All students work 10.5 hours a week in local special education classrooms around the West LA area or at Lanterman Developmental Center, a residential facility for persons with severe developmental disabilities. They provide assistance to teachers and supervisors while assuming increasingly high levels of responsibility. Students have become involved in developing and implementing lesson plans, teaching independent living skills, and evaluating pupils or clients.

Website: www.mrrc.npi.ucla.edu/ddip

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

Contact: Department Chair Charles Dagnillo at Charles.Dagnillo {at} pcc.cccoes(.)edu

Website: http://www.indiana.edu/~iubnurse/home/service/service.html

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

Website: http://www.manchester.edu/Academic/Programs/departments/hpe/index.htm

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

Contact: Dr. Donna Duffy at duffyd {at} middlesex.cc.ma(.)us

See the website at www.inform.umd.edu
.Also see this article.

The program enrolls 24 students each year: 12 from AACC, and six each from Charles County Community College and Chesapeake College. Costs are shared between the three colleges in proportion to the number of students enrolled in the program at each institution.

The consortium has been very successful at sharing costs and resources at the three institutions. Student access to the physical therapy profession has been enhanced by the innovative nature of the program. Based on results of surveys, graduates and their employers have a high level of satisfaction with the quality of the program with and graduate preparedness for the profession.

Website: http://www.aacc.cc.md.us/ahd/phys_therapy_assist.htm

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

Website: http://www.inform.umd.edu/HLTH/Faculty/Hyde/courses/285/grades.html

Calvin professor Barb Timmermans teaches Nursing 478, the Hope-Calvin nursing program s “”community clinical”" course, in a very hands-on way. All semester long the class spent one day a week working with the Creston Neighborhood Association, doing a variety of health screenings and health promotions.

And on April 29 the class concluded a semester s worth of efforts with a four-hour Health Fair (from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.), working in conjunction with another Calvin professor (Sandy Rozendal) and her class which has worked during the semester in the Heartside neighborhood.

The Health Fair included free blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol screenings; educational booths related to heart health, nutrition, lead poisoning, sun and water safety, dental health and smoking cessation; ambulance tours; face painting and more.

In addition to the two Calvin classes, students from Calvin s Service Learning Center and volunteers from the neighborhood staffed the Health Fair.

Timmermans says the weekly efforts and the health fair are both ways in which Calvin tries to get its students to think about community health, answering such questions as “”how do you improve the overall health of a population?”"

Adds Timmermans: “”Both the weekly clinic and the health fair give our students experience with health promotion and disease prevention. Both are significant goals and objectives for the nursing profession. When nurses see patients in an acute care setting they often have limited opportunities for education. They may have a chance when the patient is discharged to talk to them about exercise and diet, but they don t know the setting to which the person is returning. Getting students into a community and even into people s houses gives them a sense of who their clients are. We believe that these students will be better nurses as a result of community involvements such as this Health Fair, even if they never practice in a community setting.”"

This was the third year for the Health Fair, which last year attracted some 120 children and 40 adults.

Service Learning Center web site: http://www.calvin.edu/admin/slc/

Website: http://www.raritanval.edu/departments/HealthScience/index.htm#teaching

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: Department Chair Kathy Perszynski at Phone: (419) 824-3788 KPERZYNS {at} lourdes(.)edu

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

Contact: Dr. Marino at debora7 {at} uakron(.)edu

This service experience focuses on contributions individuals make beyond their professional role. It will enable students to begin to internalize their roles as service-oriented citizens and health care professionals. Service experiences will include, but not be limited to working with a disadvantaged, under-served or cross-cultural population. Students will demonstrate social responsibility, citizenship, and advocacy, including participation in community and human service organizations and activities. Students will expand their perception and understanding of health and illness and the variety of meanings these terms carry for members of differing groups.

In the past four years, students have served 63 sites in 12 states and 4 countries. Sites have ranged from the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti to the Ecumenical Women Solidarity Fund in Zagreb, Croatia, to the Center for Creative Play in Pittsburgh.

Online at http://www.chatham.edu/academic/pt/physther1.htm

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

Website: http://academic.uofs.edu/department/nursing/

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

Contact:
Phone: 801-957-4831
Fax: 801-957-5708
Advisor e-mail: wiemerjo {at} slcc(.)edu
Department e-mail: muellesh {at} slcc(.)edu