Service-Learning Programs Annual Report, 2012-2013
(Excerpted from CTL Annual Report FY13)

VISION

We envision all Boise State students graduating with the skills, knowledge, and disposition to be locally responsive and globally aware citizens. We envision a campus culture that supports teaching and learning environments in which civic engagement is highly valued, practiced, assessed, and recognized.

MISSION

The Service-Learning Program connects the campus with the community through capacity-building partnerships in order to enhance student learning, address critical community issues, and encourage students to be active citizens in their local, national and global communities.

VALUES / PILLARS

Reciprocal Partnerships

Asset-focused approaches

Reflective practices

Social responsibility

GOALs

  1. Expand opportunities for civically-engaged learning across disciplines
  2. Build strong CWS/CE leadership programs for students to cultivate student civic leaders
  3. Engage/support faculty as reflective practitioners and researchers in SL, Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), and Community Based Research (CBR)
  4. Advocate for the institutionalization of SL and culture of Civic Engagement across campus
  5. Responds to critical community issues as expressed by the community

Service-Learning (SL) Programs, Services and Activities

The Service-Learning Program (SLP) facilitates campus-community partnerships by providing tools, trainings, and hands-on opportunities to enhance student learning, meet critical community needs, and foster a culture of community engagement. This year the SL staff focused on retaining faculty, deepening faculty/community partnerships to promote sustainability, and improving the quality (not quantity) of SL experiences through the increased use of best practices. These three strategies increase the autonomy of faculty and community partners, thus increasing the long term capacity of SL staff to support new SL experiences.

In this section the following acronyms will be used:

SL = Service-Learning

SLP = Service-Learning Program

CP= Community Partner

CSS = Coordinator of Student Support

CWS = Community Work-Study Program

ADFCE = Associate Director for Faculty and Community Engagement

  1. Services to Support Faculty, Students, and Community Partners and Departments

A central service of the Service-Learning Program (SLP) is to expand course-based opportunities for students to experience community-based learning and civic engagement. This involves extensive faculty development, student support, community partnership development, and advocacy with campus policy makers. In addition to these services, the SLP manages the second largest student employment program on campus (Community Work-Study and BroncoTutors). The SL staff also supports civic engagement initiatives throughout campus. Highlights from each of these services and programs is described below.

  1. Service-Learning Class Offerings: This year six new departments offered SL for the first time: Education Literacy, Geoscience, Criminal Justice, Accounting, Math, and Community and Regional Planning. Overall the Service-Learning Program supported Boise State faculty in offering 126 SL classes, from 33 departments, involving 63 faculty, 2,468 students, and 131 community partners. SL staff supported 21 new course preps, including ten classes that had never been taught with SL. TheSLP recruited new faculty in disciplines offering very few SL opportunities, focusing on STEM disciplines. Although the SL staff met with 36 individual STEM faculty, only five out of the 18 newly recruited faculty are in STEM.To demonstrate the value of SL in STEM, the SL Director and Graduate Assistant offered two 1-credit interdisciplinary STEM SL courses.

Assessment and Future Plans: Overall numbers of faculty and student participants decreased by 13% and 11%, respectively (Table 10). Although faculty recruitment is strong (18 new faculty started teaching with SL, an increase of 29%), retention is an issue (27 once active faculty did not use SL, half of whom elected to stop). Of the 27:

  • 30% left BSU
  • 18% did not teach the class in which they normally use SL, but will return
  • 18% were busy but will return
  • 14% indicate SL no longer fit their class format or objectives
  • 18% continue to offer community experiences but did not call it SL
  • 3% were too busy and incentives were not sufficient

Close analysis of this data suggests that faculty who elected not to continue with SL 1) had almost no relationship to the SL Program or SL staff, and 2) did not see SL as a net added value. Additional data from four faculty focus groups suggest that institutional support from the university’s administration is also a factor in electing to not continue with SL.

This pattern suggests several possible actions. For FY14 the SL staff will focus on the first strategy: engage faculty in the SL community.

  1. Provide ways to engage faculty with the SL community (with peers and with SL staff), e.g. learning community, writing group, mentor program.
  2. Demonstrate the net added value of SL
  3. Investigate how to broaden the scope of SL supports, e.g. supporting different degrees of civic engagement, different steps of designation.
  4. Re-engage with active SL faculty with whom we don’t regularly interact (proactive retention)
  1. Faculty Development Opportunities: This year the SL staff offered 10 faculty development events, including 5 workshops and 5 roundtables, reaching 49 faculty. Instead of offering the annual Faculty Fellows Institute, the Assistant Director of Faculty and Community Engagement and the SL Faculty Liaison focused on engaging advanced SL faculty through two faculty learning communities (Scholarship of Engagement, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning community, which consisted of 4 SL faculty members and the Assistant Director of Faculty and Community Engagement, presented their collective work at one national conference. The Scholarship of Engagement learning community revised the community partner survey and analyzed the results.

Assessment and Future Plans: SL workshop evaluations were consistently high (averaging 6.2 out of 7).The SLP will continue to facilitate these workshops in the next academic year. Based on the successful outcomes of the learning communities, the SL staff are planning to run two faculty learning communities next year, as well as offer several lunch workshops/roundtables. Additionally, the 2012-2013 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning community group continues to meet and is working on publications.

Although the total number of events did not change, total of faculty attendance decreased by 57%. The decrease reflects lower average attendance as well as last year’s offering of very popular topics, “SL in large classes” and “Refugee resettlement and SL”.

  1. Faculty consultations: Faculty consultations deal with course design, community partnerships, classroom support, research, and grants. This year SL staff focused on taking faculty on site visits to personally talk with community partners. SL staff consulted with 46 individual faculty for 107 unique consultations (up 43%), including 23 guided site visits to agencies, and 21 new course preps. Generally, course design requires three consultations. Classroom and student support consultations focused on easing logistical issues, addressing common concerns and issues, and encouraging quality reflection. Community partner consultation services helped faculty identify community partners and build partnerships (see “Faculty and Community Partner support” below).

Assessment and Future Plans: This data show fewer unique faculty but more total consultations from last year, reflecting a emphasis on providing extensive support for new faculty including guided site visits. SL staff will continue on this course.

  1. Community Partnership Development: The SLP designated the work of a full time VISTA to focus on community partnership development. The main goal of that position was to build capacity for service-learners at community partner (CP) sites, and the secondary goal was to support the advancement of SL and civic engagement on campus. To that end, the VISTA coordinated and prepared CPs to work effectively with faculty and students by refining three significant training tools and documents for CPs. Additionally, she provided 68 on-site trainings for new and returning community partners. This high number of site visits and one-on-one support for CPs was a significant accomplishment of the SLP and the VISTA. Moreover, the VISTA, with the support of, the Assistant Director for Faculty and Community Engagement, recruited or reignited 40 community partnerships. In order to support such a large increase in new or returning partners, the VISTA held a New CP Orientation in conjunction with the Fall and Spring SL mixer to welcome and orient all new CPs. Over 20 partners attended both trainings.

Assessment and Future Plans: SL staff assessed CP support through student site evaluation, usage statistics, and continuous CP feedback. Results from the Community Partner Annual data suggested 82% of community partners indicated they are satisfied or highly satisfied with the training and support provided by the SLP. Additionally in the Spring student survey, 87% of students agreed or strongly agreed that they were well oriented to serve at the agency. In the upcoming year, the SLP will continue to monitor this data to ensure that the vast majority of community partners feel supported, which in turn creates better learning environments for students.

Additionally, the SLP is transitioning to a new data system for CPs to connect with classes and students, therefore, the focus for community partnership development in FY14 will be on training and support all community partners to successfully use the new database, OrgSync.

  1. Faculty and Community Partner Support: The SL Coordinator of Community Partnerships, now called Assistant Director for Faculty and Community Engagement, successfully shifted both new faculty and many returning faculty to the new partnership model, through which faculty gain sustainable, self-sufficient, long term partnerships. The Assistant Director focused her efforts on facilitating partnership meetings between faculty partners and community partners. To that end, the Assistant Director went with faculty on 23 site visits in the community. These site visits involved 15 total faculty members: 9 returning faculty members (roughly 25% of all returning service-learning faculty) and 6 new faculty members. A further breakdown of this data indicates that 69.6% of these site visits were with returning faculty members; 30.4% of the visits were with new faculty.

Assessment and Future Plans: While the SLP had, overall, a much stronger return rate for the community partner survey—roughly 32%-- only 4 of the community partners that returned the survey had met with their faculty through the site visit. However, of those four responses, 3 of the 4 respondents or 75% strongly agree or agreed that they 1) had adequate communication with their faculty member; 2) felt decisions were made collaboratively3) and felt like a co-teacher through the process. This was significantly higher that responses for the community partners generally, whose statistics were 65% for adequate communication, 46% for collaborative decisions and 54% for feelings of co-teaching. Again, with such few returns it is difficult to make any formal findings, but this early data does suggest that community partners are having a slightly different experience when they are directly connected to a faculty member, and that according to best practice literature this engagement of the community partner should result in better outcomes for students.

SL staff will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy for the 25% of faculty who used this service to determine if there should be a focused effort on increasing that percentage for the next academic year.

  1. Student Support: In FY13 the SLP transitioned to a new Coordinator of Student Support (CSS). He and his student team provided support to over 1,300 students. The CSS’s team coordinates a student employment program, classroom support, individual consultations, and drop-in services. SL staff made over 45 visits to classrooms for orientation presentations and reflection activities. In addition, staff significantly increased the SLP’s online presence with social media, connecting the SLP with more of the community and Boise State University students.

Assessment and Future Plans: The departure of the long standing Coordinator for Student Support (CSS) in November caused a disruption in data gathering and outreach. However, student satisfaction with SL remained high. Classroom surveys showed that 90% of students responding to SL surveys said SL contributed to their course understanding, 83% would recommend SL to other students, 76% said SL motivated them to help solve community problems. This may indicate that intensive classroom support needed only in specific classroom situations, and that the CSS programming efforts may shift to strengthening programs for students to serve beyond SL (Community Work-Study, SL Student Leaders, etc.).

Future Plans

1.To better serve students in classes receiving a low level of classroom support, the CSS and staff will provide in class reflection activities to students at mid-semester.

2.Develop and conduct student leader trainings for SLAs, SL2s, and TAs that support SL students while building students’ leadership skills.

3.Launch new OrgSync system to connect students, partners, faculty in SL.

b. Service-Learning Supported Programs

i.Community Work Study (CWS) Program: The SLP’s CWS programgrew by 39% this year, facilitating off-campus, high quality employment opportunities for 54 students. This is the second largest student employment program on campus, second only to the University library. SL Staff recruited, placed, and supported 24 Bronco Tutors (BT), 21 Community-Work Study (CWS) students and 5 additional work-study students through the Student Leaders through Service-Learning (SL2) Program (SL2 areCWS students serving as on-site service-learning/volunteer coordinators to increase community partner volunteer capacity).

Assessment and Future Plans: 32 work-study students (of 54total) completed the end-of-the-year survey. The data demonstrate excellent outcomes for this program. Of the 32 responses (spread from all three employment programs), 100% of students would recommend their agency to other students;75% of students plan on returning to their agency next year; 97% reported that their position strongly contributed to the welfare of their community; and 91% of students reported that their position helped them understand people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Future Plans:

  1. Provide the SL2 position more leadership opportunities on and off campus through training and discussion groups.
  2. Improve tracking and forecasting spending for CWS so that we can allocate more money where it is needed
  3. Work with partners to more closely align University Learning Outcomes to the CWS experience

ii.Community-building and Recognition Events

a. SL in Action Student Exhibition: This exhibition showcases students’ visual displays about how they apply course work to community issues through SL courses. It is also an opportunity to bring together community partners and faculty to celebrate the semester’s successes and begin planning for future collaborations. Top posters from the spring semester were also displayed at the ILC. The event was well attended this semester. Evaluations were not conducted this year due to the overwhelmingly supportive feedback from past exhibitions. From the staff debrief we would like to increase the diversity of SL classes involved in the event.

c. Campus Initiatives/Service to the Campus Community

Service to the Campus Community:The SL staff served the campus community in three key ways: 1) participating or leading campus committees related to community engagement, 2) actively advocating for community engagement initiatives, and 3) contributing expertise through presentations and outreach.

i.Campus committees: The SL Director coordinated BSU’s Refugee MOA team to advance refugee-related research, teaching, and campus/community partnerships, including co-sponsoring the statewide Idaho Refugee Conference and co-facilitating workshops. The SL staff also consulted with and/or participated on the following campus civic engagement initiatives: Nonprofit Minor, Refugee Certificate Program, ASBSU Day at Capitol, HERS West, Family Studies Advisory Board, and the Student Involvement and Leadership Center (SILC).

ii.Advocacy: The SL Director and SL Faculty Liaison initiated collaboration with Rob Anson, Digital Measures coordinator to design a way to recognize SL faculty effort and impact via the Digital Measures online faculty reporting process.

Future Plans

1.Advocate for SL and civic engagement to be incorporated in Digital Measures and the course assessment program.

2.Assist the Vice Provost for Academic Planning in applying for Carnegie Designation for Community Engagement.

3.Initiate a Civic Engagement Council Look for mutually beneficial collaborations with internal and external programs to further promote SL and culture of engagement.

4.Develop alliances to scaffold CE experiences across students’ college experiences

iii.Campus Presentations and Trainings:

Stefancic, Mike. Promotional presentations to students (about SL to non-SL classes): UF100: 30 students, Spring 2013

Beyer Hansen, Faith. Democratic Education and the Promise of Service-Learning, Presentation to ED-CIFS 507, June 17, 2013

Brascia, K. ENVSTD 121SL, course instructor for 1-credit SL-Lab, Fall 2012

Hettinger, J. GEN SCI 297, course instructor for STEM stand alone SL seminar drawing students from multiple STEM majors, Spring 2013

Beyer Hansen, Faith. UF200 course instructor, Spring 2013.

See also list of faculty development events facilitated by SL staff (Table 2b).

d. Service-Learning Beyond the Blue

i.Connecting Beyond Boise State:The SL Program excels in connecting the campus with the community. In addition to working with over 130 community partners, the SL staff developed networks with Treasure Valley community initiatives, including the South West Idaho Directors of Volunteer Services (SWIDOVS), Idaho Nonprofit Center, Serve Idaho, and the Treasure Valley Educational Partnerships (TVEP).

ii.Presentations

Beyer Hansen, Faith & Gregory, Anne. Place in Service-learning: A Case Study of the Connection Between Sense of Community and Service-Learning with Two Rural Teachers. Duke University, ICSLTE Conference, June 22nd, 2012.