An increasingly common way for students to be exposed to community service is through a course that uses service in the community as its primary focus. Such courses often work best when they include a clearly defined problem to be solved, a high level of student involvement, clear connection to academic skills, and the ability to start and finish the project within the timeframe of the course. Students in an engineering course at Binghamton University benefited from just such a setup. Students were given a simple design problem: move a person from a wheelchair into a car. To address this problem, they worked one-on-one with physical therapists and clients designing machines which would closely match individual needs and parameters. After ten weeks of intensive work, the machines were built and the course was complete.
From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy
Contact: wwwtjw {at} binghamton(.)edu
