Program encourages community service learning process
Campuses provide real-life experiences through volunteerism
by Diana De Leon, reporter

    (Part two in a series on service learning)

   Service learning, a teaching strategy coordinated between school and community, engages young people in service to others as part of their academic life.

   Instructors who participate in service learning become involved for different reasons.

   Vincent Lembo, associate professor of psychology on SE Campus, said, “I believe in the concept of real-world experience.”

   Lembo has been involved in the service learning program since it started and offers it as an option to all his students.

   “I believe that many times it helps a student,” he said.

   Lembo offers his service learning students extra credit toward their whole semester grade.

   Dorothy Harman, a computer science instructor on NE Campus, saw a need to have a project for her students.

   “Students analyze a problem and come up with a solution, tying it into the curriculum,” she said.

   Students have developed software for a non-profit organization that controls inventory and tracks information and hours, Harman said.

   “Real world experience is what makes it great for students,” she said.

   The Alliance for Service Learning in Education Reform (ASLER) states that service learning teachers act as role models and facilitators in anchored instruction.

   Professional development is another reason instructors become involved in the service learning program.

   On SE Campus, instructors fill out a course registration form, a course information document and a semester evaluation form. The office of career and employment services manages all else involved.

   NE Campus instructors manage the whole process themselves because they have no service learning office.

   The ASLER states that service learning instructors must be able to wear many hats: planner, organizer, role model, guide and facilitator.

   This statement defines the activities of one NE Campus instructor who designs the service learning experience for her students and shares the experience with them.

   Lori Jowell, assistant professor of sociology on NE Campus, said, “I try to make everything I do relate to the real world.”

   Jowell connects her curriculum to service learning by active participation.

   “If I talk about AIDS, we go to the AIDS hospice to volunteer,” she said. “If I talk about poverty, we go look at poverty.”

   Jowell organizes field trips for her entire class, and students volunteer as a class for their service learning experience.

   For students who cannot attend these field trips, Jowell has other assignments that will fill in the gap in their grade.

   “I understand that some students cannot go for reasons of other classes or work,” she said. “I don’t want to penalize them for not going; it is voluntary.”

   Jowell has a 90 percent participation rate in all of her classes. Many times the students are experiencing their first volunteer activity, she said.

   Jowell likes to be at the volunteer site, so students can bounce their thoughts off her.

   “I like to see the students react,” she said. “I have seen students moved to tears.”

   Jowell speaks on poverty and families who have little or nothing.

   “At Christmas time, we adopt families as a way to make a difference. The students hear it; they see it; they feel it; then they make a difference,” she said.

   “When you adopt a family, you provide one gift for each family member. We adopted five families last year, and the students went insane. They filled each family’s living room with gifts such as toys, clothes and even bikes,” she said.

   “The students here at NE are the most generous group I have ever met,” she said.

   “One student brought a kitten for a little girl who had recently lost her kitten.”

   Another student secured $1000 of roofing supplies for a family with a leaking roof, and then went he did the work himself with the help of fellow students.

   “I give them the opportunity, and then I step out and they take over,” she said. “They’re unbelievable.”

   Learning in Deed, a report by the National Commission on Service Learning, states that teaching young people they should play a positive role in their community encourages lifelong civic participation. It gives students a sense of competency. They see themselves as contributors.

   “A majority of students go back on their own and volunteer,” she said.

   ASLER states that a teacher must have a fundamental trust and belief in the capabilities of students that they will make positive changes. Without this faith in there students, a teacher may be tempted to become a transmitter rather than nurturer of knowledge.

   “I hear faculty say gen-X-ers are so apathetic,” she said. “I say, ‘Just ask them.’”

   Hector Menchaca, SE associate professor of psychology and sociology, strives to design his students’ service learning experience around their majors.

   “It’s an option,” he said. “I think overall it’s pretty rewarding for the students. It teaches them more than what is in the classroom,” he said.

   Menchaca noted the difference that one college makes and even one class makes in the community.

   “If you have 100 students at 10 hours of volunteer work each, you can see the impact that service learning makes in the community,” he said.

   Several organizations provide information to instructors on how to incorporate service learning into their curriculum.

   ASLER states that a teacher’s most important resource is imagination. Teachers must be responsive to a student’s needs and interests while carrying out the project.

   On SE Campus, instructors have an ally in Joan Sullivan, director of the career and employment services office. This office manages the service learning program for the instructors, offering varied services for students and teachers.

   The NE Campus service learning program is an individual one, run by each instructor.

   NE Campus will honor all instructors and staff involved in service learning Saturday, May 4, in a celebration of the goals reached and the obstacles conquered.