Community Engagement for Purdue Students Grant Program:
The Purdue University Office of Engagement has announced the opening of the Community Engagement for Purdue Students Grant Program. Applications were to be received and reviewed starting on January 25, 2002, and continuing until the funds for the year are fully allocated.
Inquiries should be directed to the Purdue Office of Engagement, Hovde Hall, West Lafayette, IN 47907, 765-494-9095, or by e-mail to the Vice Provost of Engagement, Don K. Gentry at .
(Copies of applications can also be obtained from the Task Force on Citizenship Education desk in the Boiler Volunteer Network, Stewart Center G-4, or at the Greater Lafayette Volunteer Bureau at 842 Main Street, Lafayette.)
The program goal is to foster the expansion of community service involvement, including service learning and experiential learning opportunities, by Purdue students in partnership with communities, non-profit agencies, schools, and governmental bodies.
The plan is that Purdue University will fund projects or services that will encourage students to become involved in community life by assisting in solving problems or providing a service while utilizing their education and expertise. The program is designed to give students an opportunity to expand their learning environment.
Grant levels will range from $100 to $500 for an individual or a maximum of $1500 for a team or organization.
Applicants must be Purdue students in good standing with the university, and must have the approval or sponsorship of a Purdue University school, department, office, organization or unit (with such unit providing a faculty or staff advisor/mentor and acting as fiscal agent). They must also have the approval and sponsorship from the partner agency, school, governmental unit or community organization, and that community partner must sign off on a brief written report of the completed project. That report is due within 60 days of the end of the grant period and describes the results and benefits of the grant.
A grant form must be completed, and includes a 250-word or less project description, and an itemized budget. Community organizations can file a proposal to be distributed to appropriate Purdue student groups for consideration; awards will be made only to Purdue students, not directly to community organizations.
Funds are not to be used for salaries, honoraria, or compensation for individual(s) working on the project, but in general can be used for supplies, travel, publicity, printing, postage, materials and supplies to the extent that they are part of the project. Requests for extension of expenditure beyond the initial grant period can be filed with the Office of Engagement.
A New Committee on Service Engagement:
Vice Provost for Engagement, Don K. Gentry, has created a Committee on Service Engagement, to be headed by Marne Helgesen, Director of the Center for Instructional Excellence, and Mike Piggott, Director of the Office of Community Relations. This Committee has a charge that includes recommending an organizational structure that will connect all facets of service-engagement to the Office of Engagement in a coherent and effective way. (See page 3 for the full details of the charge for the committee.)
This is major step forward, with excellent choice of leadership of the new Committee. The presence of this Committee, with its official sanction and its charge to bring proposals for the “institutionalization” of all forms of service activities in relation to the Office of Engagement, appears to have at least two major implications for the Task Force.
(1) The central thrust of Task Force activity has been to promote service learning to a point where institutionalization is achieved (or is seen as no longer achievable). The creation of the new committee points to a full consideration of institutionalization possibilities. While one cannot predict what the committee will propose, nor what the university administration will adopt from any proposals, there is a clear sense that the mission of the Task Force has largely been fulfilled.
(2) The Task Force is, and always has been, an ad hoc group (albeit since July 1, 2001, the recipients of recurrent funding under the Academic Reinvestment Program), while the new Committee on Service Engagement is very much an officially-sanctioned entity. The new Committee clearly supersedes the Task Force, whose role as it winds down will include completing routine activities, preparing an orderly transition or termination of programs, and being available to the Committee if and as needed as a resource.
A Note of Appreciation: W. Scott Rumble:
At the end of 2001, Scott Rumble retired after an extensive duty as head of the Tippecanoe County Cooperative Extension Service. Those who know Scott will be well aware not only of how many different hats he wore, and about the enormous level of community activity that the County CES office facilitated or impacted, but also of his tremendous capacity to support, encourage, and make synergistic connections. When academics talk about the value of “civic virtues” or “social capital,” Scott is surely an exemplar in these areas. Scott’s contributions to the Task Force, and more generally to Greater Lafayette and Tippecanoe County have been greatly appreciated and his (official) presence will be missed.
Statehouse Resolution:
On 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 5, 2002, State Representatives Sue Scholer and Sheila Klinker will lead legislators in introducing a resolution urging institutions of higher education in Indiana to include service learning as part of their engagement, civic outreach and citizenship education activities. Both state representatives are members of the Service Learning Advisory Board, and their interest in service learning is greatly appreciated.
Events:
Michigan Campus Compact and Madonna University will host Fundamentals of Service-Learning Course Design, featuring Edward Zlotkowski and John Saltmarsh. The event will take place in Livonia, Michigan on February 15. Further information is available at www.mcc.mna.msu.edu.
Also on Friday, February 15, De Pauw University hosts at the Hartman Center an ICC Regional Meeting on “Experiential Learning: Incorporating Diverse Learning Styles Through Hartman Center Experience.”
Indiana University will host a Conference on the Scholarship of Engagement at the IUPUI campus on Friday, February 22.
Ball State Student Conference
On April 5, 2002, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Ball State University is hosting “Serving Communities Through Scholarship: A Student Conference on Service Learning.” The conference, sponsored by the ICC 2001-2002 Class of Faculty Fellows, is designed to: examine and celebrate the creation of innovative teaching, learning, and service environments; and provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, community members, and faculty to share their experiences linking scholarship and service learning in multiple contexts. Registration can be done online. (The $20 fee includes lunch.) Those interested in presenting at the conference, being part of a poster session, or participating in faculty roundtable discussions are asked to submit applications by February 15, 2002. The website is at: http://web.bsu.edu/tlat/student_conference.asp.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 21, 2002:
Task Force assistants and Service Learning Ambassadors assisted the Diversity Resource Office by facilitating reflective sessions at the end of community service activities during the morning of January 21. That same evening Dr. David Fankhouser, a chemist and biologist with the University of Cincinnati’s Clermont College and a former freedom rider in the southern United States in the early 1960s talked about “Service Learning as a Life Transforming Experience” as part of a very effective program including the PMO Bell Choir, Purdue HumanRITE Theater, and the Johari Dance Troupe, and welcomed by President Martin Jischke.
An “EPICS-style” Pilot Course for Social Issues:
Using the Spring 2002 offering of Mgmt 190S, “Introduction to Service Learning,” a team-based approach to service learning is being piloted with the EmployAbilities division of Wabash Center. A multidisciplinary team of Purdue students is working in conjunction with EmployAbilities’ staff to develop a workshop on Workplace Preparation for EmployAbilities’ customers.
Panel Discussion: Social Issues in Greater Laf.:
As part of this course, at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 14, 2002, there will be a panel discussion involving representatives from several Greater Lafayette agencies. Bill Carmichael of EmployAbilities, Jessica Eller or Tom Heath of Mediation Services, Joe Micon of Lafayette Urban Ministries, JoAnn Vorst of Lafayette Adult Resource Academy, and Cheryl Ubelhor of Lafayette Crisis Center, will discuss the most pressing social issues facing Greater Lafayette, the ways that agencies address these issues, the extent of, and unexploited opportunities for, collaboration, and areas that risk falling through the cracks. (This class session will be, by unanimous vote of class members, open to anyone on campus or in the community who would like to attend. The class meets in RHPH 162, a classroom at the west end of the Pharmacy Building, near the Purdue University Student Hospital and facing the parking lot north of the Armory.)
Service Learning Ambassadors:
Two enrollment options will be available for prospective Service Learning Ambassadors. Ambassadors are drawn from students with prior experience in service-learning courses, and the Ambassadors provide leadership, education, mentoring, and advocacy in a variety of contexts. A first group is being interviewed in late January, and successful applicants will have an opportunity to supplement the existing 2001-2002 Ambassador corps. A second round of applications will be accepted in mid-semester. Students with service learning experience, or advisors, staff, or faculty members aware of suitable candidates, can contact Rebecca Spears, or via .
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The Committee on Service Engagement:
The committee goals include studying and making recommendations to the Vice Provost for Engagement on:
1. Identifying and bringing definition/clarification to the entire range of campus programs regarding volunteerism, service learning, academic entrepreneurship, and community service.
2. An organizational structure for the relationship between the Office of Engagement, ALL campus programs of volunteering, service learning, academic entrepreneurship, and community services, and the local, regional and state communities.
3. Identifying a specific point, or specific points, of contact at the university for:
a. community organizations and individuals;
b. reporting to the Vice Provost for Engagement.
4. Creating, unifying, and formalizing a grant procedure, or grant procedures, for the campus that:
a. follow the best practices of proposal writing and submission including timeliness and progress toward completion;
b. reflect the university strategic plan goals.
5. Identifying ways to get higher faculty involvement and buy-in for all aspects of Engagement.
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Ball State University & United Way Collaboration
At a recent ICC Regional Meeting at Ball State University, one topic was a successful collaboration between the Office of Leadership and Service Learning and the local (Delaware County) United Way Community Tech Link in supporting a web-based infrastructure for student service activities (including many though not all service learning course activities) and agency opportunities.
By placing the student portal on the BSU server, and the agency portal on a community server, and by including appropriate password access for students and agencies, the two groups have succeeded in bringing a lot of coherence to campus-community “service engagement.” By linking student applications to databases at the university, the need for triplicate carbonless forms has been eliminated while preserving privacy. The extensive collection of information allows the university to document service activity more accurately, identify more service learning courses, communicate easily with one or a group of volunteers (for example, about changes at community sites). Agencies have an opportunity to place their service needs on the site, and can use the data on student service with their agency to provide evidence of in-kind matches on grant proposals. Through the community portal, local residents unattached to the university can also register for service opportunities.
This system, which has been given unreserved support from the BSU administration, was seen as an innovative model for effective campus-community collaboration through technology. Neither agencies, nor students, nor faculty are required to use this system, and it does not track a range of activities (such as service performed directly by Greek houses or student organizations). The BSU experience might suggest that, for any large-scale university, a comprehensive, campus-wide system could prove elusive, but there exist within the state of Indiana effective forms of technological collaboration that can reduce barriers.
The Jacoby Taxonomy of Engaged Institutions:
As noted by Dan Stallings, Director of the Office of Leadership and Service Learning at BSU, the motivation for developing such a system was Barbara Jacoby’s discussion, at an ICC Regional Conference at Purdue in March 2000, of the importance of moving from a Concentrated or Fragmented infrastructure for service learning and engagement to an Integrated model. *
In the Integrated model of service learning and engagement, according to Jacoby the following conditions are found (and in places these might make fuller sense in comparison with characterizations, omitted here, of the Concentrated and Fragmented models):
1. Communication: Communication inside and outside the university is facilitated by established connections. Mutual ongoing evaluation and assessment of the partnerships are part of the communication.
2. Access: University boundaries are permeable, and the university is viewed as part of the community.
3. Resources: Expertise both in the community and the university is recognized. Resources are shared willingly when possible.
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4. Engagements: Grow and adapt through time and build social capital for future success. Relationships are built on mutually defined goals and objectives.
5. Responsibility: Expertise and resources are centered in specific units in the university and community. These coordinate and promote engagement throughout the entire system.
*Jacoby credits at least the diagrammatic portion of this three-way distinction to Pigza & Troppe, “Developing an Infrastructure for Service-Learning and Engagement,” in Jacoby (Ed.), Building Partnerships for Service-Learning, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Task Force Plans and Activities:
The Task Force actions in the remainder of this semester and this fiscal year (to June 30, 2002) will depend heavily on the roles that the Committee on Service Engagement (CSE) would like the Task Force, and its staff, to act as a resource. Discussion between the co-chairs of the Committee and Task Force representatives has already been initiated.
The Task Force recently added an explicit action plan to its strategic plan, while refining the latter. This action plan details steps and goals, some already in progress, in relation to faculty participation, student involvement, community engagement, and administrative support. Complementing the development of the action plan, the Task Force was also expanding its benchmarking efforts while articulating how characteristics of engagement and of service learning connect to the strategic plan of the university as a whole. Within the action plan were also goals to provide handbooks for faculty members, community agencies, and students concerning procedures, practices and opportunities for service learning and community service.