Service-Learning Gains Popularity in Broad Range of Courses

Service-learning is fast becoming an alternative to traditional classroom instruction at Lafayette. The number of courses with a service component has more than doubled in the last year, and a total of 13 are being offered this fall in fields across the academic spectrum.

In service-learning, students conduct specific service projects for community organizations, then explore how their experiences connect with the academic content.

“Service-learning allows students to test and apply academic learning in real-life settings,” says Char Gray, director of Lafayette’s Landis Community Outreach Center. “It prepares students for practical community-based problem solving by connecting the theoretical realm of the classroom and the practical needs of the community. Service-learning is also inherently linked to civic purposes and reinforces critical thinking, public discourse, collective activity, and community building.”

For a service-learning assignment in their Contemporary American Society course last fall, anthropology and sociology majors Wynne Campbell ’05 (Columbus, Ohio) and Michelle Railsback ’05 (Harvard, Mass.) taught ten eighth-grade students at Shawnee Middle School in Easton about satire and helped them produce a satirical newsletter.

Led by their instructor, David Shulman, assistant professor of sociology, the Lafayette students supervised production of the Shawnee Jest, which included news stories, an advice column, and mock advertisements.

“It was really great working with the students on such a challenging assignment,” says Railsback. “Many of the students were unfamiliar with satire and its use in everyday life. The hardest part was getting them to understand the difference between slapstick humor and clever/satirical humor.”

Shulman has been working to develop assignments that center on whether a contemporary trend in using satire to communicate effectively in advocacy advertising, newspapers, and other media can be similarly harnessed in service-learning projects. He says that he seeks to answer this question: “Can people adopt the satirical approaches in these media to provide, for example, younger students with an engaging medium for discussing and writing about issues or to build a non-partisan awareness and involvement in community issues?”

Chip Nataro, assistant professor of chemistry, brought service-learning into Environmental Chemistry, which covers the chemical processes underlying the environment and the way human activity affects those processes, including a wide range of pollution and energy sources. Instead of a conventional laboratory component, students help monitor the Bushkill Creek or assist with campus recycling.

“I want the students to get practical experience in some of the material we are covering in class,” says Nataro. “In terms of the big picture, I want them to see how the material they’ve learned in all of their chemistry courses affects the outside world, even if it’s just cleaning up at the canal and seeing how some garbage doesn’t decompose and what threat it poses, or monitoring streams for any possible contamination from people or corporations.”

In addition to being incorporated into existing courses, service-learning also is used as the foundation for new classes. Michelle Geoffrion-Vinci, assistant professor of foreign languages and literatures, participated in a campus service-learning workshop series last summer that helped her design a First-Year Seminar, “On Cooking, Culture, and Cinema.” The course uses representations of food and cooking in visual and print media as a vehicle for exploring U.S. and world cultures, how different people live, and cooking and eating as intimate reflections of cultural identity. Students complete six hours of community service in ways such as serving meals to the Safe Harbor homeless shelter and the Boys and Girls Club of Easton, and offering cooking classes to Third Street Alliance, a shelter for women and their children. They also participate in Lafayette’s Hunger and Homelessness Week.

Some classes do not involve service-learning in the sense of extensive reflection on volunteering, but include significant community service components that educate students. Last fall, in a groundbreaking project that will help social agencies analyze data and apply for grant applications, four computer science majors developed an online database to chart risk factors and their consequences on the community for Northampton County Communities That Care, an organization that serves local elementary and secondary students.

Seniors Rashada Norman (Bethlehem, Pa.), Lazar Nikolic (Roswell, Ga.), and Matt Zawada (Mountain Top, Pa.) and part-time student Chuck Sklar (Phillipsburg, N.J.) collaborated under the direction of Chun Wai Liew, assistant professor of computer science.

“The expertise of the Lafayette students [who developed] this web site for us is tremendous,” says Rachel Hogan, community mobilizer for Northampton Communities that Care. “This site, and its ease of use, will facilitate not only the collection of data, but also its thorough analysis, which the Communities That Care Prevention Board has recently agreed is a priority as the organization moves forward. This site [is] a groundbreaking development in the CTC community across the Commonwealth.”

Applied Statistics, an introductory course taught by Rob Root, associate professor of mathematics, emphasizes the standard methods and reasoning used in analyzing data. For the past four years, students have had the opportunity to complete a semester project by working with community organizations and Lafayette service programs. Students design their own study or have one assigned by groups that need volunteers to gather and analyze specific data. Gray identifies suitable issues at local organizations that can be addressed by students and puts them in contact with key people in those groups.

“I encourage students to do their statistical studies for community organizations,” says Root. “The students are able to give back to the community while at the same time developing their statistical skills. The quality of the work is better because the questions and the data are real and the conclusions drawn make a difference. The students learn the concepts better when their application of them has consequences beyond a course grade.”

Local organizations that benefit include Third Street Alliance, Easton Family YMCA, Miller Memorial Blood Center, Communities that Care, United Way, ProJeCt for People, Safe Harbor Homeless Shelter, Boys and Girls Club of Easton, Lehigh County Community Development, Lafayette’s Academic Resource Center, and Lafayette’s Counseling Center.

Chrissy Morgan ’05 (Flemington, N.J.) compiled statistical data for the YMCA in Easton along with Rachel Harris ’04 (Wappingers Falls, N.Y.). She was excited about the challenge.

“If I’m going to do a statistics project, I’d much rather do it to help people in the community, not just to get a grade,” says Morgan.

“The idea of using service-learning in statistics classes is beginning to catch on across the nation and the world,” says Root. “This is evidence that Lafayette is at the forefront of an innovative wave in pedagogy. This is the kind of teaching that students aren’t going to get at schools without Lafayette’s resources.”

Root coauthored a service-learning paper that he published in The American Statistician and presented last summer at the Sixth Annual International Conference on the Teaching of Statistics in Capetown, South Africa.

In the civil and environmental engineering department’s senior design course, students work in teams to complete an engineering design project for a local municipality. This spring, the class presented proposals for a 48-acre park in Lower Saucon Township. The Township Council approved their plans following a student presentation that earned rave reviews and a follow-up presentation by course instructor Steve Kurtz, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering.

In addition to the courses taught by Shulman, Geoffrion-Vinci, Nataro, Liew, and Root, several other courses with service-learning or community service components will take place this fall:

Studies in Writing: The Politics of Literacy, taught by Bianca Falbo, assistant professor of English and director of the College Writing Program, examines how people use written language to communicate ideas, argue points, create identities, educate each other, and maintain social structures. Students write reflections on volunteer experiences and a 15-page autobiographical essay on their histories as readers and writers.

Developmental Neurobiology, taught by Elaine Reynolds, assistant professor of biology, focuses on aging and the molecular basis of neurological disease. Students work one to two hours a week with Alzheimer’s patients at the Praxis nursing home and the Third Street Alliance. Journal entries on each service session, class discussion, and readings integrate practical experience with scientific literature, including analysis of the societal impact of basic science and the contribution of service to personal growth and to society.

Technology Clinic, led by Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and sociology, with a second professor, is a hands-on, year-long Lafayette course founded in 1986 that brings together students from different majors to solve the real-world problems of a business, non-profit organization, or government body. Their research addresses the social, technological, and economic issues involved with the client’s problem. One Technology Clinic will continue creating an automobile tour on CD to boost tourism and local awareness of historical assets in Nazareth and its surrounding rural municipalities, and another group will begin a new project. (Clients or grants defray the costs of each course.)

The Problem of Hunger and the World Food Supply, taught by Gray, surveys the impact of hunger in the world, access to food, and international nutritional policies and programs. It explores resources, programs, and advocacy initiatives addressing hunger, such as biotechnology and genetically modified foods, sustainable agricultural and community development, and initiatives that focus on commitment to social justice. Students contribute two hours of community service in a hunger relief agency or food program each week.

The Power of Culture: Understanding Diversity in the U.S., also taught by Gray, explores a concept of diversity that is not just “skin-deep,” involving differences such as social class, age, gender, and educational status. Students examine the barriers to opportunities faced by some because of their differences from the mainstream and how to overcome them. Students completed two hours of community service each week in outreach initiatives through Kids in the Community, Boys and Girls Club, America Reads, Safe Harbor, Meals for the Homeless, Third Street Alliance, and local child care programs.

Challenging Differences, Discovering the Possibilities of Community, taught by Gary Miller, college chaplain, answers several key questions regarding community and explains how close ties bridge differences in race, class, and gender. Students are introduced to new groups of people through volunteer work at Third Street Alliance, the Safe Harbor homeless shelter, Boys and Girls Club of Easton, and Northampton County Prison.

Child and Adolescent Development, taught by Ann McGillicuddy-DeLisi, Metzgar Professor of Psychology, examines theories of development and the processes underlying physical, cognitive, social, and personality growth during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Students experience child and adolescent development first-hand through service at Lehigh Valley Child Care, Inc., and March Elementary School in Easton. Each student keeps a journal documenting weekly experiences, which helps connect the theoretical with real-world experiences.