Service Learning

Scholars of Engagement

The following definitions are offered by the Michigan Campus Compact, with examples from the social work and LDRS programs for clarification purposes:

Community service includes volunteer activities/projects which meet the needs of the community.

• SWORG (Social Work Organization) students participate in a homeless awareness count
• Social Work students engage in a cleanup day in spring, during which they rake and mow and plant donated perennials at the local homeless shelters
• Some LDRS minors volunteer at CASA to fulfill part of the leadership minor requirements

Service-learning integrates within the academic curriculum a thoughtfully organized service experience and provides structured opportunities for students to think, talk, or write about their service participation (the key is reflection experience).

• All social work students volunteer in local agencies for 20 hours in the introductory course and discuss and write journals about the helping experience connected to course learning
• Some Social Work students participate in global service/research trips that included journals, blogs, daily devotions and nightly discussion about the experience and learning all connected to the curriculum in specific social work courses
• LDRS 201 students create their own service learning projects with the goal of creating "productive community"

Civic engagement includes engaging students in a public purpose, social action, advocacy, community based research, citizenship and or learning the civic mission of higher education.

• One student in a Social Policy course studied "bullying legislation" under consideration by the Michigan Legislature now passed into law. She attended sessions on the legislation in Lansing, wrote policy analysis about the new law, learned to give oral and written testimony to prepare for policy area. In her school social work internship she educated teachers about the law and helped prepare curriculum for school social workers
• All social work students in senior year write a grant for local agency or conduct a community service research project for a local agency based on a service learning project that connects students to local agencies. One year one group of senior students wrote the "Brighter Futures" grant for CASA which was funded and students from the introductory class implemented the grant as a service-learning project and many grants have been funded over the years
• Students involved with CFL's Leading Faith-based Ministries programs, including ASI Consulting and LdOut3.