Presentation:

This session provided an overview of the UCLA Center for Community Learning (CCL), a pioneer in bringing undergraduate students and faculty together with community organizations to promote the integration of learning and service at the university. The session leader began by outlining the developmental milestones leading to the Center’s establishment and the role research university leaders have played in promoting civic engagement and service learning in undergraduate education.   She next  provided examples of civic engagement and of how UCLA integrates community learning into teaching and research through service learning courses, internships, the curriculum, and scholarship programs and then moved on to a discussion of the key stakeholders in Center programs, namely  undergraduate students, UCLA faculty, and community partners in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area.  Her presentation concluded with a description of the clearinghouse model that UCLA utilizes to successfully integrate civic engagement into the curriculum. Today, the CCL serves as a central hub for information on service learning courses, internships, the Civic Engagement minor, and two AmeriCorps programs.

Introduction/History

Three events were particularly important in the Center’s development.  The first milestone was UCLA’s creation in 1980 of a Field Studies Office within Student Affairs dedicated to providing learning opportunities outside of the classroom for undergraduates.   Next, in 1985, a group of university presidents and chancellors from throughout the United States met to form a “campus compact,” charged with the task of figuring out how to successfully integrate service learning into the curriculum.  The third milestone occurred three years later when, UCLA’s Chancellor’s established a task force to study the issue and come up with recommendations for achieving this goal on the UCLA campus. The recommendations the task force issued in 1989 resemble much of what civic engagement looks like now, ten years later.   

 Service Learning and Civic Engagement Offerings

1. Service Learning Courses: Service learning courses provide an opportunity for undergraduate students to immerse themselves into the communities of Los Angeles and perform meaningful work related to their academic curriculum. At UCLA,  in order to qualify as a  service learning course, a course must include as part of its academic requirements a service learning component  that .meets the following three criteria: 1) The activities involved in the experience must constitute “meaningful work;” 2) the experience must incorporate reflection;  and 3) the experience must be directly connected to graded assignments. CCL created a continuum for classifying,  Students enrolled in a course with a service learning component cannot “opt out” of it.  UCLA offers 50- to- 60 service learning courses per year with experiences ranging from “direct service” to “research as service” opportunities.  A course on “Program Evaluation of Public Health Organizations” exemplifies what is meant by “research as service” experience.  For this course, CCL recruits public health non-profit organizations to work with undergraduate students to evaluate a public health program in Los Angeles. The students and faculty work together in teams to collect and analyze data.  The course benefits both students and the non-profit organizations.  In addition to satisfying the academic requirements of the course, the service learning experience enables the students to gain skills in program evaluation.  At the same time, the project builds the capacity of the non-profit organization.

All service learning courses are for one quarter, (UCLA follows a quarterly academic calendar). UCLA has general guidelines for the service learning component.  First, the course must specify a minimum number of hours students must spend in the community;  the University minimum is  20 hours  per quarter. Second, the experience must take place in  an appropriate environment for student learning and development. Third, service learning courses should follow a specific timeline similar to the academic calendar of the University so that all service learning requirements can be completed within that timeframe (e.g. within one semester if calendar follows the semester system, within one quarter if calendar follows the quarter system). Fourth, all students who participate in service learning courses should be adequately trained and prepared for service learning by the service learning site. Finally, service learning activities and learning should be strongly connected to graded academic assignments in the course.  At UCLA, service learning courses are offered in a variety of disciplines including English, foreign languages, Engineering, Chicano/a Studies, Art, Architecture, Spanish, Applied Linguistics, and Statistics; thus students interested in service learning have many options.

Faculty interested in launching a service learning course in their discipline often visit the Center with a preconceived “vision” for integrating service learning into their courses. CCL consults with the faculty member and provides a “menu” of existing community partners to collaborate with for the service learning component.  “Repeat business” is important to CCL, as its goal is to foster long-term and sustainable university-community partnerships. To achieve this goal, CCL invites community partners in Los Angeles to visit the service learning class and present their offerings to the students, who then choose their sites. One service learning course hosts a service learning “fair” to facilitate students’ choice of a site. The community partners have a vested interest in collaborating with CCL and UCLA because their organization is guaranteed at least one student. Some faculty have teaching assistants (TAs) to facilitate student learning in the course. CCL sometimes pays for the TA entirely and sometimes shares the cost of the TA with individual academic departments.

CCL facilitates the development of service learning courses by providing the necessary support and infrastructure for faculty, students, and the community partners.  CCL hosts workshops for faculty at which it educates them about the importance of service learning and ways to execute the service learning component of their courses effectively and efficiently. CCL requires that faculty provide evidence in their syllabi of how they plan to connect their course content with the service experience and how they plan to integrate both components into graded assignments. It is important to note that UCLA faculty teach service learning courses as part of their regular course load; these courses are not considered “extra.” This policy is intended to serve as viable incentive to encourage faculty to incorporate service learning into their courses so that the experience is mutually beneficial for both the faculty member and the community partner.

CCL also requires that the community partners provide a job description for every service learning opportunity they offer.  It also requires an “orientation” for students who are interested in working at the organization. Some students have to go through training for an entire quarter to prepare for their service learning experience during the subsequent quarter.  Pre-course training, for example, is required for experiences involving conflict resolution or peer mediation training for service learning experiences in the K-12 school system.

2. Internships Internship experiences provide students with practical experiences in the community, but do not include a class component like the service learning courses. Students may earn two or four units of academic credit for these internships, which are analogous to  independent study.  Approximately 200-250 UCLA students participate in internships offered by the Center each quarter. The time commitment required for an internship course is typically 8-10 hours per week, and only undergraduate students with junior and senior standing can participate. Economics, history, sociology, political science, and English are the largest academic departments with internship courses. CCL hires graduate students as TAs to supervise the internships and mentor undergraduates who are in their same field of study.  It is the TA’s responsibility to contact the internship sites to ensure every student is attending and performing at the desired level.  The TAs also monitors the completion of weekly journals, conducts bi-weekly meetings with their interns, and oversees the writing of the students’ final research paper. . Throughout the experience, evaluations are conducted as a means of providing feedback to the Center; the internship site evaluates the student, the student evaluates the internship site and the graduate student TA, and the Center and the TA conduct site visits and request frequent feedback from the student to prevent “exploitation.”  Graduate student TAs are trained to look for issues of student exploitation, abuse, and other inappropriate behaviors. CCL provides the  TAs with  a stipend of $5,000 per quarter plus  50% of the cost of tuition and fees for their study.
   
   Students may apply a maximum of six internship courses towards the requirements for graduation.  They have the option of taking the internship for a letter grade or pas s/no pass. Students are not required to go through CCL to obtain an internship, but most do. Internships are also offered by departments.  Some departments (e.g. economics), only offer internship opportunities for their majors, while others offer internship course opportunities to non-majors as well. Students can remain at the same internship site for a second quarter as long as they enroll in a different internship course offered through another department or discipline. UCLA provides opportunities for internship opportunities outside of Los Angeles. For example, UCLA has partnered with the University of California at Sacramento to offer an internship course and research seminar in which UCLA students live in Sacramento for one quarter to complete their internship experience.

Currently, there are only three majors at UCLA that require service learning courses or internships for graduation: Chicano Studies, Spanish and Statistics. 

Minor Offered in Civic Engagement

Students in any major may minor in civic engagement at UCLA.  The Civic Engagement minor is especially popularamong transfer students.  The minor consists of a  core course  on “Citizenship and Public Service; an intensive internship experience of at least three quarters at a site at the local, state or national level; and a capstone research project which the student develops in collaboration with a faculty member.. In addition, the student must  write a research paper on a policy issue related to his or her choice of internship.  Students in the minor meet in a seminar setting to craft their proposals for the capstone project; each  student then presents his/her proposal to a faculty member who subsequently “accepts” the document and agrees to mentor the student throughout the research process. The curriculum for the minor is entirely student-centered: The student tells the Center the kind of project that  he/she is interested in undertaking, and the Center develops the internship opportunity around the student’s interests. The capstone project is beneficial to students because it forces them to articulate what they like and/or are passionate about and integrate that passion with their undergraduate education. It is important to note that the capstone project required for the minor is in addition to any capstone required by their major (if applicable) and takes the form of an independent study course.

Minor in Disability Studies

This interdisciplinary minor uses “disability” as a lens for understanding the individual, society, and culture. The minor requires two quarters of an off-campus internship experience in direct service, research, or policy work. A faculty advisory committee oversees the minor;  any changes in the curriculum are submitted directly to the Faculty Senate.

AmeriCorps Scholarship Programs

CCL offers two AmeriCorps Scholarship Programs: Justice Corps and Students in Service

1. Justice Corps: The Justice Corps program enables students to work with the members of self-help legal clinics or family law centers in Los Angeles and helps individuals involved in civil cases who cannot afford an attorney and must represent themselves in court. Undergraduates work in the clinic for one year for approximately 8-10 hours per week, and are supervised and trained by attorneys. The Justice Corps program has helped 25,000 people go to court and successfully defend themselves. Students who completes the program receives $1,000 scholarships to be used towards their education. Most students who participate see Justice Corps as a means to solving a “social justice issue,” and attorneys agree that the program gives them hope that the next generation actually cares about public service careers and access to justice.
2. Students in Service: This scholarship program is broad in scope in that students get to choose their own site for their service learning experience. Students receive $1,000 scholarships after completing 300 hours of service.

Alexander Astin’s Civic Engagement Scholars Program

Modeled after undergraduate research office programs, the Civic Engagement Scholars Program is a new program sponsored and facilitated by CCL. Named after Alexander Astin, Professor Emeritus of Higher Education and Organizational Change at UCLA, the scholarship program requires that students complete a research project at an off-campus community organization that is civic-minded in its orientation. The student presents the “final product” of his or her research project to an audience made up of faculty, students, staff, and the surrounding community. The scholarship program is restricted to undergraduate students who have had prior community service experiences at UCLA. Students participating in the program receive scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, based on both merit and need.  

Future Directions of the Center for Community Learning

1. International Service Learning Courses: CCL hopes to offer a greater variety of international service learning experiences abroad. Currently, a UCLA service learning course is offered in Thailand, and another course is proposed to take place in China.
2. Los Angeles Higher Education Partnership: The LA Higher Education Partnership will bring together ten two- and four-year  colleges and universities (including both public and private institutions) in the Los Angeles areas to share their ideas and experiences about how to help college students secure service learning experiences in K-12 settings. The partnership seeks to answer the question: How can higher education be seen as a resource to the City of Los Angeles.  This partnership will serve as link between community organizations and  students?
3. Improve the Developmental Approach to Civic Engagement, Service Learning, and Research: CCL plans to create a “developmental map” that will inform students when they arrive on campus about  community-based options and choices that exist for them at UCLA and how community-based work can have an academic context. This developmental approach will educate the UCLA community about how to effectively incorporate community service into undergraduate education. CCL hopes to disseminate this “developmental map” across campus to serve as the primary resource for information on service learning.

Discussion:

Question 1: Should institutions require a service learning component for graduation purposes?
The response from the participants was mixed; some participants felt that requiring service learning for graduation is integral to the missions of undergraduate education. Unfortunately, requiring service learning for graduation presented feasibility issues for    specific departments and majors.

Question 2: Do any colleges or universities currently have a service learning requirement for graduation?
The only institution session leader O’Byrne knew of that has this requirement is California State University at Monterey Bay.