Friday, November 16, 2007
University formalizes service learning with new program
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Faculty and staff who would like to engage in service learning projects with students and the community will have support from an Extended Services program currently under development. The Service Learning Program is an approach to education that incorporates community projects into courses with the goal of enhancing student learning and providing valuable services to the community. Dr. Anne Statham joined the University this semester as director of service learning and visiting professor of sociology. She has extensive experience with development and implementation of service learning programs at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside; spent the last 10 years working with community-based learning in Kenosha; and has published on the scholarship of engagement. “The University is putting more emphasis on outreach and engagement, broadly,” said Dr. M. Edward Jones, dean of Extended Services. “We have a long history of involvement, and if you look across the University there are many examples of how faculty and staff and some students are involved in outreach projects. However, we have fairly limited opportunities for formal service learning outreach activities by students. “In order for us to complete the circle of involvement in outreach efforts, we wanted to begin a formal program of service learning where we increase support through extended services for faculty and student service engagement with initiatives across the region.” Statham said the Service Learning Program will match requests from the community with courses; find projects for faculty interested who want to incorporate service learning; and offer general support for projects in a variety of ways. “We’ll help with whatever people need to make a project run smoothly and take the burden off of individual faculty members,” she said. She is currently working with the Sociology, Education, and Social Work departments on a Habitat for Humanity survey. The organization approached the University through the Center for Applied Research. She also is developing engagement projects with the Office of Student Affairs to create opportunities for student involvement outside of the classroom. Statham and Jones both acknowledge that many individual departments and faculty members are already committed to service learning and have built projects into their curriculums. “There are some very creative and excellent examples of service learning being done on campus already,” Jones said, “but we wanted this to be a more formalized approach with the type of support mechanisms that make it easier for faculty to develop and implement service learning projects.” For more information on Service Learning at USI, contact Statham at 812/465-1203. |
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