6d http://compact.localhost.com/?p=1493 Dave Harmon, a faculty member at Colorado Mountain College, teaches a course on World Hunger. To help students understand the myriad issues that affect international populations, he takes a group of students to Nicaragua twice a year. Students pay their own way for the trip, and raise money to support those who cannot afford to pay. In the past, the groups have helped build a school, raised money to staff the school, equipped the school with laboratory equipment, developed a safe water system and worked with farmers to develop new agricultural methods.

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

Website: http://www.coloradomtn.edu/distlearn/syllabi/soc270whsp02i.pdf

A fine example of the opportunities that exist is the Boys & Girls Club at Trinity College. The Club is the first Boys & Girls Club in the country to be located on a college campus, and Trinity students fill all of its volunteer positions. Trinity students also are involved in the Club through internships, service-learning, and research. They serve the needs of more than 300 inner-city, low-income children who have enrolled in the Club since its opening in February. In true community spirit, the Club s construction was financed with gifts from Hartford-area corporations, foundations and individuals, including Trinity College trustees. The Club also was the first new building to be constructed as part of a neighborhood renewal effort spearheaded by Trinity College that calls for three new schools, a family resource center, new home ownership opportunities, job training, support for existing retail establishments, and new business assistance.

Retired General Colin Powell, now chairman of America s Promise: The Alliance for Youth, participated in the dedication of the Club and designated Trinity as the nation s first “”College of Promise.”" He said that Trinity s “”commitment to improving the quality of life in Hartford and to helping the city s young people dream and believe they, too, might someday attend college and live the American dream is exemplary. What are the other hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the country doing on behalf of at-risk youth? Why can t they all be Colleges and Universities of Promise?”"

The Club s activities are focused on education and the development of social skills, using Trinity students as teachers, role models and mentors. The activities include daily homework sessions; recreation that fosters team-spirit; positive competition and social skills; arts and crafts; a computer club that uses academic-oriented software; a newsletter; a percussion workshop; and a Saturday basketball league. The newest addition is a wilderness club that involves students and staff in educational trips and outings to foster positive relationships, an awareness of nature and the environment, self-awareness, character-building and self-esteem.

This program offers Trinity students an opportunity to use their skills and their athletic, intellectual, artistic and teaching/tutoring talents for the benefit of a community in need. Students engaged at the Boys & Girls Club become increasingly civic-minded; they become more aware of the real issues and problems of inner-cities. Although it happens outside the classroom, this represents true and invaluable learning, and it stimulates intellectual inquiry, civic action and leadership. This process helps mold Trinity students into responsible, involved, caring, and effective leaders of the future. It builds citizens who are more concerned about solving social problems than just studying and talking about them.

Contact person: Angel Huertas, Unit Director, Boys & Girls Club at Trinity College, yankee {at} hotmail(.)com
Web site: http://www.learningcorridor.org/bgc.htm

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

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

Contact: cvastu1 {at} unf(.)edu

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

Website: www.empowermentconnection.org

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

Web site: http://www.luc.edu/curl/prag/

Contact: Philip Nyden, Director, pnyden {at} luc(.)edu

Students who volunteer to work on the day designated as Christmas in April are asked to attend a training session where they learn about the history of Christmas in April not only in Valparaiso, but also across the nation. They are informed about what is expected of them, and they are given a preview of the projects upon which they will work. In April 1999, twenty-four homes and two not-for-profit organizations were the recipients of the efforts of the Christmas in April volunteers. This number is something more than was the case ten years ago, but something less than the thirty homes upon which work was done in prior years.

University students have the opportunity to interact with community residents, and particularly individuals who represent the skilled trades (carpenters, plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc.), as they rework homes by replacing roofs, redoing plumbing, installing new furnaces, painting, interior and exterior areas, repairing sidewalks, raking lawns, etc. As students are involved with the Christmas in April project, they learn something about the importance of service to their community, and they also are brought into contact with people who have far fewer resources than they have. The involvement of faculty, staff, and students with the leadership and volunteers from the community has been a very helpful contributor to fostering positive Town-Gown relationships in Valparaiso, Indiana.

Christmas in April – Valparaiso web site: www.ciavalparaiso.org

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

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

Web site: http://www.umass.edu/larp/CED/

Contact: John Mullin, Center Direct, jmullin {at} larp.umass(.)edu

There are several factors that influence whether faculty will view service as a central element in their scholarship. Three key components community relationships, institutional support, and scholarly integrity are illustrated in the example of Regis College. At that school, a service enclave a small group of faculty that has adopted the role of public servant as a primary responsibility illustrates what scholarship can look like when faculty recognize the importance of professional service.

Regis College is a small, liberal arts college in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. Not far from Regis, Boston-based parochial schools have recently begun efforts to extend enrollment through scholarships to low-income children, many of whom are from recent immigrant families. In the spring of 1997, principals of three grammar schools and one high school expressed the need for health services for their students, many of whom were underserved. While basic services would be available at public schools, the parochial schools had no way of providing them.

When this need came to her attention, Regis s nursing department chair Amy Anderson visited the school and was, she recalls, appalled at the unmet health needs of children. Working closely with the schools and the local department of public health, the nursing department set up clinics at each school. The close relationships and communication that the college established with the schools and other health services helped the effort come off without a hitch. In the fall of 1997, the clinics went into operation, each staffed by a nursing faculty member and students.

With full funding from Regis College, the four clinics have been able to provide immunizations and conduct physical examinations. Student health problems are discussed with parents and students receive important vaccinations with parental approval. Classes in prevention and health promotion are offered for parents and children. In the course of the school year, the clinics have treated 859 children, most of whom would have received no health care otherwise. With additional funding from the college to purchase new equipment in the fall, the faculty and students will be able to perform hearing tests on all children.

The institution doesn t provide only financial support for this effort. The service that faculty are providing is given the same emphasis as would teaching or research. In terms of faculty workload, serving at the clinic once a week is counted as the equivalent of teaching one course on campus.

The growing relationship between the college and the school clinics helps improve the health of children in the community while fulfilling the service mission of faculty at the college. Through the clinics, nursing faculty have been able to engage their discipline in meeting a defined need in the community. Although the connection between the discipline and community need may be clear in a service profession such as nursing, it can be made with some effort in any field, from engineering where faculty can use engineering skills to help communities design solutions to problems to philosophy where faculty can lead community members in thoughtful discussion and decision-making related to community issues.

The relationship that faculty have developed with the community, the level of support they have received from their institution, and the extent of the tie between their discipline and service they provide make this an exemplary case of professional service in academic scholarship.

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

Regis College Department of Nursing: nursing {at} regiscollege(.)edu

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