Service Learning Commons^™

A College-Community Service Program To Improve Student Reading, Antonio M. Eppolito, Stephanie Burt Pelcher, Jim Wright

Higher Education

Service learning at LeMoyne College extends the learning of undergraduate students in teacher education beyond the college classroom while fulfilling an education department's practicum requirement by assisting in the improvement of elementary students' reading comprehension skills. A partnership created among Blue Cross-Blue Shield Insurance Company of Central New York-whose corporate sponsorship covers the cost of transporting tutors from the college campus to the elementary school Elmwood Elementary School of The Syracuse City School District, and Le Moyne College (BEL) provides a tutoring program for third graders who have been judged by their teachers to be less-skilled readers than many of …

Communal Participatory Action Research As A Strategy For Improving Universities And The Social Sciences: Penn's Work With The West Philadelphia Improvement Corps As A Case Study, Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, John Puckett

Higher Education

As the 20th century closes, a key question is: What can the social sciences do to help solve the problems of our society and world? The authors identify the principal causes of the crisis in the university and the social sciences to be intellectual fragmentation and a structural contradiction that is built into the American research university. They then propose a radical reorientation of American universities toward helping solve real-world problems-particularly those in a university's local community. The authors suggest that such an orientation can be achieved through communal participatory action research projects designed to help change society. This research …

In The National Interest: Community College And Their Community Service Are Vital To Democracy, Hugh Baily

Higher Education

Let me get right to the point and give you a sense of why the Corporation for National Service sees Community Colleges as such critical partners in our effort. Your students across the country have been engaged in community service for many years. Indeed, during the past decade we have seen a resurgence of grassroots activity that helped catapult the issue of service onto the national agenda. Now we are asking institutions of higher education and their students to continue their leadership and involvement.

Citizenship, Community Service, And University--Based Community Schools, Marie K. Bogle, Ira Harkavy

Higher Education

In the October 6, 1995 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Alexander W. Astin discussed why "student interest and engagement in politics are at an all time low." Astin's explanation placed responsibility squarely (and in our judgement appropriately) at the feet of the American university. Despite their traditionally professed mission to promote good citizenship, universities have devoted few resources to that mission and performed it badly. Why has this occurred? Astin's answer was simple and direct- higher education has

Service Learning: Why Community Colleges?, Lynn Barnett

Higher Education

More than any other segment of American higher education, community colleges play a unique role in their own communities. The AACC is sponsoring several community-building and service learning projects at community college campuses across the nation.

Implementing Service Learning In Higher Education, Robert G. Bringle, Julie A. Hatcher

Higher Education

In a recent article, "Creating the New American College," Ernest Boyer challenges higher education to reconsider its mission to be that of educating students for a life as responsible citizens, rather than educating students solely for a career. By doing so, the "New American College" will take pride in connecting theory to practice in order to meet challenging social problems, particularly those faced by universities in urban settings. As Ira Harkavey of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Community Partnerships has noted, "Universities cannot afford to remain shores of affluence, self-importance and horticultural beauty at the edge of island seas …

Developing Graduate Educational Technology Programs From A Service Learning Platform, John Lebaron, Dorothy Burke, Christine Maloof

Higher Education

The graduate College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML), is in the second year of a service centered model for graduate coursework in educational technology. The two courses Technology and Learning Environments (T&LE, 1994), and Technology and Schools of the Future (T&SF, 1995) had previously been offered as "traditional" academic offerings. In cooperation with the Lawrence Public Schools, one of the poorest districts in the nation, these courses were modified as "service learning" experiences. A more detailed account of the first year of this project (LeBaron and Scribner-MacLean, 1995) is available on request to the authors. This …

Crossing Boundaries A Research Agenda Toward Productive Learning And Community Renewal, American Association For Higher Education

Higher Education

Colleges and universities expect that society's pursuit of democratic goals is continuously informed by well-prepared graduates who shape and contribute to the common good. The creative, competent, and committed student is often a faculty's finest form of service. Joining this fundamental mission to the daily tasks of continually building and renewing democracy was the focus of the 12th annual AAHE Research Forum. Crossing boundaries among teaching, research, and service includes making informed commitments and taking responsible actions. But what do we need to know to reconsider who we are and what we do in light of the changing complexities of …

Leam & Serve Higher Education Programs In Minnesota: The Impact And Sustainability Of Service-Learning, Kevin J. Gormley

Higher Education

This article provides a descriptive evaluation of 12 higher education, service-learning programs in Minnesota funded in part by the Corporation for National Service: Learn and Serve America Program.' The research for this project was conducted in 45 days during the summer of 1995 using a phenomenological methodology to examine the impact and sustainability of the programs. The data for this research were derived from interviews with individuals involved in local initiatives. Three main categories of information became evident after analyzing the data: (I) program design, (2) success and impact of programs, and (3) sustainability and the future of service-learning. These …

Sociology And Service Learning At Loyola, Barbara H. Vann

Higher Education

Service learning is a term used to describe efforts to link community service to the academic curriculum. It is a broad, nebulously defined term which at times includes academic endeavors.such as internships, needs assessments and participatory action research (Marullo, !996). A more narrow .usage, and the usage promoted by its advocates, refers to the process through which students participate in organized service activity for academic credit to meet identified community needs and reflect on that service to further their understanding of course material (Bringle and Hatcher, 1994 ). And, as Marullo (1996) has pointed out, when service learning activity is …

Student Experiences With Service Learning In A Business Ethics Course, John Kohls

Higher Education

Service learning provides many challenges and opportunities for the instructor who wishes to test its potential. This paper looks at some of the promise for service learning in the undergraduate Business Ethics course and describes one experience with this project. Quotations from student journals and reflective papers are utilized to present the student's perspective on the project. Some suggestions are offered for insuring effective service learning in courses like Business Ethics.

Large-Scale Institutional Change To Implement An Urban University Mission: Portland State University, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

In response to calls for accountability and effectiveness, public universities are reviewing their missions and are adopting measurable mission-specific goals. An emerging distinctive institutional type is the urban university, an institution characterized by the nature and extent of its responsiveness to the research and educational needs of complex metropolitan regions. This paper concerns the national environment for organizational change, a model for change, and a case study of one urban university that has pursued comprehensive and systemic change in its academic and administrative environment to direct resources to the support of its distinctive urban mission.

Implementing Service Learning In Higher Education, Robert G. Bringle, Julie A. Hatcher

Higher Education

The current interest in service learning provides universities with a unique opportunity to engage their students in community service, expand their educational agenda, and build reciprocal partnerships - with the community. This article discusses the implementation of service learning by delineating a set of activities for four constituencies: the institution, faculty, students, and community.

Opportunity For All: Linking Service-Learning And Business Education, Edward Zlotkowski

Higher Education

A major criticism of contemporary business education centers on its failure to help business students achieve sufficient educational breath, particularly with regard to the external environment of business. The service-learning movement offers business faculty an excellent opportunity to address this deficiency. By developing curricular projects linked to community needs, faculty can further their students' technical skills while helping them simultaneously develop greater inter-personal, inter-cultural, and ethical sensitivity.

A Paradigm Change In Higher Education?, Goodwin Liu

Higher Education

In the past decade we have witnessed steady progress in the development of service-learning programs on college campuses across the nation. As the director of a federal program that supports these initiatives, I was often" asked to describe the national context in which these initiatives take place. The national context can be sketched in many ways. Sometimes I used a historical perspective to explain how the service-leaming movement came to be. With other audiences, I used a policy perspective to explain how the Corporation for National Service and other national organizations are working to expand and sustain the movement.

Writing The Ties That Bind: Service-Learning In The Writing Classroom, David D. Cooper, Laura Julier

Higher Education

Recognizing, as John Dewey observed, that democracy begins in conversation, the Service-Learning Writing Project views the writing classroom as a place where rhetorical processes and democratic practices naturally converge. Informed by complementary disciplinary conversations in public culture studies and composition research, the project's interdisciplinary curriculum and pedagogical methods seek to shape habits of heart and mind that advance the development of critical discourse skills, the refinement of civic sensibility, and the promotion of students' ethical responsibility for the public good.

Experiential-Learning Activities In Undergraduate Developmental Psychology, Andrea D. Clements

Higher Education

In two studies, I examined student responses to an increased emphasis on experiential activities in a required undergraduate developmental psychology course. For four experiential sections (n=134), each class topic was related to a specific, real-world application. Four other sections (n=187) were taught primarily by lecture, with one out-of-class observation assignment. The experiential sections rated the value of and interest in the subject matter higher and the courtesy and consideration of the instructor significantly more positively than did the lecture sections. Students in the two types of sections did not differ significantly in achievement. A follow-up study identified the origin of …

From Teaching To Learning: A New Paradigm For Undergraduate Education, Robert B. Barr, John Tagg

Higher Education

Two alternative paradigms for undergraduate education are compared; one holds teaching as its purpose, the other learning. The natures of the two paradigms are examined on the following dimensions: mission and purposes, criteria for success, teaching and learning structures, underlying learning theory, concepts of productivity and methods of funding, and faculty and staff roles in instruction and governance.

Service Learning With Student Organizations, Mary Anderson-Rowland

Higher Education

Recently, there has been an increased demand on fiscal accountability in all sectors, but perhaps even more so in the educational arena. Recruitment and retention have become very important in a time of shrinking engineering enrollments. This means that special efforts need to be made to attract new students to our engineering and applied sciences college, especially underrepresented minorities and women. At the same time, extra efforts need to be made to retain the students already recruited. All of this takes time and money.

The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) at Arizona State University (ASU) has a plan …

Faculty Guide To Service-Learning, David B. Johnson

Higher Education

Since you are reading this, you probably have an interest in service-learning. Perhaps you are presently a volunteer in your community or had a fulfilling experience with activism as a college student. Maybe you have been incorporating community service in your teaching and are looking for some new ideas. Possibly you are searching for a new approach to bring more life to the classroom or just recharge your batteries. Whatever the motive, the proven pedagogical strategy of service-learning may be for you.

Preparing The Way For Reform In Higher Education: Drawing Upon The Resources Of The Community-At-Large, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

Higher education is being asked to pay more attention to student learning and to contribute to the enhancement of the social and economic conditions of the community it serves. As a result, educational institutions will no longer be self-contained Community members and organizations have become not only critical partners inframing the goals and intentions of the educational reform movement, but they also have assets that must be tapped by educational institutions that wish to implement change and respond to social needs

College Credit For Community Service: A "Win-Win" Situation, Janet Patterson Fleischauer, John F. Fleischauer

Higher Education

We need only look at the newspapers today to know that insufficient numbers of college and high school graduates are seriously considering social service careers to meet community needs. Job applications are down at human service agencies. Twenty-first century slogans have not helped charitable fund drives meet goals of past years. Education is being challenged to respond to a social deficit in preparing citizens for community service.

Linking Traditional And Service-Learning Courses: Outcome Evaluations Utilizing Two Pedagogically Distinct Models, Jerry Miller

Higher Education

University students in two advanced introductory classroom-based courses in psychology were offered the opportunity for simultaneous enrollment in a content-related section of a large community service learning course. Students selecting the option did not substantially differ from students who did not select it. Participating students rated the experience as being significantly more valuable than did non-participating students. Students did not differ either in their reports concerning gains in personal development or general mastery of course concepts, or in final course grades received, but participants did report an enhanced ability to apply concepts outside of the classroom. Differences in reports between …

Promoting Family Literacy: An Opportunity For Suburban University-Inner City Agency Resource Exchange, Judith Primavera, June Gellis Malone, Anne K. O'Donnell, Kathleen R. Mcguigan

Higher Education

The Family Literacy Project is a preventive program designed to increase lower income children's language readiness for school. The project's approach to literacy enhancement involves both tutoring the children and training the parents to be more effective "first teachers" of the types of emergent reading skills that are prerequisites to formal elementary school reading instruction. Forty-five undergraduates were trained as literacy facilitators and met on a weekly basis with ninety preschoolers enrolled in Head start or with participating parents (N=20) . The specific tutoring of the children varied according to the child's specific areas of language strengths and weaknesses. The …

Teaching Empowerment, Helen Fox

Higher Education

The contradiction inherent in "teaching empowerment" is that students need to learn specific, empowering ways to understand and interact with community people while at the same time feeling empowered, themselves, by the way the service-learning course is designed and taught. This requires a delicate balance between "starting with students where they are" and insisting they confront issues that make them uncomfortable. The author describes her attempt to do this in a new community service learning seminar for freshmen focusing on empowerment education.

Service Learning: A New Approach In Higher Education, Barbara W. Carpenter, Jacqulin S. Jacobs

Higher Education

Southern University is rare, if not unique, among public institutions in requiring undergraduates to complete sixty-clock hours of community service before graduation. The purpose of this initiative was to heighten the sensitivity of graduates to the indispensable role that volunteerism must play in our society. We also envisioned collectively addressing some of the ills of the State of Louisiana by having a pool of 16,000 students in the Southern University System contributing to the alleviation of human suffering and social decay. In this paper, we describe some of the noteworthy accomplishments that the program has made over the past three …

Community Service And The Hospitality Curriculum, Florence Berger, Marc Ackerman

Higher Education

Voluntary community service and human-relations courses should be an integral part of hotel administration courses. Such courses allow students to see how their actions can affect other people, appreciate service, dismantle stereotypes, become aware of social issues and develop other skills which they can apply as members the hospitality industry. To become effective, however, these courses should first instill in students the value of initiative, self-motivation and commitment.

A Marriage Made In Heaven: Community Colleges And Service Learning, Judith S. Berson

Higher Education

Today's college student is changing. As America's social problems continue to grow exponentially, more and more students are seeking solutions to those problems through community service. A graduate journalism class examining the rise of student community service referred to it as "a quiet phenomenon taking place on campuses across the country--a surge in volunteerism among a generation of Americans dismissed for their self-interest, apathy, and nihilism" (Shapiro, 1994, p. 85). President Bill Clinton's inaugural address called upon Americans to demonstrate concern for one another when he said, "By fate, the fortunate and the unfortunate could have been each other." With …

The Transformative Power Of Education, Johnetta B. Cole

Higher Education

It's a joy to be here today as your partner in learning and your partner in change. Continuing education has been, and will always be, a vital element in the life of our citizens, communities, and society. The National University continuing Education Association has demonstrated once again its foresight and leadership in choosing the theme of powerful partnerships for change. Education is the key to seeing, understanding, and confronting the major challenges we face today, and we need to enlist each and every one of us, from all sectors of society, in the essential work strengthening our communities.

Creating The New American College, Ernest L. Boyer

Higher Education

How can American higher education successfully contribute to national renewal? ls it possible for the work of the academy to relate more effectively to our most pressing social, economic, and civic problems? These questions, while always appropriate, seem especially relevant today because, for the first time in years, our colleges and universities are not collectively caught up in some urgent national endeavor.