There exists at Vanderbilt an service learning initiative within the Office of Residential and Judicial Affairs called the Mayfield Living-Learning Lodges. These lodges are assigned to groups of ten students who live together in order to pursue a self-directed, year-long program of educational activities, including, but not limited to, community service projects. Requirements that each Lodge must fulfill include monthly reports, weekly meetings, lectures with professors and other staff, regular meetings or dinners with advisors and participation in an educational program for the campus community.
Lodges engaged in community service receive additional materials detailing the unique impact that student volunteers have in serving their local communities along with ideas on how to effectively enhance those contributions through service learning. As part of the recruiting process each spring, a “”showcase”" is held so that current lodges can develop booth-type presentations of their projects. Presentations have typically been versatile in using many different kinds of media, including websites and videos, to communicate the significance of their projects. Current lodge members are also utilized to recruit prospective lodges at campus wide info meetings during the spring semester.
Oversight of the lodges is shared by the Project Coordinator and the Assistant Director for the residential area where the lodges are located. Both of these people have organizational and personal connections with service learning proponents and practicioners across campus. In particular both currently serve as members of Vanderbilt’s Service Learning Task Force, which recently obtained a grant and hired a Coordinator to oversee Service Learning initiatives on campus, but not connected as yet with the Living-Learning Lodges. Campus service learning leaders (both faculty and staff) serve on the selection committee of the Mayfield Living-Learning Lodges, reviewing applications, interviewing candidates, and selecting a slate of lodges for the upcoming year. Lodges may re-apply from year-to-year.
The Mayfield Lodges are also fortunate to have had a Resident Adviser for the past two years who was at one time herself a Living-Learning Lodge member. She has been able to parlay that experience into effective leadership of and recruitment for the lodges, such that she can act as an informal liaison between the projects, the Housing Office, and the Program Coordinator. She is supervised by the Assistant Director. If a residential service learning program has the luxury of appointing an R.A. with service learning experience, I highly recommend it.
