Service Learning Commons^™

Inclusive Collaboration In Community-Academic Engagement, Jennifer Early

Community Engagement Institute

This workshop introduces foundation concepts related to diversity and inclusion in community-academic engagement and applies these concepts to the early stages of initiating and stewarding partnerships for community-engaged teaching and research.

Intro To Community-Engaged Research & Service Learning, Katie Elliott, Valerie Holton

Community Engagement Institute

Definitions of community engagement, research, and service-learning. Benefits of utilizing service-learning at VCU, such as increased graduation rate, building professional skills, addressing social problems, engaging faculty with community experts, and creating opportunities for faculty led community-engaged research.

21st Century Community Engagement, Lynn E. Pelco

Community Engagement Institute

The higher education landscape is changing, and universities of the future may bear little resemblance to the institutions that have existed for the past 100 years. This workshop will help participants understand the intersections between a changing higher education landscape and community engagement. Participants will explore new models for organizing academic work (i.e., teaching, research, and service) in ways that promote student success and address community-identified needs

Community Engagement Institute 2017, Vedette Gavin, Lynn E. Pelco, Katie Elliott, Valerie Holton, Jennifer Early, Erin B. Brown

Community Engagement Institute

Agenda documenting time and dates of speaker presentations. Presentations varied from topics surrounding higher education, community-engaged research, service learning, collaboration between education and communities, and community-academic partner spotlights.

In Conversation With Seth Pollack, Seth Pollack, Marshall Welch

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

In November 2016, EPiCHE Editor Marshall J. Welch sat down with service-learning scholar and practitioner Seth Pollack. They explored how the spiritual and religious dimensions of Seth’s life have influenced his personal passions and academic career.

Seth Pollack is Professor of Service Learning, and the founding faculty director of the Service Learning Institute at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB). For the past 17 years, Seth has provided overall leadership for the Service Learning Institute at CSUMB. In 2005, he received the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service Learning, recognized as the nation’s outstanding faculty in the field of community …

In Our Time: Advancing Interfaith Studies Curricula At Catholic Colleges And Universities, Eboo Patel, Noah Silverman, Kristi Del Vecchio

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

People who orient around religion differently are interacting with greater frequency than ever before. These interactions, especially in the context of college and university campuses, require young people to grapple with their own identities in ways that previous generations could more easily avoid. Conversations about religious diversity have become elevated at colleges and universities, which has led Drs. Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen to claim that religion is “no longer invisible” in the context of American higher education.

As an organization that works with hundreds of American colleges and universities every year, Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) believes that Catholic …

Cultures, Madeline Martinson

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

This document is a poster I created after making and reading my book to the children on the Bells for Books book mobile. First I created a book about culture and diversity. Once I finished the book I went to the book mobile and read it to the children that were on the bus that day. After reading the book I reflected on culture and diversity and put my conclusions on this poster. The poster rejects on my process through my book Culture and reading it to the children and our class conception of diversity and ethics. I talk about …

Diversity Through Musical Reading, John Waits

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

This poster is an overview of the children's book I wrote and the research, writing, and reading that went into it. The book uses animals from the main countries that Boise's refugee population comes from as characters and gives them all different musical instruments that they play together to make beautiful music to show that, even though people may be different, it's better when everyone is included.

Non-Profit Community Project, Christine Lee, Nicole Gomez, Riziki Mberwa, Michelle Mccollough, Alex Tulen

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

Meridian Valley Humane Society is a small non-profit canine rescue for all of Meridian. They are trying to solve the issue of finding abandoned, abused, or relocated dogs a forever, loving home. Meridian Valley Humane Society houses a maximum of 30 dogs at a time which enables a unique and loving experience for the dogs as the volunteers can spend more time training, loving, and caring for them. It receives no county, city, state, or federal funding of any kind and relies heavily on volunteers and donations. Because of this, the adoption rates are higher than other nonprofit organizations like …

Wally The Whale Finds Friends, Kelsie Nagle

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

This poster explains Bells for Books and looks at the impact that it has on the community. It summarizes what it was like to write a short children's book and read it to kids in Garden City. It also explores the impact that this student written book will hopefully have on the community.

Bells For Books Community Service, Jamie J. Maas

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

Cultural awareness is something that is very important in building a healthy community. America is a nation of immigrants and as such it is very important that the immigrants that settle into our city feel very safe and welcome. One way that a citizen can learn civic engagement and give back to their community is through community service. In my community, Bells for Books offers wonderful opportunities for children that don’t necessarily have access to a library. For those children, writing books in their language, and volunteering time to read stories to children can make a huge difference in their …

Authentic Leadership In Volunteer Based Teams: A Research Essay And Reflection Of My Leadership Experience In Lead 326, Jonathan Troy Ferguson

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

This is a study of the theory of Authentic Leadership from a number of different sources and ideals. These theories are then explained, in detail, how I personally applied them to several projects involving non-profit organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boise Rescue Mission, and the Kuna Middle School. It shows my personal reflection of working with the organizations on a volunteer basis and how the above theories were effective and relatable to the groups that I led.

Let’S Try Something New: Service Learning In Boise State's Computer Science Department, Daniel Kondratyuk

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

In this article I explain how a group of Computer Science students at Boise State University participated in a new service learning project. I provide a few testimonials on the students’ experiences and describe the rewarding aspects of service learning in the greater Computer Science community.

Deborah Olsen Public Service Scholarship Essay, Maura Hand

Examples of Student Work

In this essay, Maura Hand reflects on the ten weeks she spent interning with the State Department's Office of Foreign Missions (OFM) in San Francisco, California.

Adult Health Literacy, Kathleen Elliott, Moriah Gendelman, Qundeel Khattak, Nisha Quasba, Victoria Trapani, Gaby Witte

ISCOPES Posters and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Books, Alyssa Buffi

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

This poster details my service learning project. I wrote and illustrated a book that will teach children how important it is to accept people even if they are different. After I had my book printed and delivered, I volunteered one evening to read to a group of children on the Bells for Books bus in Garden City. By taking the time to go read to the youth of Garden City, I not only showed them that they deserve the right to education and books, but also the importance of volunteering.

Senior Wellness: Gracefully Aging Across Generations, Sarah Abuali, Angela Bourassa, Patricia Erickson, Nikki Kupferman, Jay Lloyd-Montgomery, Srividya Murthy, Aditi Reddy, Samira Tella, Kevin Trac, Taylor Walter

ISCOPES Posters and Presentations

No abstract provided.

A Retrospective Illustrative Case Study On The Barriers Facing First Generation College Students And How A Targeted Program Ameliorates These Barriers, Samuel Kosydar

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

First generation college students face a particularly unique set of challenges navigating the college pathway to success. Financial concerns aside, lack of awareness of campus resources and stigmatization that can also be dependent upon race and gender may impede academic performance and impose additional stressors. In a retrospective illustrative case study, barriers facing first generation college students are examined from the vantage point of a community based first generation college scholarship program designed to recruit and retain these students at a private university. Observational and census data are used as analysis. While many such barriers are ameliorated at least in …

The Relationship Between Participation In Community Service And Students Academic Success, Kelsi Grubisich

Masters Theses

This study explored the relationship between participation in community service and students' academic success at a mid-sized Midwestern institution. A quantitative study was conducted by distributing a survey through the Civic Engagement and Volunteerism Office listserv. The results from the t-test showed that there was no statistical significance in the participation in community service and students' academic success. Results from the Chi Square test showed that there was no statistical significance in the type of service students chose and their major, the gender participation, and the race participation. Recommendations were made to student affairs professionals to include more opportunities …

Happiness Index Methodology, Laura Musikanski, Scott Cloutier, Erica Bejarano, Davi Briggs, Julia Colbert, Gracie Strasser, Steven Russell

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The Happiness Index is a comprehensive survey instrument that assesses happiness, well-being, and aspects of sustainability and resilience. The Happiness Alliance developed the Happiness Index to provide a survey instrument to community organizers, researchers, and others seeking to use a subjective well-being index and data. It is the only instrument of its kind freely available worldwide and translated into over ten languages. This instrument can be used to measure satisfaction with life and the conditions of life. It can also be used to define income inequality, trust in government, sense of community and other aspects of well-being within specific demographics …

Community Development, Elizabeth Strom

Service-Learning Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Immersive Practices: Dilemmas Of Power And Privilege In Community Engagement With Students In A Rural South African Village, J. Michael Williams, Lisa M. Nunn

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

Power is manifested in many ways within immersive study abroad experiences. One of the paradoxes of this reality is that structures of power simultaneously create the conditions necessary for immersive community engagement programs to exist as well as limit the action, voice, and autonomy of the actors involved in the community engagement. Unequal power relations are an enduring dilemma of this kind of work even when the intention is to “join in community” with others to learn, create, and build relationships side by side for mutually beneficial purposes. In this paper we offer lessons we have learned, and continue to …

Immersions In Global Equality And Social Justice: A Model Of Change, Kevin Guerrieri, Sandra Sgoutas-Emch

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

In the work for global equality and social justice, how should “change” be understood? Who determines what must change or be changed? In the efforts to carry out social change, what is the academy’s relationship with the community, society at large, and the broader world? This article parts from these and other key questions and then proposes a model of change that can be used as a lens for examining any project, program, or organization with the aim of creating positive change that is meaningful, sustainable, and holistic. The article provides both an explanation of the underlying interdisciplinary theoretical framework …

The Spirituality Of Immersion: Solidarity, Compassion, Relationship, Michael E. Lovette-Colyer

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

While the term spirituality can be problematic, obscuring as much as revealing, immersion experiences cannot be understood fully without exploring the contours of what can only be described as spirituality. To the extent that they work, immersions effect change when they speak to the deepest longings of the heart. While manifesting in many different ways, the spirituality of immersion revolves around three major components: solidarity, compassion, and relationship. The spirituality of immersion is a developed relationality, a desire to enter into richer, wider, more expansive relationships with others, which naturally leads into deeper relationship with God.

Reflections On Skipping Stones To Diving Deep: The Process Of Immersion As A Practice, Judith Liu Dr

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

Reflecting upon over 30 years of teaching courses with a community service-learning and engagement component, this article is a personal piece that explores the author’s journey through voluntarism, community service-learning and civic engagement, and how that path has led to embracing immersion as a critical pedagogical practice for community engagement.

Engaged Pedagogy: Reflections From A Barriologist, Rigoberto Reyes

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

This essay offers advice to University faculty and administrators on how best to implement the work of engaged pedagogy and community development work. The author is an established activist and community organizer for the past 40 years. His most important recommendation when doing the work of community engagement is to begin work that starts and benefits the community.

The Shape Of Youth Work To Come: City Year's Approach To Youth Worker Development, Jeremy M. Joseph

Sustainability and Social Justice

The concept of youth work as a profession is slowly gaining legitimacy in the United States and features varying approaches. In order to maintain the growth of the field, youth worker training programs must be examined through the lens of a theoretical framework to better understand best practices and ways in which the youth are impacted by the services. I have chosen to use the case of the non-profit organization, City Year to highlight ways in which young leaders from varying backgrounds are introduced to the field of youth work. Through this study I have found that City Year is …

Designing And Documenting Community Engagement For Tenure And Promotion, Lesley M. Graybeal, Debra Burris, Amy Hawkins

Gulf South Summit on Service-Learning (Archived)

Research over the past two decades has built a compelling case that perceived institutional barriers, including lack of recognition of service-learning pedagogy in tenure and promotion decisions, are one of the greatest deterrents to faculty use of service-learning (Abes, Jackson, & Jones, 2002; Hammond, 1994; Morton & Troppe, 1996; Ward, 1998). Furthermore, faculty members perceive these institutional barriers at every stage of implementation of service-learning pedagogy (Hou & Wilder, 2015). Knowing how to design a service-learning experience, then, with an awareness of the tenure and promotion process can help faculty not only create robust community-engaged courses and research projects, but …

Service Learning And Community-Based Research: Implementation, Benefits, Challenges, And Future Directions, Ariana Postlethwait Phd, April Rand Phd, Sarah I. Pilgrim Phd, Carmelita Dotson Msw

Gulf South Summit on Service-Learning (Archived)

Rationale: Service learning and community engagement are a natural fit for many disciplines. Service learning projects provide students with an opportunity to apply course content to real world situations (Harder, 2010), developing projects that will benefit clients, agencies, and communities. Service learning is used across a variety of disciplines including social work (Hostetter, Sullenberger, & Wood, 2013) nursing (Murray, 2013) and business (Payne, Campbell, Bal, & Piercy, 2011). Working in a group within a service learning context provides a multitude of benefits including greater interest, motivation, and engagement; improved communication skills; real-life application of course content; and skills …

How Are We Impacting Communities In Short-Term International Service Immersion Programs?, Eliza Wethey

Gulf South Summit on Service-Learning (Archived)

The presentation will allow participants to critically examine service immersion and service-learning programs in an international context. While impacting students is an important outcome of international service immersion programs, equally important is our impact on communities. How are we considering the needs of the community partners we are working with? How are we ensuring the sustainability of the programs after our short-term involvement. How are we preparing students for work in these contexts?

This presentation will explore these questions in the context of Virginia Tech and VT Engage's international programs and give suggestions for how we can implement more sustainable …