Welcome to the Office of Service Learning

CSU Stanislaus promotes service learning as a valued part of a student’s educational process through which academic experience and social consciousness are deepened. Launched in 2000, the Office of Service Learning has made remarkable progress in supporting the faculty’s development of service learning opportunities. During the 2007-2008 academic year alone, 158 undergraduate and graduate courses, spanning numerous disciplines, contained a service learning component. Among these departments are: Accounting and Finance, Politics and Public Administration, Anthropology/Geography, Chemistry, Communication Studies, Liberal Studies, Teacher Education, Theatre, and Philosophy.

What is Service Learning?

Service learning is an innovative pedagogy (educational approach) that empowers students to learn through active participation in meaningful and planned community service experiences that are directly related to course content. Through reflective activities, students enhance their understanding of course content, sense of social responsibility, general knowledge, self-awareness, and commitment to the community.

[Service learning as pedagogy] decenters the authority of knowledge in the classroom and intentionally places community in the center of the learning process.

John Saltmarsh and Kerri Heffernan, Integrating Service with Academic Study, Campus Compact, 2000

At the core of service-learning is the principle that community service can be connected to classroom learning in such a way that service is more informed by theoretical and conceptual understanding and learning is more informed by the realities of the world.

Joint Educational Project, University of Southern California

Goals

The primary goal of the Office of Service Learning at California State University, Stanislaus is to enhance student learning through service learning projects. Specifically, the Office of Service Learning has the following program goals:

• To enhance our students’ subject matter learning in applying classroom knowledge to practical experience.
• To model for our students how a critical and democratic teacher can act to bring civic engagement into the classroom.
• To develop our students’ commitment to service, social justice, and community involvement.
• To enable our students to work productively with diverse communities.

Office of Service Learning Statistics

• In the 2007-2008 academic year, the Office of Service Learning supported 47 courses totaling 89 course sections offering a service component.
• In 2008, an estimated 2,000 students will have the opportunity to participate in a service learning course or event; as compared with an estimated 320 students in 2001).
• The estimated contribution to the local economy in services provided to the community by service learning activities is $112,500.