Service-Learning is a method of teaching, learning, and outreach which intentionally links community service to an academic course or program through specific learning goals, structured reflection, and assessment. Service-learning enhances students’ academic and civic development and meets the self-identified needs of the community. Service-learning has proven to positively impact student learning and development, faculty teaching and research, and community priorities.

In June, 2004, the University of Connecticut (UConn) was awarded a grant by the Davis Educational Foundation for "Planning for Service Learning". The grant enabled a deliberative process by a group of faculty, administrators, staff and students to design this proposal for a Center for Community and Civic Engagement at the University. The goal of the center is to help students develop into socially responsible global citizens through community based learning, discovery and engagement. It will expand the mission of the University so that civic learning, community based service learning and community based research become more fully integrated into the institutional fabric.

Service-learning has existed in numerous forms at UConn, well before the concept of service learning was fully articulated within education. Service oriented internships, research grounded in community settings and with community partners, and class projects focusing on community needs have all steadily and successfully endured for decades within the institution. However, a lack of coordination rendered many activities virtually invisible with such a large and complex organization. Since the mid 1990s an evolving group of faculty and administrators involved in service-learning have met to collaborate and share information about existing activities and to advance a more coordinated system of service learning within the University. During the past academic year, the Senior Vice Provost (later the Interim Provost) formally convened a Service Learning Committee (S-L Committee). Other high-ranking academic officers embraced these efforts and participated in this planning process along with faculty, staff and several students.

Our Mission

The Office of Service-Learning will strive to be a centralized location in support of innovative academic focused service-learning for regional campuses at the University of Connecticut. The Office will act as a resource for students, faculty, and staff interested in the pedagogy of service-learning and will serve as a liaison to University community partners. The Office will assist the University in reaching goals stated within the academic plan through providing goal-specific academic service to nearby communities, embracing diversity, cultivating leadership, integrity, and by developing highly engaged students, staff, and faculty civically and socially through service-learning classes.

Benefits/Outcomes of Service-Learning

• Student Educational Benefits
  
  
  • Personal Growth & Development
    • Empowerment
    • Moral development
    • Self esteem
    • Character development
    • Improved social interaction
    • Increased willingness to take risks and seek challenges
  
  
  • Intellectual Growth & Developmen
    • Basic skills including expressing ideas, reading, and using technology
    • Higher level thinking skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking
    • Skills and issues specific to the experience Motivation to learn
    • Application of knowledge
    • Observation, creativity, insight, judgment, and knowledge
    • Improved professional skills
  
  
  • Social Growth & Development
    • Social and Civic responsibility and concern for others
    • Political efficacy
    • Civic participation
    • Knowledge and exploration of service-related careers
    • Understanding, communicating, appreciating and empathizing with others
      of different cultural, economic, social, etc. backgrounds
    
    


• Faculty Teaching Benefits
  
  
  • Relationship building with students through service experience
  • Renewed interest/motivation for teaching
  • Research opportunities
  • Grant funding opportunities through service-learning
  • Fill community needs through course
  
  


• Community Benefits
  
  
  • Motivated learners engaged in significant community work
  • Valuable service that meets community needs
  • Schools/universities serve as resource for community
  • Building citizenship through community
  • Improving institutional practices of school and communities
  • Understanding and appreciating diversity across generation, cultures, religions, perspectives, and abilities
  
  


• University Benefits
  
  
  • Paradigm shift to ‘teachers as facilitators; students responsible for own learning
  • Motivated learners engaged in significant work
  • Teachers and students engaged together
  • Collaborative decision making among staff, students, and community
  • Positive, healthy, and caring school climate
  • Community involvement, additional resources, and support in the educational process


• State Benefits
  
  
  • Students who serve/volunteer in CT are more likely to live and work in CT: Economic Impact
  • Students who serve are more likely to be civic-minded: Civic impact – voting, encouraging others to vote
  • Students who serve are more likely to continue serving the community without obligation
  • Dollar value of Service in CT = $25.75 x 8,266,781 hours* = $212,869,610.80
    (* hours calculated by averaging MA and RI figures from Campus Compact data (2006)
    $ Dollar amount originated from Independent Sector data for the State of Connecticut (2006))

Faculty Fellows Program

The UCONN Office of Service-Learning in collaboration with the Institute for Teaching and Learning will provide a service-learning program with professional development and course creation assistance for interested and committed faculty. The Office of Service-Learning will accept faculty as members of a cohort; selected fellows will receive a $2,500 stipend to participate in a number of instructional design activities, Faculty Learning Communities, and will participate in both the two-day Summer Institute and the Fall Service-Learning Forum. Participation in the professional development activities is a required component of the Faculty Fellows Program and the stipend will be contingent upon participation. Fellows will be selected annually during the spring semester through a competitive review process.

UCONN Service-Related Resources

• http://outreach.uconn.edu/
• http://www.studentactivities.uconn.edu/co_index.html

Resources for Faculty

• http://web2.uconn.edu/itl/
• http://www.compact.org/resources-for-faculty/

Resources for Students

• http://www.compact.org/resources-for-students/

Resources for Community Partners

• http://www.compact.org/resources-for-community-serviceservice-learning-staff/

 

 

Julia M. Yakovich Service-Learning Program Coordinator Phone:  (860) 570 9076 Fax:     (860) 570 9304 e-Mail:  julia.yakovich@uconn.edu

University of Connecticut Greater Hartford Campus 1800 Asylum Avenue West Hartford, CT 06117

Moving from Theory to Practice

In its continued efforts to advance the pedagogy of service-learning at UConn as well as other institutions in the area, the Office of Service-Learning presents the 3rd Annual Service-Learning Institute.

The keynote speaker for this year is Dr. Rick Battistoni of Providence College. Dr. Battistoni is the Founding Director of the Feinstein Institute at Providence College, the first degree-granting program in the nation to combine curriculum with community service.

Dr. Battistoni will discuss the theory behind capacity building of and for different types of engaged learning, the relationship between course outcomes and how they affect the overall well-being and civic development of students.

In the afternoon, Dr. Battistoni will also conduct working groups along with the UCONN Service-Learning Faculty Fellows, for participants from the University and area institutions, to enable them to develop a course curriculum geared toward engaged learning.

Please RSVP no later than Friday, October 30th with details of your school, campus, area of study, title, and phone number. You will also be asked to indicate your experience level with service-learning as beginner, intermediate, or advanced.

RSVP NOW!

Program Details (subject to moderate changes)