In the interest of furthering the University's stated commitment to the greater surrounding community, the Undergraduate Council of Students is promoting courses that incorporate community involvement. While some such courses already exist, members of UCS are working to help create additional community-based courses.
"Service learning" is the term that has been used in the past to describe these courses, but Swearer Center for Public Service administrators and UCS members are trying to steer away from this label, preferring to think of the courses as civic or community engagement.
Both the Swearer Center and UCS are "looking to get people involved in the community on a deeper level," said Melea Atkins '10, a UCS at-large representative and member of the Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee. The term "service learning" does not imply the level of sustainability and commitment to a project that UCS is trying to promote, she said.
To ensure that their efforts are well-received, faculty and Swearer Center administrators undertake significant planning and research before contacting an outside organization about a potential course.
A community project cannot just be "tacked on" to a course, said Roger Nozaki MAT'89, director of the Swearer Center and associate dean of the College. The project should be more deeply intertwined with the course's specific goals and criteria in order to improve the student experience and to guarantee that the organization is directly benefiting from the project, he said.
However, there is no single definition for such a course. Rather, a "whole range" of course types fit within the parameters of community engagement, Nozaki added.
The Swearer Center currently helps faculty to "develop courses that help students think about and learn about community issues. Sometimes that involves a specific project, sometimes it doesn't," Nozaki said.
"Engagement in the community can help students gain skills that Brown desires for its students," said Nozaki, noting that in some courses, students become deeply engaged in community or global issues without ever stepping outside the classroom. "We're not pre-supposing a certain type of course," he added.
The ability to apply classroom knowledge to the world at large appeals to many students, as it gives them the ability to "bridge the gap" and take what they are learning in class "beyond Brown in a tangible way," said UCS Vice President Lauren Kolodny '08.
"There is a general student culture of being very interested in social issues," Nozaki said. Community involvement offers "a different set of perspectives, understanding and knowledge," he said.
UCS members told The Herald there have been challenges attracting faculty members to teach such courses. According to Beth Bauer, senior lecturer in Hispanic studies, this stems from the inherent difficulties presented by "blending" community and academic goals, which require a good deal of time and effort.
Bauer teaches HISP 0750B: "Hispanics in the United States," which incorporates classroom learning and direct work with nearby Hispanic communities. She said such a course "serves an important role" for her department because it "promotes getting to know the Spanish-speaking community in Providence."
Kolodny, who took HISP 0750B, said the course changed the way she viewed Providence and allowed her to "apply the more abstract things" she had learned in class.
While certain departments have more obvious connections to the community, UCS is "looking to try to get a few students and a few professors excited in every department," Atkins said.
"Just about any discipline has public implications," Nozaki said.
The immediate plans are focused on "making sure we stress what we want to do in a way that makes professors see the benefits of it," Atkins said.
The difficulty in promoting such a broad concept, said UCS President Michael Glassman '09, is that it is "not a thing you can advocate for - you can't buy it." Instead, he said, you have to "get students and faculty to understand."
UCS members are reaching out to the Faculty Executive Committee to increase awareness and find ways to make courses with community engagement components more attractive to professors. "It's really just about changing the perception of 'service learning' on campus," Kolodny said.
However, the project is very much still in its planning stages. The goal right now is "getting people talking," Glassman said.
"There is some richness, not a type of class or an approach to teaching," Nozaki stressed. "That's not what a Brown education is about. There are a variety of ways for students and faculty to get engaged," he said.
