I find this story fascinating!  http://ht.ly/6GcCp Franklin College has a Franklin First Scholars program for first-generation college students.  The cohort of students were brought to campus before the academic year began for a three-day service-learning intensive experience.  The result?   "Our preliminary conclusion is that the intensive service-learning experience, along with the other elements of the Franklin First program, have given pa

This fall, I am again librarian-partner for a service-learning project in a first-year seminar (learning community) and a service-learning English composition course.  I had an initial meeting with each class last week.

My friend, colleague, and fellow service-learning enthusiast, Jennifer E. Nutefall, Associate University Librarian for Innovative User Services at Oregon State University Libraries, has a new article hot off the presses! Read Why Service-Learning is Important to Librarians in the OLA Quarterly here:  http://data.memberclicks.com/site/ola/olaq_17no3.pdf (see page 16).

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!).

About this time last year, I approached a friend, Craig This, who teaches a UVC 101 course (first-year seminar or FYS).  I told him I'd like to try a service-learning research project with a UVC 101 class.  He jumped at the opportunity and said "Sign me up!"  I had already approached a community partner, Project READ, about the potential partnership, and they had also (enthusiastically!) agreed to accept students' research and service.

In October, Jennifer Nutefall & I will lead an ACRL Webcast, Service Learning and Information Literacy: Models for Engagement. Details are available here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/events/elearning/courses/service…

I am in Indianapolis at a Service-Learning Research Academy hosted by IUPUI & Indiana Campus Compact. The goal is to gather together faculty and staff interested in furthering the research in service-learning - in particular, "high quality" research. It's been a whirlwind few days - a lot of it is over my head, honestly. Quantitative and qualitative research methods, etc. At any rate, it's been highly stimulating. It's also non-stop - we even have homework at night.

I've been thinking recently about the social nature of service-learning and how that can help librarians become more of a social partner in the research process. I was made aware yesterday of a piece by Barbara Fister, "Knowledge and the Network" in Library Journal. One paragraph, in particular, struck me: "Yet until they [students] see knowledge as an ongoing conversation, they will persist in thinking of research papers in terms of the pursuit of answers they can cut and paste.

I've been digging in the literature trying to find someone who had tried incorporating service learning and information literacy in upper-division subject specific courses. I'm not sure how this article escaped my attention for the last year - perhaps it's because it is outside of the library literature. "Reinventing the box: Faculty-librarian collaborative efforts to foster service learning for political engagement," was published in the Journal for Civic Commitment in January 2010 by Marcia Hernandez and Lorrie A. Knight at University of the Pacific.

Days like yesterday don't happen often - but they make all the struggles of teaching worthwhile.   Our students completely blew us away yesterday! A tradition of this course is that we invite our community partner staff members and the Director of the Office of Service Learning to the last day of class for a group reflection, and for the students to hand over their research portfolios to our partner.