Faculty Information Service-learning depends on faculty involvement and leadership. The Center for Community Involvement aims to make integration of service-learning into your coursework a true partnership, while still maintaining academic rigor and educational impact. What do I have to do to incorporate service-learning into my courses? What if I have a student who is doing service-learning for another class in addition to my own class? What is the minimum number of hours of service? Maintenance of Rank Faculty Participation Timeline (Checklist) Case Studies

• Familiarize yourself with the faculty handbook, “A Faculty Guide To Service-Learning.” A hard copy may be obtained through one of the centers. See Contact Information.
  

• Meet with your Campus Faculty Coordinator and the Center for Community Involvement Campus Director (see Contact Information).
  

• Attend a faculty skills workshop. Schedules are dissiminated from each Campus Center.
   

• Complete the Course Development Worksheet to help you determine: whether the service-learning experience will be optional or required for your students, the number of hours to be completed by your students, placement sites for your students, reflective components of service-learning experience for your students, assessment strategies, etc.
  

• Integrate service-learning into your class syllabus.
  

• Schedule a class presentation to introduce service-learning to your students with the Center for Community Involvement Campus Director (see Contact Information).
  

• Help collect your students’ service-learning forms (application, time sheet, and evaluation on pages 7-12 of the student handbook).
  

• Return all collected student service-learning forms (application, time sheet, and evaluation) to the Center for Community Involvement (see Contact Information).
  

• Communicate with the Center for Community Involvement and ask for any assistance when necessary.

Faculty members can determine their own number of hours for each course.  Some faculty design one-time service-learning experiences that last a few hours, while other faculty members ask their students to complete 30 or more hours over the semester.  The average number of hours is about 20 per term. There is no right or wrong number.  Research does show, however, that the benefits increase based on the number of hours and the quality of the reflection activities.

The checklist is being worked on at the moment. Check occasionally for further information.

• Situation:
  You organize a brown bag luncheon for faculty interested in service-learning.  
  Two faculty members get in a heated debate about whether service-learning should be required or optional.
  Question:  
  What are the advantages and disadvantages for each approach?
  Possible Responses:
  Advantages of requiring service-learning:

  • Get more people involved.

  • Can be more difficult to discuss if the entire class is not involved.

  •  Some otherwise resistant students will lose out on the opportunity (the students who wouldn’t normally choose service-learning often are those who deserve the most benefit.).

  •  Benefits provided are not offered elsewhere; i.e. skills enhancement, job experience, resume enhancement, major and career assessment, making contacts, etc.  

  • Students—including those who didn’t want to participate—overwhelmingly report, at the end of the experience, that they are glad they did service-learning.  

  •  If students are given flexible options – weekends, evenings, a variety of service opportunities, -- a suitable placement can be found for almost any student.

  •  Faculty require many assignments in their classes – research projects, papers, etc., service-learning is simply another tool to help students learn course content and can be required just like anything else.

  Disadvantages of requiring service-learning:

  • Can create resentment of being required to do something.

  • Semblance of additional work on the part of student and faculty.

  • Concerns of faculty for application to their curriculum.

  • Some students are going to school, working and raising a family and find it difficult to participate.

  • Some students may be ill prepared for service (psychological problems, etc.)  

  • Legal issues may be raised if require all the students to go to one activity on a particular day.

  Advantages of service-learning as an optional part of the class:

  • Students may feel more willing to participate.

  • Choice is usually more appealing.

  • Faculty new to the program may feel less overwhelmed and less stressed about “forcing students to participate” since not everyone will participate and they can “feel” their way through what works and what does not.  

  • If presented properly, service-learning can be enticing and exciting and the entire class can be convinced to participate without “forcing them.”

  Disadvantages of Service-Learning as an optional part of the class:

  • Disproportionate grading system for those who take part and those who don’t.

• Situation:  
  A Criminal Justice professor decides to use service-learning.  
  She revises her syllabus to include a 15-hour service-learning option and looks forward to having many of her students included.  Four weeks into the term she comes to you to lament the fact hat only 3 of her 30 students signed up for service-learning.
  Question: 
  What strategies to increase student involvement can you suggest for faculty who use service-learning as an option and want as many students as possible to sign up?
  Possible Responses:
  Strategies to increase student involvement:

  • Increase value (make it more significant part of their grade)

  • Improve manner in which service-learning is presented

  • Get students who have participated in service-learning in the past (student ambassadors) to speak to class about value of service-learning

  • Have existing faculty who use service learning facilitate a workshop

  • Open discussion (review) between professor and class on benefits of service-learning

  • Have someone from the Service-Learning Center speak to class, create dialogue, etc.

  • Have agency speaker come and talk with class

  • Take class on tour of an agency

  • Correlate service-learning and the Criminal Justice system and the contribution the students can make in a short time

  • Emphasize experience and the fact that if they are truly interested in this field then service-learning should be natural progression of their interests. 

  • Require service-learning

  • Have students research importance and benefits of service-learning

• Situation:
  One of the most frequently mentioned goals of service-learning is to “help promote civic responsibility.”  You wholeheartedly support this goal but are concerned that your students, despite doing a wonderful job in their service projects, really aren’t any more knowledgeable about this concept at the end of the term.  You do some research and find that unless students are purposefully taught about civic responsibility, they will not necessarily gain an increased understanding of it from simply being involved in service.
  Question: 
  What is civic responsibility and how might you “purposefully teach” your students about it?
  Possible Responses:  
  Civic Responsibility:  Demonstrating citizenship skills:  

  • Participating in democracy  

  • Working for the common good

  • Giving up some of your rights for the good of all

  • Exhibiting rights and responsibilities

  • Endorsing our multicultural nation

  • Listening

  • Expanding our imagination and trying to understand others points of view

  • Respecting our differences

  • Knowledge of our country’s history, values, and political system

  • Problem solving and decision making

  • Exhibiting communication skills that endorse consensus building

How to Teach Civic Responsibility:  

• Monthly “brown bag” faculty lunch to discuss concept and ways to foster civic responsibility

• Hold campus forums for faculty and students to discuss civic responsibility

• Look for ways to purposefully explore and reflect on this concept through a mixture of reading, writing, and dialogue

• Situation: 
  Helping students think critically about the social problems our society faces is an important goal of service-learning. Although you have 10 outstanding faculty involved in your program, you notice that the depth of the students’ experience is not what it could be. 
  Although faculty are doing an adequate job of connecting the service experience to their class, you worry that students are not being challenged to fully understand the complexities of the social problems they face via their service.
  Questions: 
  Questions:
  How could you strengthen this component of your program?
  Possible Responses: 
  Strengthening the service-learning program:

  • Good training of agencies so they build in reflection on-site  

  • Build in critical thinking assignments that ask students to reflect on underlying social issues and how they can contribute to alleviating these problems

  •  Invite community organization speaker to class or visit agency

  • Forum on Civic Responsibility emphasizing social issues in our community - tie this back to their service through small group discussion

• Situation: 
  You have a lot of administrative support for service-learning but you just can’t seem to get more faculty interested.  
  Question:
  What strategies could you use to increase faculty involvement?
  Possible Responses:  
  Recommendations to institute a s-l program:

  • President’s support required  

  • Need infrastructure – office, staff, etc.

  • Designate an energetic, committed, respected faculty member as coordinator

  • Need investment and time

  • Need students to staff office

  • Training program for agencies

  • Visit a model program

  • Research Internet for service learning

  • Engage at least one Dean, Assistant Dean, Chair and three faculty members in the process (Get one faculty member to take the lead and be spokesperson)

  • Focus on quality vs. quantity

  • Emphasize academic rigor

  • Orient and train all participants

  • Focus on academic integrity from the beginning