Get Real!! Higher Education & Civic Engagement

1. Get Real!!Higher Education & Civic Engagement Purdue University, Calumet Monday, February 26th, 2007 Lindsay Doucette Program Director, Indiana Campus Compact

2. Outline: • What is service-learning? • Benefits • Designing a service-learning course • Integrating a service component into your curriculum • Funding and other opportunities provided by Indiana Campus Compact

3. What is service-learning? • Course-based educational experience. • Organized service activity that meets community agency goals and contributes to the learning objectives of the course. • Through structured reflection students gain a further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of personal values and civic responsibility. • Challenges students to become active agents in both the community and in their own learning.

4. Eight key elements • Student voice • Meaningful service/ civic engagement • Authentic needs assessment • Academic connections • Collaboration • Reflection • Evaluation • Celebration/ recognition

5. Benefits of service-learning: • For students • Dealing with ambiguity • Problem-solving • Developing a scope of work • Dealing with time constraints • Effective communication with varied parties • Team work • Conflict resolution • Confidence • Empowerment • Greater understanding of real-world context • Empathy • Connections made within community • Desire to remain engaged • Non-traditional leaders emerge • Resume builder

6. Benefits of service-learning: • For faculty • Work with colleagues within field of expertise • Build or strengthen partnerships w/i community • Apply expertise toward addressing community issues • Long-term impact on students • Strengthen dossier and scholarly work • Present results

7. Benefits of service-learning: • For community partners • Accomplish agency goals in a cost-effective way • Improve community partnership programs with campus • Increase likelihood of recruiting future volunteers and staff • Increase visibility of mission

8. Designing a service-learning course • Learning objectives • Must be realistic, consider time-constraints • Community partnerships • Include community reps in the planning process • Listen to community ideas • Communicate goals of the course • Consider transportation, training, supervision, lines of communication, issues of liability, evaluation, and end-of-term celebration.

9. Designing a service-learning course • Reflection • Clearly link service experience to course content and learning objectives • Be structured in terms of descriptions, expectations, and criteria for assessment • Occur regularly during semester • Allow for feedback and assessment by instructor • Retrospective and prospective • Examples: Personal journals, class presentations, entrance/exit cards, directed writings, e-mail discussion, experiential research papers, ethical case studies, weekly logs, service-learning portfolios

10. Ways to integrate a service component • Required within course • Option within a course • Thematic learning communities • Disciplinary capstone projects • Community-based research • Independent 4th credit option • First-year success seminar

11. Funding Opportunities • Faculty • Scholarship of Engagement • Faculty Fellows • Students • Community Service Mini-Grant • Staff • Listening to Communities

12. Programs • Conference on Service and Engagement • April 19th at Indiana State University

13. Purdue Calumet and ICC • PU Calumet: member since 1995. • PU Calumet faculty and staff grant recipients: • Scholarship of Engagement Grant ’05-06’ • Kathleen Tobin • Linda Willer • Cheryl Moredich

14. Contact Us: • Lindsay Doucette Program Director for Constituent Development 620 Union Drive, Ste. 203 Indianapolis, IN 46202 PH: (317) 274-6500 FAX: (317) 274-6510 www.indianacampuscompact.org