Looking Ahead

This Spring, we’ve been so lucky as to have a handful of successful virtual projects. As we look ahead to Fall 2021, though, we’re excitedly entertaining the option of in-person service-learning opportunities! In this edition, we are kicking off our Fall Recruitment Cycle. If you’re thinking about implementing a service-learning project this Fall, read ahead to learn about how to enroll in our Service-Learning Online Training, the perks of being a Service-Learning Faculty Fellow, and about how to learn more about local community partners.

Begin Your Service-Learning Fellowship Pathway

Are you considering implementing a service-learning project in one of your sections? Let us support your work! The Service-Learning Fellowship Pathway is intended for practitioners who are interested in broadening their expertise in service-learning while simultaneously giving back to our professional community. We’ve designed a three tier program for faculty to participate in that prioritizes research, practice, and collaboration:

• Service-Learning Fellows: By completing the Service-Learning Training either online or in our summer program, you’re already in! This preliminary training teaches you the fundamentals of service-learning theory and practice and grants you the credentials necessary for service-learning course implementation here at ACC. Click Here to Enroll Now!
  • Not a fan of self-paced online learning? No worries! Keep an eye out for our Summer Institute enrollment announcement coming soon!

• Service-Learning Research Fellows: After implementing your own service-learning course, you may have the urge to further investigate best practices and special topics in service-learning. SL Research Fellows spend one year developing their personal research proposal as a way to enhance community’s understanding of key issues for community college service-learning practitioners.

• Service-Learning Senior Research Fellowship: After deciding on their research topic, Senior Research Fellows have the opportunity to dive deeper, drafting their own literature review on the topic, mentoring new service-learning faculty, and completing the Fellowship pathway by presenting to the greater ACC community.

We invite you to check out the TLED Course Redesign Service-Learning Fellowship website to learn more about the Fellowship Pathway and how you can get involved.

Introducing the Inaugural Service-Learning Research Fellows Cohort

Our first Research Fellowship cohort is well on their way to completing Year One of the Service-Learning Fellowship Pathway! I am so excited to introduce to you all our 2021 Service-Learning Research Fellows and the amazing work they’re developing for our program!

• • Amy Velchoff – Sociology
    “I’ve been interested in Service-Learning since I heard Dr. Lillian Huerta make a presentation to the SDEV department. I met with Dr. Huerta about implementing Service-Learning into my EDUC courses, but didn’t feel like I had adequate tools to get started at the time. Once Sabryna came on board, I jumped at the chance to take her summer Service-Learning training. Afterwards, I felt empowered to implement Service-Learning, and I have been working with Sabryna/ implementing Service-Learning ever since. In terms of sociology, Service-Learning fits very well for bringing research methods and various course topics to life. I am very excited for the potential it brings to my courses in terms of deepening the content. In terms of my professional development goals, I am very interested in starting an undergraduate research program at ACC, so this would help me toward that longer term goal.”

• • Linda Cox, Ph. D – Philosophy
    “I am excited to be working with the Service-Learning Program on a research project to determine ways that service-learning can be used to meet course objectives and, at the same time, to serve the needs of community college students themselves. I’ve learned through ten years of teaching PHIL 2306: Ethics, often with a Service-Learning assignment, that food and housing insecurities are common among community college students. In fact, in 2019, The Association of American Colleges and Universities reported on a study by the Hope Center that found that 70% of community college students are either food insecure, housing insecure, or homeless, and 39% were BOTH food and housing insecure. In the course of my Service-Learning Fellows research, I hope to learn the best practices for employing service-learning among this population of students. Additionally, I hope to discover ways service-learning projects might be directed toward serving our own students while fulfilling the objectives of their service-learning assignments.”

• • Carrie Kaplan – Drama
    Carrie Kaplan is an Adjunct Faculty and the Literary Manager and Dramaturg for the Department of Drama, as well as a Tutoring Specialist for the Elgin and Highland learning labs. Her previous research has explored the neuro-cognitive process of empathy development with an eye toward enhancing students’ social and emotional learning, particularly empathy, through strategic curriculum design. She looks forward to investigating the rich overlap between Service Learning and empathy development in this current fellowship, and is excited to see how the literature in both areas can inform pedagogical practice and new models for both Service learning and social and emotional learning.

• • Lynne Wiesman, ASL Interpretation
    “I have been incorporating service-learning into interpreter training for many years (prior to ACC.) Upon returning to ACC, it was my goal to make sure that our students benefitted from participating in service-learning and being able to give back to the community who gives them language, and the culture enabling them to have a career serving the Deaf community. Through this research process, I’m interested in developing a more seamless service-learning project process for my students, where they are introduced to service-learning in upper level ASL classes and carry that through one major project throughout their interpreting classes.”

Join Now: The Service-Learning Training Repository

Service-Learning Fellows are welcome to join our new Service-Learning Training Repository. This exclusive Repository houses all of the content, readings, and activities from our Service-Learning Online and Collaborate trainings so that faculty can brush up on best practices anytime!

The Repository is only open to faculty who have completed our Service-Learning Training. If you’re a Fellow in need of a refresher,  click here to request to join the Repository!

The ACC Student Volunteer Hub

One of the greatest challenges of 2020 was finding opportunities where students could engage meaningfully in community work from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Through ample collaboration with community partners, we are very excited to be opening up the new ACC Student Volunteer Hub!

The 2021 Riverbat Reach Virtual Volunteer Fair was developed in collaboration with Student Life and the ACC Civics Lab, as well as over thirty local community organizations. While we weren’t able to host the fair due to extenuating circumstances, we’ve compiled all of the resources and opportunities from the fair into one easy to navigate volunteer resource hub. In the future, we plan to announce upcoming volunteer opportunities, host community engagement events, and more on this site.

Please help us spread the word about the new ACC Student Volunteer Hub by sharing our site with your students!

 

 

 Questions or comments about our
Service-Learning Program? 
Click the image above to visit our website, or
schedule a time to chat with our Coordinator!