Designing Content-Specific Community-Engaged and Service-Learning Partnerships
Whether a community partner is involved with work that provides human services, cares for the environment, promotes good health, empowers students and communities, or offers a myriad of other nonprofit missions, the agency must provide students with experiences that will teach. Examples include:
- Marketing students who hone skills by promoting an organization’s identity or advertising services;
- Sociology students who learn about community development through data gathering and information analysis of community strengths and challenges;
- Anthropology students who learn about the cultural aspects of death and dying from senior center members;
- Education majors who learn to teach by tutoring K-12 learners;
- Hospitality students who learn about special event planning by assisting with the planning of a community event.
Identifying Placement Sites and Activities
The Civic and Community Engagement Office gathers information and project ideas from the community and shares these ideas with faculty members looking for service project ideas. Our faculty have partnered with more than 200 community agencies! Before every fall and spring semester, the CCE hosts two community partner meetings so that faculty can meet in-person with agency representatives who are eager to work with us on specific projects. These face-to-face conversations are most productive and lead to the best possible matches, consistent with the goals and objectives of the courses, and the agencies’ priorities.
Some faculty members have existing contacts with community organizations that may be good hosts to service-learning students. However, the scope of a project can often be larger than one community partner can handle, so make sure to discuss capacity with the organization.
Defining Service Requirements and Logistics
Once service activities are determined with the partner(s), details of service requirements must be identified.
Suggested Topics for Discussion with Community Partner
- Requirements for background checks or other volunteer screening
- Any required agency volunteer orientation or other introductory orientation for students at the service site, including safety in the workplace
- Total number of service-learning students the agency partner can accommodate and the number of students to be on-site at any given time (It is a good idea to be conservative, since service-learning can be demanding on supervising staff’s time)
- Dates that students will begin and end their service
- Hours the agency is open and hours that students are needed to assist with the designated project
- Identifying the person who will be supervising students
- Expectations of students in the community, e.g., appropriate dress, punctuality, etc.
- How faculty and partners prefer to communicate, the frequency of check-ins, and contact information
