The Nuts and Bolts of Building a Meaningful Service-Learning Core for the First-Year Experience

Presentation Format

Interactive Workshop

Intended Audience

All Audiences

Program Abstract

This interactive workshop will outline Pfeiffer University’s restructuring of the first-year composition sequence to include a significant service-learning component requiring real-world writing grounded in sustained direct service. While Pfeiffer’s story will be the backdrop of the presentation’s narrative, the main objective is to provide participants with 1) the space and structure to imagine a similar program and 2) the print resources they need to return to their home campuses and transform their vision into reality.

Presentation Description

Institutional teams are encouraged to attend this interactive workshop together to learn how to plan, implement and assess a major service-learning initiative embedded in the freshman experience. In the summer of 2015, Pfeiffer University was selected to participate in the inaugural North Carolina Campus Compact Engaged Faculty Scholars program, which supports the integration of service-learning and community engagement in teaching, research and service. A coalition of faculty and staff devised a plan to restructure the two courses of the first-year composition sequence (Introduction to College Writing and College Writing) to include a significant service-learning component requiring real-world writing grounded in sustained direct service. The seminars of the first-year “Pfeiffer Journey,” a holistic approach to the four-year experience, will provide the space for the service. The Francis Center for Servant Leadership, the campus’s service and volunteering hub, will offer logistical and financial support. The English Department faculty will facilitate the written reflections and assessment of the program. Participants will follow Pfeiffer’s experience through this journey, stopping at critical junctures to complete a series of brainstorming and reflection activities related to the feasibility of such a program on their campuses. The presenters will begin by explaining the long-term mission and theoretical underpinnings that produced the idea for the original proposal and the institutional factors that made Pfeiffer ready for implementation, including an established focus on mentored learning, a newly imagined general education curriculum and a QEP related to engaged learning and critical thinking. Participants will walk through Pfeiffer’s process of selecting the campus and community constituents who were included in the planning stages. The presenters will explain how they wrote the proposal, garnered financial support and secured cross-disciplinary buy-in and administrative consensus. The workshop will reveal the brainstorming activities Pfeiffer used to think about who our students really are and the community partners and curricular activities that would be most compatible with the overall profile of that particular population. Participants will be given the chance to consider assessment strategies that would be most appropriate for their programs and accrediting bodies. An honest appraisal of the challenges program organizers faced and the corresponding solutions they developed along the way will be offered. Presenters will also bring handouts that outline the professional development workshops designed specifically for faculty and staff participating in the inaugural year of the program, which is set to launch in Fall 2016. Pfeiffer’s position as a tuition-driven private liberal arts institution situated in a rural locale and with limited transportation options for students makes it an effective model for other campuses to consider as they mediate their own individual challenges and work to provide students with well-designed service-learning experiences that prepare them to be effective citizens of the world. While Pfeiffer’s story will be the backdrop of the presentation’s narrative, the main objective for the workshop is to provide participants with 1) the space and structure to imagine a similar program and 2) the print resources they need to return to their home campuses and transform their vision into reality.

Location

Room - 1002

Start Date

4-14-2016 9:15 AM

End Date

4-14-2016 10:30 AM

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Apr 14th, 9:15 AM Apr 14th, 10:30 AM

The Nuts and Bolts of Building a Meaningful Service-Learning Core for the First-Year Experience

Room - 1002

Institutional teams are encouraged to attend this interactive workshop together to learn how to plan, implement and assess a major service-learning initiative embedded in the freshman experience. In the summer of 2015, Pfeiffer University was selected to participate in the inaugural North Carolina Campus Compact Engaged Faculty Scholars program, which supports the integration of service-learning and community engagement in teaching, research and service. A coalition of faculty and staff devised a plan to restructure the two courses of the first-year composition sequence (Introduction to College Writing and College Writing) to include a significant service-learning component requiring real-world writing grounded in sustained direct service. The seminars of the first-year “Pfeiffer Journey,” a holistic approach to the four-year experience, will provide the space for the service. The Francis Center for Servant Leadership, the campus’s service and volunteering hub, will offer logistical and financial support. The English Department faculty will facilitate the written reflections and assessment of the program. Participants will follow Pfeiffer’s experience through this journey, stopping at critical junctures to complete a series of brainstorming and reflection activities related to the feasibility of such a program on their campuses. The presenters will begin by explaining the long-term mission and theoretical underpinnings that produced the idea for the original proposal and the institutional factors that made Pfeiffer ready for implementation, including an established focus on mentored learning, a newly imagined general education curriculum and a QEP related to engaged learning and critical thinking. Participants will walk through Pfeiffer’s process of selecting the campus and community constituents who were included in the planning stages. The presenters will explain how they wrote the proposal, garnered financial support and secured cross-disciplinary buy-in and administrative consensus. The workshop will reveal the brainstorming activities Pfeiffer used to think about who our students really are and the community partners and curricular activities that would be most compatible with the overall profile of that particular population. Participants will be given the chance to consider assessment strategies that would be most appropriate for their programs and accrediting bodies. An honest appraisal of the challenges program organizers faced and the corresponding solutions they developed along the way will be offered. Presenters will also bring handouts that outline the professional development workshops designed specifically for faculty and staff participating in the inaugural year of the program, which is set to launch in Fall 2016. Pfeiffer’s position as a tuition-driven private liberal arts institution situated in a rural locale and with limited transportation options for students makes it an effective model for other campuses to consider as they mediate their own individual challenges and work to provide students with well-designed service-learning experiences that prepare them to be effective citizens of the world. While Pfeiffer’s story will be the backdrop of the presentation’s narrative, the main objective for the workshop is to provide participants with 1) the space and structure to imagine a similar program and 2) the print resources they need to return to their home campuses and transform their vision into reality.