Today's post is by Nicole Branch, Associate University Librarian for Learning and Engagement at Santa Clara University and Andrea Brewster, Assessment Manager, Undergraduate Studies at Santa Clara University. It describes research they conducted with Jennifer Nutefall, formerly of Santa Clara University and currently Dean of University Libraries at University of Northern Colorado.
Thanks to Jennifer Nutefall, I was recently made aware of this online professional development opportunity hosted by Infopeople, “Community and Civic Engagement: The Library’s Role as Connector.” It sounds like a great opportunity.
Yesterday afternoon, Harry C.
I recently attended a workshop about how we can deepen students' reflections, which was led by one of Wright State's experienced service-learning instructors, Karen Hayes. I came away with a new reflection question to include in my arsenal. In fact, I love this question so much that it may never be removed from my arsenal. The question was posed by my colleague, Stephanie Dickey, in our small group discussion during the workshop. She suggested that we should challenge students to think about their role in relation to the problem or issue addressed by any service-learning course. She pr
Let me begin this guest post with a short introduction. My name is Chris Sweet and I am the Information Literacy Librarian at Illinois Wesleyan University (Central Illinois). I had been following Maureen's blog as well as her publications for some time prior to meeting her in-person at this year's LOEX Conference in Columbus, OH. Both of us have discovered a real passion for service-learning and have seen first-hand how adding information literacy elements to service-learning courses can create even stronger and more effective classes.
This morning, I read an article posted in the online American Libraries, called Community Reference: Making libraries indispensible in a new way by Colbe Galston, Elizabeth Kelsen Huber, Katherine Johnson, and Amy Long. It reminded me a lot of why I chose to explore service-learning as an option for my information literacy course 5 years ago. They highlight many of the same concepts in their endeavors to get out into the community that are vital to a successful academic service-learning relationships. The authors stress the importance of working as a partner, building relations
Campus Compact's annual member survey summarizing 2011 was recently released. The report offers a great portrait of the landscape of civic and community engagement in higher education institutions throughout the country. View the entire report at: http://www.compact.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/2011-Annual-Survey-Executive-Summary.pdf
The Friends of Service-Learning & Civic Engagement breakfast is one of my favorite days at Wright State. Students, staff, faculty and community partners celebrate come together to celebrate service-learning and raise money for our Citizen Scholar certificate program. There are awards, a silent auction, a celebration of our community partnerships and impact statements from our campus AmeriCORPS VISTA members. The best part about this morning, for me, was that four friends from Athens County with whom we partnered on the alternative spring break trip made the trek to Dayton to celebrat
Earlier this week, I attended a book discussion about Dan Butin's book "Service-Learning in theory and practice: The future of community engagement in higher education." One of the main arguments Butin makes is that service-learning should have a discipline-based home in the academy. He compares it to how feminism, which began as a social movement, became women's studies within the academy. Of course, this leads to hundreds of questions. What would this look like? Would the focus be on citizenship in our democracy? or community studies?
I just put this new report released by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement on my reading list (which is growing ever-longer!): A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy's Future. Get more information here.