Campus Compact » Program Models Service-Learning In Other Courses

Service-Learning Scholars Program and Service-Learning courses

tdomf_26a6d — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:04:22 +0000

Are our students given multiple opportunities to do the work of citizenship through real projects of impact and relevance, linked to their academic learning?

The University of Utah offers opportunities to “”do the work of citizenship through real projects of impact and relevance, linked to their academic learning”" through two principal means:

1) Through 145 courses approved for service-learning credit in over 21 academic units. These units include psychology, communication, medicine, pharmacy, family and consumer studies, and nursing. Each unit completed a departmental planning process to institutionalize service-learning within their unit. Other departments are in the planning process to institutionalize service-learning; still others continue to offer service-learning courses which are faculty-dependent. A long-term goal of the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center, which is charged to support and encourage curriculum-based service throughout the campus, is to increase offerings which extend beyond a semester time frame, which are interdisciplinary, and which create permanent community partnerships.

Resources are available to help faculty members and departments to strengthen and expand service-learning course offerings. These include funds for faculty release time, funded service-learning teaching assistants, grants for department-wide planning, and technical assistance from faculty and staff experienced in this pedagogy. Examples of these course offerings include:

Biology 3460 Global Environmental Ethics, which involves students in work for local environmental organizations doing hands-on service and public policy work. Students in the course have created a community garden on campus and contribute the produce to local anti-hunger groups.
English 3400, 5410, 5420 Teaching Language Arts courses, initiated in 1998 99, engaged English education students in a partnership with West High School and explored the literacy needs of the high school and area families. Students worked with West High administrators and faculty to create a Family Literacy Center, now staffed by University students and one paid graduate student on a special fellowship. West High dedicated a classroom for the Center, which is now furnished with inviting couches, comfortable chairs, a mural developed by U and West students, and always filled with high energy learners.
New course-offerings continually come on-line. Next year the University of Utah General Education Program will initiate a service-learning course cluster for a cohort of students titled “”Community Leadership and Service: Urban Issues.”" This will introduce citizenship concepts early in students experience.

2) Through the Service-Learning Scholars Program, an intensive program designed by students for students who want an in-depth citizenship experience. Students explore their community through service (400 hours), link their experiences to their coursework (10 hours of service-learning courses), and identify and meet a specific community need (a final integrative project to address a real community need), with supervision of a faculty, community partner, student committee. Graduating S-L Scholars are recognized at commencement annually.

Contact person: Marshall Welch, Director, mwelch {at} sa.utah(.)edu

Bennion Center Service Learning web site

Liberal Learning in Action

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 11 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of this program is to support development of experiential, community-based initiatives in courses that allow students to apply liberal learning to improving the quality of life in the local community or state of Indiana. Small grants are awarded to faculty through a competitive process for course-based projects that provide students with the opportunity to work directly with a community organization or engage in other activities that contribute to the quality of life in the community. The project is funded through a gift from the Lilly Endowment

Website: www.indstate.edu/focind/mini_grants/mini_grants.htm

Contact:
Nancy Brattain Rogers
Center for Public Service and Community Engagement
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN 47809
812-237-2334
nancyrogers {at} indstate(.)edu

Service-Learning Scholars

tdomf_26a6d — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000

The Norwich Service-Learning Scholars, comprised of a team of students, are committed to amplifying and promoting student voice in the integration of community needs and university curriculum.

The Scholars undergo a competitive selection process and, once selected, are under contract for one year. They speak with profesors, students, and student groups, they promote service-learning through campus media, flyers, advertisements, and the SL newsletter, and they represent service-learning students on the Service-Learning Initiatives Committee.

They receive an intensive one-day training in service-learning, meet bi-monthly as a team, work office hours in the Service-Learning Program, and arrange for guest speakers on campus for their own professional development as well as that of other students. They also speak with campuses and groups interested in service-learning and their program, such as at the Vermont Campus Compact Student Leadership Conference. There they presented a workshop on “”Student Leadership in Service-Learning.”"

Website: www.norwich.edu/servicelearning

Contact: Michelle Barber, mbarber {at} norwich(.)edu

Service Learning Program

tdomf_26a6d — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 00:00:00 +0000

The Service Learning Program, housed within the Institute for Urban Life, was created in the spring of 1994 to facilitate service learning in selected courses and departments throughout the University. Each semester,700-800 students from 50-55 courses across the curriculum are engaged with more than 100 agencies and schools in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area.

At Marquette, service learners participate in the community in several different ways. They may work alone, in pairs, in small groups, or with their entire class. The three models of service activities used most commonly here are the following:

Placement model: Students choose from among several placements that have been chosen for their courses and usually work at these sites for 2-3 hours per week throughout the semester. The service they provide is the conduit to their learning. They gain access to populations or issues related to their courses and, in return, provide needed assistance to the organizations and/or their clientele.

Presentation model: Students in certain courses (e.g. Physics 1 and Substance Abuse) take material they are learning in class and create presentations for audiences in the community, usually young people. The service learners work in small groups and choose from among several sites, which have been set up by the Service Learning office. Sometimes professors require students to do their presentations more than once (to give them a chance to evaluate and make adjustments); others have them present in class before going into the community.

Product model: In some courses, service learners–working alone or in groups–produce a tangible result for their agencies. In Virginia Chappell’s Writing for the Non-profit Agency, students create handbooks, annual reports, or other written materials. Michael Havice s Television Production students write, film, and edit videos for non-profit organizations. In Principles of Database Management, PC Reddy’s students develop or modify databases for their agency clients.

Project model: Working in groups, service learners collaborate with community members to devise and implement a project. In Fr. Tom Krettek’s Philosophy of Community class, service learners work with groups of middle and high school students to identify and work on issues of concern to them. Students from Chris Stockdale’s Classical and Modern Physics class work with young people in an after school program to create science projects and demonstrate them to their parents and to other students.

Program staff include an administrator, an assistant administrator, and 14 students. The student staff consists of two Staff Managers who serve on the adminstrative team, run the office, and train and guide the Student Coordinators, and twelve Student Coordinators, who facilitate the service learning process with three caseloads: 8-10 community agencies, the service learners who sign up for those agencies, and 3-4 faculty and their courses.

website: www.mu.edu/servicelearning

Contact: Bobbi Timberlake (414) 288-3261
Kim Jensen Bohat (414) 288-0250

Service-Learning in Geography

tdomf_26a6d — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Service Learning is an important component of undergraduate education in the Department of Geography at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Students enrolled in our introductory physical geography courses have the opportunity to serve in various ongoing environmental projects at local parks and urban watershed areas throughout the city of Indianapolis. Participants contribute to the restoration and conservation of fragile urban ecosystems. Students have also participated in similar projects with the Indiana Nature Conservancy at other locations throughout the state. In the Fall of 2003, 29 students participated in designated work days across central Indiana.

Please contact Nathan Polderman (npolderm {at} iupui(.)edu), Tim Brothers (tbrother {at} iupui(.)edu), or Bob Beck (rbeck {at} iupui(.)edu) for more information.

Reading Aloud to Young Children – Using Voice and Diction

tdomf_26a6d — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000

At Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, members of the C104, Voice and Diction class have the opportunity to read age-appropriate children’s literature to the classes of the 3-6 yr. olds at the IUPUI Center for Young Children (the campus child-care center and kindergarten.) Students read stories aloud to different age groups and it is required that students use their newly-acquired skills in articulation and vocal variety to bring the stories to life. Students read 3 different stories at 3 different times and are evaluated by teachers and informally by their young listeners. Reflection papers are required from the students after each reading session, as well as a final oral presentation about what they learned.

For further information on project requirements, contact Jennifer Cochrane: cochrane {at} iupui(.)edu.

Reflection as a part of “”Into the Streets day”"

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

Learning is easily lost in massive one-day service events. The organizers of Into the Streets day take pains to keep reflection in for the 400 to 500 students involved. At the end of their day of service, students are given a list of questions and put into mixed groups to discuss their expectations and the service experience. These discussions later become the seeds for longer reflection papers that are incorporated into various service-learning classes.

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

Website: http://www.cgc.maricopa.edu/pecos/community/service_learning/

Articulating goals: A Learning contract

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

For many service-learning efforts, the biggest obstacle to assessing student impact is that they have never established what impact they intend to have. Articulating goals from the outset is a simple, but vital, step. Azusa Pacific University in Ontario, California, asks students to articulate their goals for the semester in a learning contract. This helps to set uniform expectations for service while lending professional credibility to the service experience. The stated goals form the basis for reflection later in the course and can be used by faculty to assess student learning and by community supervisors to assess student service.

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

Contact: Judy Hutchinson, director of service learning, at 626.815.6000 Ext. 3780, Fax : 626.815.3801

E-mail: jhutchison {at} apu(.)edu

Community Advocacy Program (CAP): students play the role of a community service facilitator

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

Based on the needs of the campus and our surrounding communities, the CCBSL has amplified the role of students as contributors to the development of community-based service learning at SDSU and the development of strong community partnerships with agencies where we can place students in regular, on-going service. To provide the support and expansion, we created the Community Advocacy Program (CAP) which trains student leaders to act as responsible citizens in response to needs identified within the San Diego and Southern California region. Each CAP Leader is a volunteer coordinator with a partner agency and SDSU course or package of courses and oversees the placement of student volunteers in the community. During their year-long commitment, 12 CAP leaders play the role of a community service facilitator. Each CAP leader organizes community service projects for classes, meets with community partners to establish a feasible and worthwhile service routine, and guides fellow students though community service projects. These students participate in a year-long service-learning course that addresses the topics of service-learning, diversity, community issues, civic responsibility, and leadership.

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

Community Concepts course: developing civic competencies and civic habits

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

The course uses the pedagogy of service-learning to address a general education requirement in “”Self, Society, and Equality in the U.S.”" which is intended to help students develop civic competencies and civic habits.

Community Concepts is an upper-division course based in the College of Education (EDUC 157) and cross-listed in five other colleges (Applied Sciences and Arts, Engineering, Humanities and Arts, Science, and Social Science). It is intended to provide mutual benefit to both community partners and students. For community partners, it responds to problems and issues which they identify as important, strengthening community resources. For students, its main goal is to enrich students understanding of themselves as citizens in an evolving multicultural society. It enrolls approximately 150 students a year. The course structure includes the following key components:

Fifty-two hours of supervised community service to a school or social organization that addresses the needs of an at-risk population.
A core reader with articles selected to help students understand their own service roles, the social forces that shape equality and inequality, and strategies for social action.
Large-group meetings to engage students in critical reflection through structured exercises with classmates at their own and other service sites
Weekly on-site seminars facilitated by community site coordinators to help students link their readings and experiences and to resolve problems.
Two papers plus weekly journal entries that require students to analyze their experiences in light of their readings and additional information gathered from individual library and internet research.

Through this course, our institution has created and sustained long-term partnerships with local schools and social service organizations, improved the condition of the community surrounding San Jose State University, and enabled students to encounter and learn from others different from themselves.

Contact person: Dr. Bob Gliner, Acting Faculty Director, Community Service Learning, rvgliner {at} email.sjsu(.)edu

“”Eastside Project”": a community partnership focused on the poor and marginalized

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

Santa Clara University’s Eastside Project invites its students, through community-based learning opportunities, to learn from the poor, the marginalized, and those struggling against deprivation or discrimination, so that the students knowledge bases will be tempered by new perspectives and insights.

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:

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/

Ethnic Conflict and Models of Multiethnic Cooperation

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

This political participation grant funded “”Ethnic Conflict and Models of Multiethnic Cooperation”", a service learning class for Pitzer College students which encouraged participating students to conduct research on multicultural curriculum and ethnic conflict resolution programs. The course also provided students with a unique opportunity to help the Alhambra School District to assess the effectiveness of its policies for dealing with racial and ethnic conflict.

Freshman Success Programs

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

Starting in the fall 1999, SDSU s Freshman Success Programs, with The Center for Community-Based Service Learning, began coordinating 12 community service-learning projects that faculty members include in their University Seminar class during the fall semester. These projects are geared to introduce freshman students to community involvement and community-based learning. Through these projects, the CCBSL introduces first-year students and SDSU faculty to the rich learning that comes as a result of involving students in activities that address community-identified needs.

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

Service Hours Graduation Requirement

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

The University of Redlands is committed to community-based partnerships and systematically supports schools, hospitals, and the non-profit sector as stakeholders for the future. Student involvement can be seen most notably in the volume of service performed each year. Annually, 60,000 hours of service are given to the community through work-study placements, America Reads tutoring, an academic service requirement, faculty taught service-learning courses, non-profit internships, and volunteer outreach. The following summary lists some ways the University of Redlands has maintained its commitment to educating the hearts and minds of its students.

Graduation Required Service Hours (CSAC) Committed to teaching the ethic of service outreach, the University of Redlands requires all undergraduates to give to their community by taking a 3-unit service activity course. Each year over twenty thousand hours of service are performed at hundreds of agencies throughout the world. Placements occur annually at homeless shelters, pre-schools, police departments, safe-havens, and various other non-profit agencies whose mission the students wish to advance. The requirement is ripe for building community linkages on the reciprocal and invaluable relationships between town and gown as well as national and international service outreach.

Service Learning Courses - Student and faculty developed service learning courses are offered each Interim (January term) allowing students several options in which to actively participate in community problem solving and reflection. The following faculty taught service learning courses were offered Interim 1998.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance.

2. Into the Streets. Skill = General outreach and service to dozens of agencies throughout southern California.

3. Fieldwork in Adapted P.E. Skill = Teaching physically challenged children techniques in physical education. Outreach = Special education programs, local schools, and agencies working with physically challenged children.

4. Woodwind Instrument Repair. Skill = Repairing musical instruments at no cost to school districts. Outreach = Twelve local public elementary and high schools.

5. Ropes Course Leadership. Skills = Ropes challenge course/diversity training. Outreach = Local elementary schools and reform and county schools.

6. Service In Haiti. Skill = Working with impoverished children. Outreach = Participating in orphanage work and mentoring in Haiti.

7. Service in Japan. Skill = Teaching English. Outreach = Elementary students in various schools in Japan.

Contact person: Tony Mueller, Director of Community Service Learning, csl {at} uor(.)edu

Web: http://www.redlands.edu/student_life/csl/

Sophomore level core requirement service-learning course: “”Introduction to Service in Multicultural Communities”"

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

For at least three years, the Service Learning Institute will offer sections of SL 200 – Introduction to Service in Multicultural Communities, an introductory service learning course, in an effort to “”jump-start”" the development and implementation of this sophomore level core requirement.

SL 200 – Introduction to Service in Multicultural Communities (SL) prepares students to enter and exit communities sensitively and respectfully, participate in responsive service, and analyze community needs and assets in the social and institutional context of power and resources. This course directly prepares students to meet the ULR in Community Participation (CP) and provides students the opportunity to acquire skills, knowledge and abilities related to their effective completion of upper division service-learning courses and experiences. Students are introduced to the methods, guidelines, and principles of community-based learning as they integrate readings, discussions, simulations, and films, with direct community service experience.

The CSU Monterey Bay Service Learning Institute is online at http://service.csumb.edu/

Study structured around service: an interdisciplinary approach

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

When academic study is structured around service, rather than the other way around, lines between disciplines can become blurred. Service-based courses often require an interdisciplinary approach, because the problems of a community cannot be addressed through a single discipline. A new course package at San Jose State University will focus on local parks from the perspective of three disciplines: biology, political science, and engineering. The added bonus: as students work to increase access to the parks and enhance bio-diversity of plant life, the theme-based package the courses intertwined around a single theme will fulfill their general education core requirement.

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

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

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

The many faces of service-learning

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

Service Learning at Pueblo Community College has many different faces. Both academic and vocational classes have included service in the curriculum. Math, English, Respiratory Therapy, Travel and Tourism, Occupational Therapy, Business Management, and Computer Information Systems have all had students doing a wide variety of service in the community.

Students have volunteered with nursing homes, ambulance companies, social services, police departments, museums, and chambers of commerce. We also have an AmeriCorps group here on campus involved in the CALI literature initiative. They have spent this academic year tutoring in elementary schools, working with the Boys and Girls Club, doing tutoring training and participating in various special projects such as National Dr. Seuss Day.

Service learning office web site: http://www.pcc.cccoes.edu/ser_net/welcome.htm

World Hunger course: service in Nicaragua

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

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

Presidential leadership in the community

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

I had wildly underestimated the impact that a college president had to convene and request and engage and inspire. All over our country, we in higher education could do a lot more if we used the moral juice that comes in our food basket and let others have a sip. Claire Gaudiani has good reason to speak. During her presidency at Connecticut College (1988-2001), she was at the helm of a panoply of innovative efforts that placed her in a leadership role in the local, state, and national community.

Nationally, Gaudiani used her presidency to be a leading advocate for civil discourse and civic engagement in American society. In October 1996, the college published Democracy Is a Discussion, a collection of essays on democracy by renowned international leaders designed to foster civic discussion in communities and countries worldwide. The book was translated into eleven languages by the United States Information Agency and was used as the basis for a series of discussion on the responsibilities of citizenship, sponsored by Connecticut College in cities throughout the United States. President Gaudiani encouraged this kind of thoughtful discussion on the state level as well. Working with the Connecticut Secretary of the State, she helped convene representatives of nonprofits, business, and government to encourage civic participation. On the local level, President Gaudiani became known as the most successful community developer in New London. After being appointed the director of the city s development corporation last year, Dr. Gaudiani convinced a major employer to move to New London, shoring up jobs that had been lost as industry moved out in recent years. This began a revitalization that had appeared impossible only a few years earlier. For more information read about the New London Social Justice Initiative.

The president sees her work in and for New London as deserved repayment to the community. The college itself was originally founded by residents of New London who raised money to buy land which they donated to start the school. Now, the school has repaid the favor by opening a new downtown center that houses the Center for Community Challenges, a new academic initiative that helps Connecticut College students to engage in service-learning in collaborative projects to benefit the community. The college has also instituted a new Certificate Program in Community Action that highlights the ways in which students can learn to give back to their community.

Even on the most local level, Dr. Gaudiani s commitment remained clear. With all of her activities to promote community engagement in New London, Connecticut, and the United States, President Gaudiani still found time to teach Literature, Service, and Social Reflection, a service-learning course at Connecticut College.