Campus Compact » Program Models Service-Learning In Capstone Courses

SALT (Serving and Learning Together) Graduation Requirement at Lipscomb University

compact339-admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:14:28 +0000

All traditional undergraduate students at Lipscomb University are expected to complete two service-learning experiences before graduating. The SALT (Serving and Learning Together) Center offers four levels of increasingly significant service-learning experiences. No more than one experience can come from Tier I. At least one experience must come from Tier II or III.

Tier I
SALT Enhanced Service Days

Tier II
SALT Enhanced Course

Tier III
SALT Internship, Mission Trip, Cooperative

Tier IV
SALT Capstone

The SALT Project is a comprehensive plan to integrate service-learning into the educational experience of traditional undergraduate students at Lipscomb University. A strategy for developmentally enhancing student learning, The SALT Project allows students to connect their academic experience and spiritual development with significant engagement in the community.

Students interested in going beyond the basic service-learning graduation requirement will be given the opportunity to attain the distinction of SALT Scholar. The SALT Scholar is a student who has become an expert in service-learning in the context of Lipscomb University, and whose investment in service-learning reflects a significant level of engagement. SALT Scholars will receive special distinction at graduation and on their academic transcript.

For more information on the SALT graduation requirement, see http://salt.lipscomb.edu/.

Political and Civic Engagement Certificate Program

tdomf_26a6d — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Work with the greater Bloomington community is integral to the minor in Leadership, Ethics, and Social Action. The Capstone project—the most significant component of the minor—may be in any field, combined with any major.

For more information go to: http://pace.indiana.edu

Joelene Bergonzi
Associate Director
Political and Civic Engagement Program — PACE
Indiana University
Ballantine Hall 132
1020 E Kirkwood Ave
Bloomington IN 47405
812-856-1747; pace {at} indiana(.)edu

“”Western Heritage in a Global Context”" and “”Quest for Meaning”" courses

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In addition to the Autumn and Winter Terms, our students share two core courses during their first year and senior year. “”Western Heritage in a Global Context”" and “”Quest for Meaning”" are values-centered and service-centered courses further strengthening students commitment to community service.

The centerpiece of “”Quest for Meaning”" and one of our seniors capstone projects is a 40-hour off-campus community service action project. To design their projects, students are told, “”Ask yourself what it is you love and how you might protect, enhance, and preserve it.”" This project yields significant student outcomes in the areas of personal growth, group process skills, leadership, and dedication to community development. At “”The Festival of Hope,”" an energetic outdoor celebration, students disseminate their project results and challenge Eckerd s faculty, students, administration, and staff “”to make a stronger commitment-in-action to the common good.”"

Website: http://www.eckerd.edu/catlas/commitments.html#gened

Offering incentives for incorporating service-learning

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Though funds are modest, Millikin offers incentive grants for incorporating service-learning into electives (it is required in a first year University Seminar and we have required Senior Capstones with “”community contribution”" components). We also have summer service learning fellowships, for both faculty and students, that are more community service–they don’t have to be tied to coursework, or developing a course.

Required freshman “”University Seminar”" with service-learning project

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, requires 15 hours of service-learning as part of a required freshman “”University Seminar.”" It is then likely, but not required, that students will encounter service-learning as part of a required senior interdisciplinary capstone with a “”contribution component”" (either on or off-campus) or in upper-level electives that incorporate service-learning, which are slowly but steadily increasing in numbers.

Website: http://www.millikin.edu/academics/mpsl/IN150.html

Perspectives on Love

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Building on Robert Bellah’s The Good Society , the Senior Integrative Seminar, “”Perspectives on Love”" expanded beyond academic study of types of love to develop the vision that individuals working together through local organizations can make the great institutions of our society more responsible for the common good. Students explored ways to implement this vision through their involvement in the Southeast Economic Development Corporation, a local community based organization. They worked through SEED to gather data for a Housing Development Plan in a low-income residential area where 69 two-story, single-family homes were in need of extensive rehabilitation. Students contributed to a data gathering and planning process, working directly with tenants and homeowners to create a survey (door-to-door and focus groups) that will become the basis of a master plan for residential redevelopment of these poorly maintained structures.

Contact: Michael Williams at 616.459.8281 ext 4495

Curriculum Support of Civic Responsibility

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Southwest Missouri State University was granted a statewide mission in public affairs by Missouri s General Assembly in 1995. In support of this change and in response to the designation, SMSU developed curricular and co-curricular structures which promote character education and university-community engagement. Their value is reflected in process and outcome indices.

In Campus Compact s recommended assessment of civic responsibility, the category of “”curriculum”" organizes one set of features through which institutions might judge themselves. Curricular changes inspired by SMSU s public affairs mission were guided by the Faculty Senate and include changes in both mandatory and optional offerings.

A number of components of the course “”Introduction to University Life”" promote public affairs: The First Year Student Convocation speech an address with a public affairs theme is processed through classroom discussions and written assignments. Large group presentations cover fundamental and contemporaneous value issues, diversity, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Students are encouraged to vote and guided in the registration process. This course is required of incoming students who have yet to complete general education.

Capstone courses offered under the title “”Public Affairs for the 21st Century”" offer an integrative and interdisciplinary experience which addresses public affairs issues and choices of broad importance from the perspectives and interaction of multiple fields. Titles in the first offerings include “”Corporate Responsibility: The Role of Business as a Corporate Citizen,”" “”Public Opinion, Propaganda, and the Mass Media,”" “”Exploring Community Well-Being Through Performance,”" and “”Sustaining the Earth: An Integrative Perspective.”" A capstone course is required of students once they have reached 60 semester hours.

“”Citizenship and Service Learning”" options append an additional hour of credit in selected courses in exchange for the learning achieved by completing and reflecting upon forty hours of service over a semester. Students in computer science have worked with elementary students and teachers in setting up their computer facilities. Students in mathematics have tutored challenged teens. And students in fashion design have developed dignified clothing for Alzheimer patients.

SMSU s “”Introduction to University Life”" course, its “”Public Affairs for the 21st Century”" courses and its “”Citizenship and Service Learning”" program were each recognized in Templeton s Colleges That Encourage Character Development.

The public affairs mission has also inspired the development of new courses (e.g., “”Chemistry for the Citizen”"), programs (e.g., the “”Environmental Sciences and Policy”" minor), and cocurricular entities. Students find public affairs readily available and well supported at SMSU.

Public affairs at SMSU is so integrated into the whole university enterprise that it shares the highest levels of planning and reporting with academics, administrative services, student affairs, university advancement and finance.

Contact person: Dr. Debra McDowell, Director, Citizenship and Service Learning
CASL web site: http://www.smsu.edu/casl/
SMSU Public Affairs home: http://publicaffairs.smsu.edu/

Mission in public affairs

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

By legislative act in 1995, SMSU became Missouri’s only institution of higher education with a primary mission in public affairs. The goal of public affairs is to develop citizens of enhanced character, more sensitive to the needs of community, more competent and committed in their ability to contribute to society, and more civil in their habits of thought, speech and action.

While SMSU’s core purpose is to develop educated persons, the university itself strives to be a good citizen. A collaborative community indicators project resourced primarily through SMSU will soon provide a report-card of community wellness. An active grants office helps connect academic disciplines, community needs and granting agencies. A new Institute for Ozarks Studies housed at the university will bring a comprehensive view from multiple perspectives of our physical and cultural settings. These initiatives help define and refine a sense of place for university citizens, local residents and visitors. At SMSU, public affairs is integrated wholly throughout the university. SMSU is proud to develop citizens of enhanced character and to graduate “”citizen biologists,”" “”citizen historians,”" citizen artists,”" and “”citizen teachers.”"

Contact person: Dr. Debra McDowell, Director, Citizenship and Service Learning
CASL web site: http://www.smsu.edu/casl/
SMSU Public Affairs home: http://publicaffairs.smsu.edu/

Senior Integrative Seminar in Women’s Studies

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Senior Integrative Seminar in Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary course which draws from scholarship in history, English, philosophy, political science, psychology, and religion. The course is designed to serve as a “”capstone”" experience for women’s studies majors and graduating seniors interested in women’s issues. Through service-learning, students are encouraged to draw connections between the personal and the political and to recognize that ultimately, the status of women depends on the collaboration and creativity of women working together across the boundaries of race, class, and sexual orientation. The service-learning component of the course concentrates on promoting education and providing assistance through the delivery of health and human services, with student services placements varying from a high school child care center for the children of single teenage mothers to the city commission on the status of women. While students serve in a range of community based agencies, all placements address community needs as identified by the agencies and involve work which will ultimately benefit women from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Structured activities in the course, such as journals, class discussion, and a major research paper, require that students draw connections between theory and application. Theses assignments, particularly the research paper, help students analyze how their service learning experiences relate to feminist theories.

Contact: Program Director Dr. Gerise Herndon cgh@nebrwesleyan

Senior Capstone

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most significant activities for PSU is focused on the student constituency component of the Campus Assessment of Civic Responsibility and specifically relates to curriculum. It is the Senior Capstone, a required component of the 4-year general education program known as the University Studies Program (UNST). Interdisciplinary teams of students engage in a community or community-related project that integrates the learning in their major with the curricular goals of UNST, including ethical issues and social responsibility. Specifically, the goal states: “”Students will expand their understanding of the impact and value of individuals and their choices on society both intellectually and socially through group projects and collaboration in learning communities.”" This curricular commitment by PSU reflects the belief expressed by W.G. Tierney that “”a curriculum is a powerful act that structures how organizational participants think about and organize knowledge.”"

Senior capstone web site: http://www.ous.pdx.edu/capstone/
Contact: askunst {at} pdx(.)edu

Capstone courses

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Students at Cabrini College in Radnor, Pennsylvania, cap off their core studies with one of fifteen service-learning seminars taken as they complete their requirements in their junior year. Each seminar offers a different way of approaching the common good through a different discipline. But all fifteen seminars include a community-based component and give students the opportunity through reflection to connect their individual service experiences with seminar readings.

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

Website: http://www.cabrini.edu/Secondary/Academic/core_curriculum.asp

Capstone Seminar in Public and Community Service Studies Major

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Public and Community Service Studies Major at Providence COllege requires a Capstone Experience :

PSP 450 451 Capstone Seminar
2 semesters, 6 credits
A yearlong seminar for senior majors that synthesizes and deepens academic learning with practical experiences. The seminar will typically focus in on some of the larger concepts foundational to the major and the Institute and will give students an opportunity to draw together the complex, interdisciplinary material they have studied, including in their specialized track, during the previous three years. The seminar will culminate with each student submitting a significant written research project or product, in consultation with faculty.

Feinstein Institute for Public Service web site: http://www.providence.edu/psp/

Portland State University Engagement Strategy

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Portland State University has been recognized nationally for implementing a campus-wide engagement strategy that involves students and faculty in service-learning activities throughout the Portland metropolitan community. Students and faculty are involved in community-based scholarship in curriculum and research programs. In Senior Capstone courses, interdisciplinary teams of students apply what they have learned in their previous courses to community-identified concerns.

A partnership with Portland public schools’ Migrant Education Program engages PSU students in teaching and tutoring migrant and Title 1 students. PSU also has partnerships that serve the Portland refugee community, such as SOAR (Sponsors Organized to Assist Refugees) and IRCO (International Refugee Center of Oregon). Students assist refugees who have recently arrived in Portland with language acquisition and navigation of community resources.

A course in contemporary American Indian policy has students interview tribal government members, tribal resource managers, and health care providers to produce a “”Handbook of Indian Affairs in Northwest Oregon”". The handbook is distributed to public policy practitioners who may lack a deeper understanding of Indian Affairs.

Website: www.pdx.edu

Excerpted from Diversity Digest Summer 2001