Service-learning provides help for community

By Scott Craven
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Megin Berglund spent a semester mentoring youths at the Barre Middle School in Barre, Vt. She was part of a program called Jump Start, which she and another student started to help kids develop their leadership skills and discuss other social aspects of their life. This was made possible through a service-learning opportunity offered at Norwich University which started this year.

Along with the personal benefits that Berglund got out of the experience, she also received academic credit for one of her Peace Corps classes.

According to Berglund they would meet twice a week for two hours at a time.

"We did a lot of fun things," said Berglund, 21, a senior psychology major from Thomaston, Conn. "Sometimes we would play games like soccer or basketball. Other times we would sit and discuss things that were going on in their life."

"One time we watched the movie 'Remember the Titans', and afterwards discussed all the leadership traits that were portrayed in the movie," said Berglund. "Another time we talked about how to handle certain situations, whether it be with their peers, or adults and teachers."

Berglund is now the corps student representative for the service-learning initiatives committee at Norwich.

"It's a real eye-opener," said Berglund. "It really helps you to see what you learn in action. You can apply real life situations to it. It involves real people, real names, and real faces that you can't get from a book."

The service-learning initiatives committee is new to Norwich but is growing quite fast, according to Berglund.

The concept and utilization of service-learning is intended for students and faculty at Norwich to work together and meet the needs of surrounding communities.

Often confused with community service and internship programs, academic service learning is distinguished by its specific learning agenda, which is intended to engage students in planned and purposeful learning, related to the service experience, according to the Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning (MJCSL) web site (www.umich.edu/~mjcsl).

Academic service-learning is utilized as a venue for both academic learning and civic learning.

"It's a hands-on approach to learning," said Professor Thomas Taylor, history teacher and Division Head of the Social Sciences at Norwich University. "It's a much more intimate form of sharing information. It provides a certain connection to learning experiences."

According to Taylor, the committee puts the student in the middle of a real life situation so they can meet real people and face real problems, which will help them understand it better in the future.

"You can tell someone how to do something, but it won't have the same effect as if you were to show them, and actually let them do it themselves," Taylor said. "This is something you can't teach in a straight lecture class."

Also according to the MJCSL web site, another distinction is that the academic service-learning emphasizes not only the benefit to the student, but strongly emphasizes the benefit to the community, as well.

"It is really beginning to ignite the people involved with it," Taylor said. I think it has great potential here. The opportunity for the faculty and the students to get out into the community, outside of the classroom, not only to learn, but to help change things, as well, is a great thing."

Co-chairing the service-learning committee with Taylor is Nicole DiDomenico, Director of Volunteer Programs.

"What's great about the program is that it gets faculty members to incorporate service into their curriculum, so that students can receive academic credit for that service," she said. "The students are incorporating everything they learn in class into a real life project that's benefiting the community."

According to DiDomenico, what's unique to this committee is that it involves students, faculty members, student life members, and community members, as well.

"I'm just a liaison for the community," said DiDomenico. "I link up the two to fulfill the community's needs. The faculty members take the real initiative to do this. "

Wendy Cox, Assistant Professor of the Division of Architecture and Art, took a group of students on her own initiative to Keene Valley, N.Y., where they designed a plan to slow down traffic going through the town.

According to Cox, they also designed a visitor's center in Montpelier, Vt., and recently built a skateboard ramp for the locals of Northfield, Vt.

"I think it's a fantastic learning experience, both for the faculty and the students," she said. "It's one of the most important experiences to have in college."

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