July 2011 Articles

Why service-learning?  How did this come to be my "research agenda?" Service-learning provides meaningful opportunities for teaching and learning.  And it's clearly growing in popularity, nationally.  How do I know this?  There are lots of signs, including all the research that indicates students retain what they learn better when it's applied to real-world issues through service-learning.  But today, I'll focus on two of these signs. First,  The Carnegie Foundation offers an elective classification for community engagement.  You can read more about the…

Have you heard of this new site?  Philanthroper highlights a different nonprofit each day and allows members to donate as little as $1 or as much as $10 to the organization.  It's a cool twist on all of these daily deal sites that are all the rage now.

The Carnegie Foundation offers an elective classification for community engagement.  You can read more about the classification here. Some thoughts:

• When will this classification move from elective to a basic or traditional classification?  Since service-learning and civic engagement trends are growing rapidly, my outlook is positive that this will someday be the case.
• The next opportunity for institutions…

Since it's so rare to hear about the librarians' role in a service-learning course, I contacted both the instructor, Barbara Wallace, and the librarian, Kathi Epperson, for the UC Clermont class I read (and posted) about last week. Wallace told me she used an "embedded librarian."  She said the librarian spoke to her class and recommended specific resources via Blackboard.   "…

I just read this article about a University of Cincinnati Clermont College service-learning class that successfully obtained $4,500 through grants to give to area agencies who help at-risk youth.  Read more:  http://www.uc.edu/News/NR.aspx?id=13767 The composition class served their community through research and writing, so it was of particular interest to me.  I hope to find out more about their research.  Stay tuned for more information on this project (I hope!).

The Concert for Literacy last week raised about $12,000 for Project READ in ticket sales alone (according to Project READ's Facebook post).  And that didn't include all of the raffle tickets the volunteers (myself included) sold!  It was a great time and a beautiful night.