Approximately 17 people present including faculty from math, psychology, neuroscience, biology, music education, history and others as well as people from College relations, the dean's office, and the Center for Service Learning

Introduction by Jan Thornton, Neuroscience followed by a short presentation by Beth Blissman, director of Oberlin's Center for Service Learning. Beth provided a number of handouts on the issue of "Academically Based Community Service," often known as "service learning."

Michael Henle of the Math Department discussed how he used a winter term project to explore service learning further. He was looking at working in the public schools, Langston in particular, trying to discover an environment where math is fun. His students worked with an after school enrichment program for 7th graders. The project was less academically rigorous than what "ABCS" programs should be, but he felt it was a good time to explore the area of service learning.

Carol Lasser of the History Department talked about how she added a "4th hour" service learning component into her "Oberlin History as American History" course. This project involved partnering with the Oberlin public schools to teach about Oberlin history within an American history course. She summarized the purposes for the students of the "service learning" credit as:

(1) You know something better if you teach it;

(2) By focusing on the topic of Oberlin history, you can raise a series of questions about how one "does" history responsibly in a community. One's perspectives on history get placed in a new context.

The partnering aspect between her students and Oberlin High School involved two College students working with 3-4 O.H.S. students to create projects related to Oberlin history and post them to a web site. [See, for example: Neal Schindler; Emily Johnson ; Miguel Villafana.]

Somewhat less successful, according to Carol, were the results of her "Nation of Joiners" 4th hour service-learning option. The idea behind this was that while studying the history of philanthropy, students would have direct experience with philanthropic organizations. As a 4th hour, this aspect of the class was encouraged, but not required. Students were expected to provide real service (3-5 hours a week) and to write a reflection of this along with a final paper addressing a history of the agency or some issue that the agency sought to answer or address.

Carol suggested that the concept was great and the research papers were also quite good, but that the actual service was not as successful. There was no real reciprocity involved; and the work in the various organizations was often mundane and boring for students. Must of the success of the project in this respect will depend on working with a person at the "service" agency who will responsibly supervise students. Carol felt that one needed much better contact with the placements. It is important that the staff at these agencies have high expectations of what they would get from the OC students working there; a good partnership between the teacher and the community service partner is key here. It was further stressed that it is important to make sure that the goals of the community organizations with whom students are placed are the same goals that are important for the course. Carol also raised what is a very serious question of managing Oberlin College students' time and how they fit into their placements.

Q. What is the role of a "contract" in this arrangement between the students doing "service learning" and the faculty member or placement?

A. Some felt that it was useful to set out what the student should be learning from the interaction. Carol reported mixed results from having a "contract" - again, it depended on whether someone from the agency would help with this. But she stressed that contracts are important in setting out the students' responsibility vis-à-vis their placement (i.e., they must give notice 24-hours ahead of time if they aren't able to come into work, etc.).

Q. What if you give your students a list of placements that you have worked out and they want to do a different one?

A. It is important to have them explain why that placement new placement would be better than the ones on the list; how does it relate to the course, etc.

Beth B. pointed out that the Center for Service & Learning can provide a lot of help for students, particularly in getting to their placements. The CSL has a budget to provide transportation to all students doing service placements within Lorain County - even if they have a weekly assignment and even if it is a volunteer assignment (i.e., not associated with a course). About 500 students take advantage of this each year.

Q. Should "service" always get credit?

A. There is a challenge of getting our students to connect his/her intellectual life with some practice; one can see service learning as a way for students to develop, frame and model issues, e.g., "this is how I face this kind of issue as a professional." In that respect, service learning can provide modeling for engaged scholarship.

Q. If we have students interested in doing some kind of service learning but we do not offer any courses that are consistent with what they want to do, what are our options for providing credit? Can we offer ABCS placements as private readings? Can these or should these be credit granting?

Patty de Winstanley suggested that she used the private readings context to deal with a project for bilingual students. They OC students were engaged in second language tutoring at the Oberlin High School, and were able to get some academic credit at the College via a private reading with Patty. Others suggested that we need a category (e.g. "individual practicum") in which to group these kinds of individual community service opportunities. But in any case, it was pointed out that these placement/service opportunities need to be used as a "text," as a basis for interrogation and analysis, not just as an "experience."

Q. What kinds of things would be of use for those interested in Academically Based Community Service?

(a) A central repository web site that can be accessed and set out what opportunities exist for this kind of work;

(b) Some kind of awareness on the part of the faculty of the importance and academic value of ABCS. A lot of this kind of work is done as an overload. We need to make others aware of the issues involved in teaching a course like this, to make it less onerous.