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Learning
to serve ...
In 1872, Augsburg
Seminary chose Minneapolis as its new home and settled on donated land surrounding
what is now the city's oldest park. Today, Augsburg College boldly proclaims
its urban nature and firmly embraces the city as a classroom for educating its
students. Augsburg 2004: Extending the Vision declares that "Augsburg,
in fact, has made its location part of its curriculum." In these 100 years, this city location has helped the College structure an education that seamlessly integrates practical experience with a liberal arts education. The city has become a laboratory of unlimited opportunities, which students begin exploring from their first days on campus. Community service-learning is one of the experiential components of an Augsburg education. Students learn from and about the community and society in which they live by participating in service experiences that are integrated into Augsburg courses or done as part of other campus activities. It is an area in which Augsburg has built an enviable national reputation. "Service-learning is embedded in the education, it's not an add-on," explains Mary Laurel True, director of community service-learning. "It's part of who we are." And, it's clearly a "win-win" situation—both students and the community benefit. It actively engages Augsburg's mission and motto—learning that takes place "in the context of a vital metropolitan setting," and learning that provides "Education for Service."
Cedar-Riverside Partners The service-learning program has developed partnerships with over 25 community organizations, primarily in Augsburg's own Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. On any given day, Augsburg students are in nearby elementary schools, community centers, and neighborhood shelters, engaged in tutoring children and adults in literacy, teaching classes as part of their courses, and researching community problems to offer analysis and solutions.
Every day, the Cedar-Riverside school children average four contacts with the more than 40 Augsburg students who spend one to three hours per week at the school. Some are Augsburg science majors teaching science units, music students teaching piano lessons, education majors fulfilling teaching requirements, or others tutoring individual students in math or English as a second language (ESL). Working one-on-one helps the Cedar-Riverside students keep up in class. "Without Augsburg students, it would be a lot more difficult," says Malcolm Currie, one of the nine teachers at the school. "I wouldn't be able to move as fast because of differences in abilities; some students would fall behind." The partnership clearly
benefits both Augsburg and the Cedar-Riverside school. For example, the school's
teachers, with assistance from Augsburg faculty, have secured a grant for the
school from the Medtronic Foundation that provides a mobile science laboratory
needed to teach science in the classrooms, since the school has no space for
a dedicated science lab. For Augsburg students, working with community children
provides rich experiences and valuable learning within their own studies—and
many students continue these relationships after the program ends. Also within the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, Trinity Lutheran Church (which worships in Hoversten Chapel) partners with Augsburg for Wednesday Night Out, a program that brings together neighborhood parents and their children for supper donated by community organizations and the College. Augsburg students spend time after supper taking children to the People's Center gym, leaving parents free to talk about family and neighborhood issues. Learning to serve Augsburg's community service-learning
program was formally organized 10 years ago. A goal of the program, says True,
who arrived in 1990, is to build a continuum of community involvement for each
Augsburg student. It begins with the Augsburg Seminar (AugSem), the required
freshman orientation course that includes service projects as part of its curriculum.
The first day of the Augsburg Seminar is City Service Projects Day, when more than 300 freshmen spend a half day in groups at nearly 20 sites, giving almost 1,500 hours of service. Primarily located around the College, the projects range from painting walls to yard work to playing kickball with school children. True highlights the importance of this, because students learn that "this is what Augsburg is; this is one of the ways you'll learn here." After Augsburg Seminar, students begin to take courses that embed service projects in the coursework; they then become more confident and ready to work independently in the community on internships or research projects. Each year, 20-25 Augsburg courses include a service-learning component. For example, last year a math class helped a Cedar-Riverside organization measure the impact that varying levels of federal census returns would have on the amounts of formula grants to the neighborhood. One of the goals in Augsburg 2004 is to engage more of the faculty in service-learning and to spread it across as many disciplines as possible. Faculty benefits include fresh perspectives and energy that students bring back to the classrooms from their community experiences. "There is something [about service-learning] that changes students," computer science professor Larry Ragland told faculty colleagues and community partners at a recent gathering. The neighborhood comes to Augsburg Benefits from the service-learning experiences are more far-reaching than the hours committed to service or the measurable gains in learning. "A key component [in
our program] is the connection to having an adult person who cares about you,"
says Edison/Project for Pride in Living School staff person Cathy Nissen. "We
try to make sure in all these partnerships that our student comes to tour Augsburg
College. Most every student at Edison/PPL has had at least one experience in
college life at Augsburg and they know at least one student who goes there.
It makes sense that they can see themselves possibly going to college in the
future." A special treat for the Cedar-Riverside School children is "Kids Come to Campus Day," during Community Service Week in April. All 100 children at the school walk the three blocks to campus, eat in the cafeteria, and meet people on campus. This year, as part of the "Share a Story" project, all of the school's students, teachers, and staff wrote stories about themselves or their families and compiled them into a book that was presented to Dean Chris Kimball on their visit day. Augsburg leads the way Augsburg has been a pioneer in community service-learning dating back to the 1970s, when sociology and metro-urban studies professor Garry Hesser directed the experiential education program, sending students off campus to learn first-hand about community challenges and needs. In 1998, Hesser was honored nationally by Campus Compact as a co-recipient of the national Thomas Ehrlich award for Community Service, the highest recognition in this field.
Augsburg's most recent grant for service-learning, bringing a decade total in grant monies to over a half million dollars, is from the Council of Independent Colleges. Thirteen private colleges, from the 113 who applied, were selected to participate in "Engaging Communities and Campuses," a program that will help colleges "establish partnerships with community organizations to enhance experiential learning activities while addressing community needs." Six Augsburg faculty members are paired with six community partners, including Cedar-Riverside and Edison/PPL schools, to extend the activities of freshmen in city service projects throughout the entire Augsburg Seminar term. The Engaging Communities
and Campuses program is designed "to empower colleges and universities
and community organizations to collaborate in ways that are new to academe."
True describes Augsburg's community collaboration over the years as being a good neighbor and seeking to build community "from the inside out." Byrdziak has begun engaging the Cedar-Riverside School children in service-learning with neighborhood organizations by teaching that "service-learning is not just a project; it's a way of thinking and a way of learning."
Examples of courses that include service-learning An overview of community service-learning at Augsburg "Diversity out our front and back doors" |
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| Copyright 2007.
Augsburg College all rights reserved. |
Highlighted
in this article is just a sampling of the activities and programs in the community
service-learning program. In turn, the service-learning program is just one
of the experiential components in Augsburg's Center for Service, Work, and Learning,
which also oversees internships, career placement, and cooperative education.
The
Cedar-Riverside Community School is one of Augsburg's close partners. This public
charter school—the only school in the country to be located within a high-rise
apartment complex—serves mostly immigrant children in grades K-8. The 100
children come from 17 nations and speak seven different languages, says assistant
director Stephanie Byrdziak. In the past two years, not one of the kindergarten
children has spoken English as a first language.
Perhaps
nowhere at Augsburg has service-learning been more integrated into the learning
curriculum than in the Education Department. In 1997, Augsburg was one of six
institutions selected by the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education
(AACTE) to participate in the Service-Learning and Teacher Education project
(SLATE). As students learn to become teachers, the curriculum takes them through
three phases of service-learning: exposure to service-learning practices and
education in urban areas, skill building to develop familiarity with service-learning
theory and lessons, and internship or student teaching to carry out service-learning
enhanced lessons.
