The Center is currently examining the scholarship related to the experience of service-learning faculty.  One piece worth highlighting here is:

Cooper, J. R. (2014). Ten Years in the Trenches: Faculty Perspectives on Sustaining Service-Learning. Journal of Experiential Education, 37(4), 415–428. http://doi.org/10.1177/1053825913513721

Click here for the article itself.  (Note: you may need to be logged in to the GW Library to navigate this link).

This is a qualitative study of service-learning faculty from a variety of disciplinary fields. It examined four themes: why do faculty choose service-learning as a pedagogy; what is their perception of the impact that engagement had on their tenure and promotion process; what have been the rewards and challenges of their experience; and what sustains them in their service-learning work.

As a Center it is our mission to provide ongoing support to service-learning faculty, and to build a community of faculty who can support each other and advocate for ourselves. It is important to ask how we would respond to these questions and what these findings imply about our next steps at GW.

The Spencer Foundation is accepting proposals for small research grants on June 2 and August 20, 2015.  Projects should fit into their strategic initiatives, one of which is “The New Civics” which describes, “an expanded understanding of civic education and its relationship to civic action.”

Huzzah! The entire Winter 2015 issue of Diversity and Democracy is on Publicly Engaged Scholarship and Teaching. This quarterly publication is from the Association of American Colleges & Universities. We encourage you to jump in and enjoy it for yourself.  Click here to link to the full issue.

A few highlights:

• Consider our next steps as a community of engaged faculty at GW:  Creating an Academic Culture that Supports Community-Engaged Scholarship. 
• Critically examine your own practice in engaging ethically with the community:  Why, Who, and How? Strategies for Preventing Paternalism and Promoting Equal Engagement
• Envision GW at the forefront of this movement: Looking Ahead: Envisioning the Next Generation of Civic Work

We are looking forward to more GW conversations about this issue.

The National Education Agency Learning and Leadership grants program provide opportunities for teachers, education support professionals, and higher education faculty and staff to engage in high-quality professional development and lead their colleagues in professional growth.

The grant amount is $2,000 for individuals and $5,000 for groups engaged in collegial study. All $5,000 group grant applicants must include partner information. Deadlines for applications are June 1, and October 15.

Click here for the link.

We are excited to announce this new Academic Service-Learning E-Newsletter by the Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service. GW has a strong community of engaged scholars, who value service-learning and community-based research. We want you to be in the know about the latest research, upcoming conferences, funding opportunities and calls for publications.

Note the links by category on the right column, which will sort for the posts you are looking for. For a chronological list of all posts, click on “home” in the menu bar along the top.

Please share widely with colleagues. To subscribe and receive e-newsletter briefs by email, send a request to gwsl@gwuedu.  We look forward to your feedback and content requests.

Amy Cohen, Maurice Smith, Wendy Wagner
Center for Civic Engagement & Public Service

The first installment of the Spring 2014 Semester Brown Bag Lunch (BBL) Series featured two D.C. non-profit organizations who are going the extra mile to serve, educate, and empower underrepresented  youth. The purpose of the BBL Series is to highlight community partners who can serve as resources to students, faculty, and staff members who are interested in their topic of expertise. Attendees of the first BBL included people who have previously volunteered for Reading Partners (one of the organizations that presented), students who work with JumpStart or similar organizations, and those who simply wanted to hear more about service organizations that they didn’t know much about.

Life Pieces to Masterpieces (LPTM) is one such community organization whose main goal is to transform the lives of young men from some of the most challenging communities in D.C. Working with educators, social workers, and child advocates from 12 different schools in the D.C. area, LPTM staff identify boys to enroll into the program on a consistent basis. With the desire to help these young men find the courage to go onto college, increase their confidence, and provide these individuals with the recourses needed to access the larger world, LPTM Mentors and Volunteers utilize art as a processing mechanism to assist others in discovering their own unique voices. By creating and invoking an environment for youth to better understand their power, and teaching that despite the fact that one cannot control their situation, one can control their thoughts, words, and actions, LPTM has had tremendous success. With a current 100% graduation rate, LPTM’s intentional environment, mission-driven focus, and well-trained Mentors and Volunteers are consistently reinforcing LPTM values and in turn impacting a great number of DC youth.

Like LPTM, Reading Partners is another D.C. non-profit organization whose goal is to combat the striking discrepancies amongst the literacy rates of children enrolled in Title 1 schools in the District. Collaborating with school guidance counselors, social workers, and teachers, Reading Partners aims to find and enroll students who are six months to two years off the reading track into their literacy program. With the knowledge that only 13% of low income fourth graders are reading at grade-level and students are four times more likely to drop out of high school if they are behind in reading in third grade, Reading Partners uses a structured curriculum that is based on the students’ identified literacy needs and learning strategies to combat these statistics. Pairing students up one-on-one with a literacy tutor, Reading Partners in this past year alone had 99% of its students increase their rate of learning and the organization as whole note that students on-average learn and retain three times as much information in comparison to other students in a typical school day. While challenges such as student behavior and increased enrollment size are becoming progressively more apparent, Reading Partners has continued to help students become strong, confident readers with a passion for learning.

The result of the representatives’ presentations was positive and engaging; almost all attendees had at least one question or comment for the speakers, some statistical and some personal. The speakers were all clearly knowledgeable passionate about the paths of public service that they had chosen, and they upheld The Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service’s mission to help connect students to opportunities to serve and to promote active citizenship in our diverse democracy. From the approaches utilized by Life Pieces to Masterpieces and Reading Partners to assist students in finding their own confidence and voice, we – GW faculty, students, and affiliated community members – can all learn from these organizations in order to continue to have a greater role on impacting the lives of today’s youth.

“Service-Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities.”
– Corporation for National and Community Service

Center staff offer resources and support to faculty and student leaders implementing service-learning into their courses and programs. From course development to the Service-Learning Scholars, the Center works to enhance and grow GW service-learning in the District and around the world. In addition, the Center works to highlight the Engaged Scholarship of faculty and students.

GW offers more than 67 service-learning classes, from introductory courses to capstones, that extend classroom learning into the community through meaningful, challenging service.

To learn more, explore the links above or watch the video below. Questions? Contact GWserves@gwu.edu.