Service Learning Commons^™

Transformative Professional Development And The Promotion Of Literacy Through Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Sara Soledad Garcia, Christina F. Garcia

Teacher Education

This article recounts a narrative of professional transformation inspired by the works of Paulo Freire and Gloria Ladson-Billings and advanced by a participatory action research (PAR) project. The PAR team for this case study, consisting of the university teacher educator as a “coach” and a high school classroom teacher along with her students, examines the use of community-based knowledge in a form of corrido (ballads) studies. In this process, the ballads become the basis for learners’ engagement with literacy activities in the context of what is known as a heritage language Spanish class. The analysis focuses on the process of …

Perceptions Of Safety Among Adolescents In Jordanian Host Communities: A Pilot Study Conducted In Housing Communities In Baqa’A And Ramtha, Katie Stevenson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this research was to understand how refugee and Jordanian adolescents perceive safety by answering the following three questions: 1) How do adolescents in host communities define safety? 2) How do they perceive the safety of their community? 3) What is being done, within their communities, to address the safety needs of adolescents? By answering these questions, this research aimed to increase the understanding of how safety should be defined, assessed, and addressed in regards to adolescents living in Jordanian host communities. Due to resources limitations, this research was only conducted with Syrian adolescents refugees. Four interviews were …

Ua23 Progression Through Partnerships, Aurelia Spaulding Editor, Leah Ashwill, Lauren D. Cunningham

ALIVE Center Publications

No abstract provided.

Franklinton Healthcare Committee, Devyn Hempy, Logan Peterman, Nicole Kostiuk, Ethan Wojciechowski, Matt Mccollister

Senior Year Experience Student Projects

Franklinton HealthCare Committee proposes to reinvent Mt. Carmel West by creating a new rehabilitation center to fight drug and alcohol addiction, a wellness center to educate Franklinton residents about nutrition and health issues, and a residence hall to support the expansion of the nursing school.

We Get To Carry Each Other: Using The Musical Activism Of U2 As Framework For An Engaged Spirituality And Community Engagement Course, Marshall Welch

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

This article describes a January term community engagement service-learning course that used the musical and spiritually-based activism of the rock group U2 as an example of engaged spirituality using activism and advocacy. In addition to learning about the history, music, and activism of the band, students were taught a specific set of skills for activism, advocacy, and community organizing that included creating goal statements, developing and implementing action plans, and coordinating logistics for advocacy-based events on campus. Students were assigned to apply these skills as the service-learning component of the course. These activities were conceptualized as indirect service that reflected …

Interfacing Catholic Social Meanings, Sociology, Self, And Pedagogical Practices, Daniel J. Myers, Andrew J. Weigert

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

What connects Catholic Social Tradition with Sociology? How do each inform the other and how do they, together, flow through and animate the sociologist? Within a student-driven learning community pedagogy, this course builds on the humanistic aspects of Sociology as a scientific perspective a la Peter Berger’s Invitation to Sociology. This foundation is then filtered through a social psychological understanding of self with a sense of vocation through which persons’ deepest passions meets humans’ greatest needs. Biographical vignettes of sociologists’ careers of study that address issues of racial and gender inequalities and psycho-social shifts in values over the life course …

Journey Into Shame: Implications For Justice Pedagogies, Roger C. Bergman

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

Being formed for justice can be a painful experience. Sometimes that pain takes the form of shame and contributes to the formation and exercise of conscience. But shame in other forms can be opposed to human flourishing and social justice. Psychologist James Fowler provides a spectrum of two forms of healthy shame and four forms of unhealthy shame, to which the author adds four other varieties, strategic shame and spiritual shame, at one end of the spectrum, and murderous shame and genocidal shame, at the other. Various experiences of shame are dramatically illustrated in Black Like Me, John Howard …

Prophetic Imagination: Confronting The New Jim Crow & Income Inequality In America, Cornel West

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

On October 11, 2014, Cornel West delivered the keynote address to nearly 600 students at the regional Leadership & Social Justice Conference, hosted at Saint Mary’s College of California. The conference occurred two days before West was arrested in Ferguson, Missouri, during a demonstration to protest the killing of young Black men by White police officers, as in the case of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson. Speaking of the students, West said, "I would like to see these precious young people commit themselves to lives of integrity, honesty and decency, where they are vigilant against all forms of evil—White supremacists, …

Is Service-Learning The Answer? Preparing Teacher Candidates To Work With Ells Through Service-Learning Experiences, Sandra Rodriguez-Arroyo

Scholarship of Metropolitan Mission

In an effort to address the gaps in preparing teacher candidates (TCs) to work with English Language Learners (ELLs), service-learning experiences (SLE) were integrated into two courses within a teacher education program. This exploratory case study sought to explore the outcomes of teacher candidates (TCs) engaged in SLE with diverse students and families, particularly ELLs. Content analysis of students’ reflections provided insights of the impact of the SLE. Findings indicate that participating in service-learning with ELLs provides opportunities for TCs to engage in positive interactions that help to address misconceptions about students, families, and communities. TCs also began to confront …

Utilizing Participatory Action Research To Assess The Interagency Collaboration Of A Community-Based After-School Program Partnership, Jessica L. Render

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The study utilized a community-based participatory action research (PAR) approach to assess the development of an interagency collaborative and its replication at other locations. The partnership formed to provide a service-learning site for university students as well as a community-based after-school program for children living in a low-income housing community. Research participants completed the levels of collaboration scale developed by Frey and Colleagues (2006) along with a questionnaire about their desired level of collaboration, current and needed resources, and knowledge of other partners’ goals. Collaboration is loosely defined as a group of partners working together to reach shared goals. The …

Fearless Friday: Erin O'Connor, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

For fearless Friday, Surge would like to commend Silent Leader Award recipient, Erin O’Connor. The Silent Leader Award was given this year in memory of Emily Silverstein ’11, a passionate member of the campus community and a fervent advocate for peace at yesterday’s Fall Convocation. [excerpt]

Opinion: Too Many Veterans With Children Are Still Homeless, Christopher R. Fee, Joshua L. Stewart

English Faculty Publications

Don’t ignore homeless veterans.

As we pause this Veterans Day to reflect on those who have sacrificed in the service of our country, let us not neglect to address the plight of those who have returned to a civilian life with far less promise than they have every right to expect. [excerpt]

Ua23 Progression Through Partnerships, Aurelia Spaulding Editor, Leah Ashwill Director

ALIVE Center Publications

No abstract provided.

Ua23 Progression Through Partnerships, Aurelia Spaulding Editor, Leah Ashwill Director

ALIVE Center Publications

No abstract provided.

Participatory Action And Drought As A Symbolic Context: The Case Of Aldama Chihuahua, Mexico, Sara Soledad Garcia

Teacher Education

This paper presents a field-based project and a theoretical framework for work with an Action Research paradigm. The complexities of process are illustrated and synthesized in two theoretical models. The design of the study required constant change in the focus of projects as a result of the action produced from genuine involvement. As a result a working template of the execution of the action research projects involving multiple educational institutions was generated by bi-national collaborations. Participants were ecological researchers and schoolteachers, actively engaged in schools and in the education of the community at-large on the effects of drought in their …

Are We Really Making A Difference?: Lessons From Nesta’S Innovation Lab, Philip Colligan

Social Space

Are public and social innovation labs achieving impact? Philip Colligan from Nesta’s Innovation Lab looks at how we can answer the most important question of whether labs are indeed making a difference to societies.

Food Landscapes: A Case Study Of A Cooking And Art- Focused Program For Teens Living In A Food Desert, Jessica R. Norris

Theses and Dissertations

This study constructs themes and propositions about the experiences of youth participants in the fall 2013 Food Landscapes program at the Neighborhood Resource Center in Richmond, Virginia. During the program, youth participated in cooking-based volunteerism with adults with disabilities and created short videos about their experiences. In this study, I analyzed pre- and post-program participant interviews, twice-weekly program observations, and facilitator reflections to understand how Food Landscapes affected youths’ conception of community engagement and communication strategies. This case study offers insight into how youth experience after-school programming of this design. Based on my findings, youth develop and rely upon a …

Challenging Homelessness, Elizabeth D. Marshall

SURGE

I had been homeless for about 28 hours. I sat on a sidewalk in Georgetown with a friend holding a cardboard sign that read, “Put a Smile on Our Faces” with a Dunkin Donuts cup at our feet. In the two and a half hours we sat there, hundreds of people passed, hundreds of people avoided eye contact, hundreds of people detoured around the lamppost on the street side of the sidewalk. A few people glanced at our sign. [excerpt]

The Primacy Of Context: An Exploration Into The Causes Of Food Insecurity In Kitere, Kenya., William O. Aludo

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this study was to explore the specific reasons why households in Kitere village, Kenya experience persistent food insecurity every year while the region enjoys the advantage of two planting/harvest seasons in a year. Kitere village lies within the lakeside region of Nyanza Province in Kenya, generally considered to be one of the more agriculturally productive parts of the country. The Participatory Rural Appraisal method was employed to gather qualitative data on the causes of food insecurity in Kitere village. The data sources were focus groups and a self-administered, one-time survey of random and non-random samples of key …

Ua23 Progression Through Partnerships, Aurelia Spaulding, Editor, Leah Ashwill, Director

ALIVE Center Publications

No abstract provided.

Understanding Research Fatigue In The Context Of Community-University Relations, Elora Way

Local Knowledge: Worcester Area Community-Based Research

Community research fatigue has been understudied within the context of community-university relationships and knowledge production. Community-based research (CBR), often occurring within a limited geography and population, increases the possibility that community members feel exhausted or over-whelmed by university research —particularly when they do not see tangible results from research activities. Prompted by informal stories of research fatigue from community members, a small graduate student team sought to understand the extent to which community members experienced research fatigue, and what factors contributed to or relieved feelings of research fatigue. In order to explore these dimensions of research fatigue, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews …

Milking The System: Do Poor People Deserve Fresh Food?, Melanie M. Meisenheimer

SURGE

Poor Americans are all lazy, selfish people who must first prove their worth as human beings if they want to be able to feed their children.

It sounds harsh, stereotypical, and judgmental when you put it like that, and few people would feel comfortable saying that exact phrase. However, it’s a perception of poverty in America that I’ve found still has a strong grip on our way of thinking. [excerpt]

Chhs March 2013 E-Newsletter, Dr. John Bonaguro, Dean, Vashon S. Wells, Editor, Wku College Of Health & Human Services

College of Health & Human Services Publications

No abstract provided.

Ua41 University College Connection, Dennis K. George, Dean, Wendi Kelley, University College, Western Kentucky University

UC Publications

No abstract provided.

Building Up A Community By Empowering Disadvantaged Youth, Sophia De Quattro

Service-Learning | Student Scholarship

When you enter the grounds of Marin County Community School (MCCS), you see security patrolling the premises. The students may be on probation, house arrest, or have general behavior issues deemed unfit for regular public school. High-risk youth in Marin County generally are referred to MCCS, an alternative education facility, in hopes of providing the student a second chance to earn a high school diploma and a better future. MCCS, located in San Rafael, California provides an educational program geared towards intensive instruction in English/Language Arts and Mathematics with a focus on developing pro-social skills through the integration of services …

Exploring German And American Modes Of Pedagogical And Institutional Sustainability: Forging A Way Into The Future, Lindon N. Pronto

Pitzer Senior Theses

Rooted deep in Germany's past is its modern socio-political grounding for environmental respect and sustainability. This translates into individual and collective action and extends equally to the economic and policy realm as it does to educational institutions. This thesis evaluates research conducted in Germany with a view to what best approaches are transferable to the United States liberal arts setting. Furthermore, exemplary American models of institutional sustainability and environmental education are explored and combined with those from abroad to produce a blueprint and action plan fitting for the American college and university.

Service Learning/Civic Engagement And Assessment In Higher Education [Presentation With Audio], Allison Smith

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

To illustrate the importance of service learning and civic engagement in higher education.

To demonstrate the need for assessment and accountability of service learning and civic engagement in higher education.

Ua23 Progression Through Partnerships, Aurelia Spaulding, Editor, Western Kentucky University Alive Center For Community Partnerships

ALIVE Center Publications

No abstract provided.

Ua41 University College Connection, Dennis K. George, Dean, Wendi Kelley

UC Publications

No abstract provided.

Ua23 Spirit Of Engagement 2012, Aurelia Spaulding, Alive Center, Western Kentucky University

ALIVE Center Publications

No abstract provided.