Skip to main content

Center for Teaching

Additional Resources

By Joe Bandy, Assistant Director, CFT

Vanderbilt Resources

  • Office of Community, Neighborhood, and Government Relations: Works with students, faculty, staff, and administration throughout the university to promote policy initiatives and to leverage Vanderbilt resources. As a public access point for the community, VU’s CNGR is both proactive and responsive in supporting Vanderbilt’s mission of teaching, research, public service and health care.
  • Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR) Research Match Program: VICTR’s mission is to transform the way ideas and research discoveries make their way from origin to patient care. This is accomplished using a multi-faceted approach: through collaboration with a wide variety of research partners; by training, nurturing and rewarding participating researchers; by funding research; by developing new and innovative ways to involve the community in research; by developing new informatics and biostatistical systems; and by making available the latest technologies and sound research results affecting patient care.
  • Service Learning Working Group:  The CFT is proud to revive an earlier working group on service learning for all educators across campus. The Working Group meets once monthly to discuss the challenges and opportunities of service learning and community engagement in higher education, often focused around faculty presentations of community-based teaching and research projects, the scholarship on service learning, or other related subjects. If you are interested in signing up for notices about meetings of the Service Learning Working Group, please contact Joe Bandy for more information.
  • Immersion Vanderbilt: IV is a degree requirement for all Vanderbilt undergraduates designed to immerse students in creative and experiential learning opportunities in three substantive areas — undergraduate research; community and civic engagement; innovation, design, and creativity. Practically, IV occurs in two phases, (1) an experiential learning opportunity, and (2) a culminating project that helps to consolidate and reflect upon the immersion experience. Because IV may involve community and civic engagement, its staff offer support to faculty and students seeking to explore community engagement in their teaching and learning.

Nashville Resources

  • Tennessee Campus Compact: TNCC became the 33rd State Campus Compact in the United States in affiliation with the National Campus Compact. The TNCC is a presidential membership organization governed by a presidents’ council, an executive board, and an advisory committee to serve as a statewide coordinator, convener, and catalyst to advance civic engagement, service learning, and community service in higher education.
  • Tennessee State University’s (TSU) Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement, supports many service learning projects in Nashville and beyond. It “serves to connect students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community partners in developing service activities that are mutually beneficial to all.  Service activities may be strictly volunteer community service, civic engagement activities, or service-learning.”

Service Learning for Sustainability: David Padgett http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/cftpodcast/ep25.mp View PowerPoint presentation.
  • David Padgett, Associate Professor of Geography at Tennessee StateUniversity, discusses several useful examples of service learning projects he has organized with his geography students around issues of environmental justice and sustainability in Nashville in his lecture, “Geospatial Technology: Applications in Service Learning and Environmental Sustainability”. He and his students have engaged in a variety of community-based mapping research projects on topics that range from recycling programs to food availability. His community partners have included Community Food Advocates, Tying Nashville Together, the Nashville Metropolitan Health Department, Nashville Office of Public Works, the Hadley Park Neighborhood Association, the African American Cultural Alliance, EarthMatters Tennessee, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and Pearl-Cohn High School, among others.

National and International Organizations for Community Engagement

  • Learn and Serve: This organization supports and encourages service learning throughout the United States, endeavoring to have students make meaningful contributions to their community while building their academic and civic skills.
  • National Service Learning Clearinghouse: A program of Learn and Serve America that provides an extensive website supporting the service learning efforts of K-12 schools, higher education institutions, communities, and tribal nations across the country. It offers thousands of free online resources, the nation’s largest library of service learning materials, national service learning listservs, and reference and technical assistance services.
  • Center for International Service Learning: This center provides service opportunities for academic communities. Their mission is “to bring learning and service into an intimate relationship which will prepare graduates to function and contribute as responsible members of the world community.”
  • National Service Learning Partnership: The Partnership, founded in 2001, is a national network of members dedicated to advancing service learning as a core part of every young person’s education. The network consists of more than 8,500 members in all 50 states, including students, teachers, parents, administrators, policymakers, education leaders, community partners, businesspeople, and researchers.
  • International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement: Founded in 2005, IARSLCE’s mission is “To promote the development and dissemination of research on service learning and community engagement internationally and across all levels of the education system.”
  • International Partnership for Service Learning and Leadership: Offered in 14 countries, IPSL programs unite academic study and volunteer service, giving students a fully integrated study abroad experience.
  • Institute for Global Education and Service Learning: A non-profit training organization that creates service learning programs and initiates activity-based education in collaboration with schools and organizations around the world.
  • National Service Learning Conference: Organized by the National Youth Leadership Council and the Institute for Global Education and Service Learning.
  • National Service Learning Exchange: Founded in 1998, the National Service Learning Exchange is a collaboration between five leading service learning organizations and a network of nearly 400 experienced peer mentors.  They support high-quality service learning in kindergarten through high school, higher education, and community-based organizations, by providing free technical support and mentoring, and consulting and training on a fee-for-service basis.
  • National Society for Experiential Education: The mission of NSEE is to foster the effective use of experience as an integral part of education, in order to empower learners and promote the common good.
  • Center for Community Based Research: Founded in 1982, CCBR believes in the power of knowledge to impact positive social change. They support community-based research in participatory and action-research models.
  • Imagining America: Imagining America’s mission is to “animate and strengthen the public and civic purposes of humanities, arts and design through mutually beneficial campus-community partnerships” and its programs “focus on building a national community of public scholars.”
  • Big Dummy’s Guide To Service Learning!: “27 Simple Answers to Good Questions” on faculty, programmatic, student, administrative, & non-profit issues related to service learning, written by the Volunteer Action Center at Florida International University

College Programs for Community Engagement

  • U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of college service learning programs.
  • Campus Compact: A national coalition of more than 950 college and university presidents – representing some 5 million students – dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement, and service learning in higher education.
  • Community Colleges Broadening Horizons through Service Learning: Since 1994 the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) has promoted the value of service learning to the 1,200 associate degree-granting institutions in the U.S. The goals of its national project are to integrate service learning into the institutional climate of community colleges, and to increase the number, quality, and sustainability of service learning programs through an information clearinghouse, data collection and analysis, model programs, training and technical assistance, publications, and referrals.
  • Stanford University’s Haas Center for Public Service: A top-ranked program, this center connects academic study with community and public service to strengthen communities and develop effective public leaders. The Center aspires to develop aware, engaged and thoughtful citizens who contribute to the realization of a more just and humane world.
  • Brown University’s Swearer Center for Public Service:Another highly ranked program, its mission is “to connect the capacities of the university and community to address inequalities in our society and communities; create, share, and apply knowledge for the public good; and educate and prepare students for lives of effective action.”
  • The Ohio State University’s Service Learning Initiative: This office at the Ohio State University supports service learning course development and evaluation as well as community-based scholarship across the university.  It has many valuable resources for teachers building service learning courses.
  • Syracuse University’s Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service: The Mary Ann Shaw Center encourages “students, faculty, and staff to work together for intellectual, ethical, professional and personal development through reciprocal learning in partnership with the community.”
  • Berea College Center for Excellence in Learning Through Service: One of the top college programs for service learning, CELTS was created to house all of the student-led service programs and community outreach offices, and to lead an initiative to integrate service into the academic curriculum. The opportunities for service, outreach, and service learning facilitated by CELTS take place in the immediate Berea/Madison County community, in the larger Appalachian region, and at sites throughout the United States and the world.

Journals on Service Learning and Community Engagement

Articles, Reports, and Guides on Community Engagement

Books on Community Engagement and Service Learning

  • A Practitioner’s Guide to Reflection in Service-Learning, Eyler, Janet S., Dwight E. Giles, and Angela Schmiede, Vanderbilt, 1996.
  • Assessing service-learning and civic engagement: Principles and techniques. Gelmon, S. B. , B. Holland, A. Driscoll, A. Spring, and S. Kerrigan. Campus Compact, 2001.
  • Beyond the Campus: How Colleges and Universities Form Partnerships with their Communities. Maurrasse, David J. Routledge, 2001.
  • Building Partnerships for Service Learning. Jacoby, Barbara and Associates, Eds. Jossey-Bass, 2003.
  • Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices. Jacoby, Barbara and Associates. Jossey-Bass, 2009.
  • Community-Based Research and Higher Education: Principles and Practices. Strand, Kerry J., Nicholas Cutforth, Randy Stoecker, Sam Marullo and Patrick Donahue. Jossey-Bass, 2003.
  • EducatingCitizens: Preparing America’s Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility. Colby, Anne, Thomas Ehrlich, Elizabeth Beaumont, Jason Stephens. Jossey-Bass and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 2003.
  • Fundamentals of Service-Learning Course Construction. Heffernan, Kerrissa. Campus Compact, 2001.
  • Integrating Service Learning and Multicultural Education in Colleges and Universities. O’Grady, Carolyn R. Ed., Routledge. 2000.
  • Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning: Service-Learning Course Design Workbook, Howard, Jeffrey, ed., University of Michigan: OCSL Press, 2001.
  • Partnerships that Work: The Stories and Lessons from Campus/Community Collaborations.Gray, Charlene J., James M. Heffernan, Michael H. Norton. Campus Compact, 2008.
  • Service Learning: A guide to planning, implementing, and assessing student projects (2nd ed.) Berman, S.. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. 2006.
  • Service-Learning in Higher Education: Critical Issues and Directions. Butin, Dan W., Ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
  • Students As Colleagues: Expanding the Circle of Service-Learning Leadership. Zlotkowski, Edward , Nicholas V. Longo, and James R. Williams, Eds. Campus Compact, 2006.
  • The Future of Service Learning:New Solutions for Sustaining and Improving Practice. Strait, Jean R. and Marybeth Lima, Eds. Stylus Publishing, 2009.
  • The Measure of Service Learning: Research Scales to Assess Student Experiences – Bringle, Robert G., Mindy A. Phillips, and Michael Hudson. American Psychological Association, 2003
  • The Unheard Voices: Community Organizations and Service Learning, Stoecker, Randy and Elizabeth A. Tryon, Eds. Temple University Press, 2009.

Books available for check-out from the Center for Teaching Library:

  • Combining Service and Learning: A Resource Book for Community and Public Service,Volumes I and II, by Jane C. Kendall and Associates
  • Higher Education Service-Learning Sourcebook, by Robin C. Crews
  • Service-Learning: A Movement’s Pioneers Reflect on Its Origins, Practice, and Future. Stanton, Timothy K. and Nadinne I. Cruz, Eds. Jossey Bass, 1999.
  • Successful Service-Learning Programs: New Models of Excellent in Higher Education, edited by Edward Zlotkowski
  • Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning? Eyler, Janet S. and Dwight E. Giles, Jr. Jossey-Bass, 1999.

 

Other Resources

  • Community Partners: This Ohio State University resource has a collection of principles of good community-campuspartnerships, along with suggestions on organizing and working with volunteers.
  • 101 Ideas For Combining Service & Learning: Ideas for service learning projects in a variety of disciplines, from Florida International University.
  • Service Learning for Depth in a Fluid World: A summary of Chapter Five, “Service-Learning and the Problem of Depth,” by Jim Ostrow, in Public Work and the Academy: An Academic Administrator’s Guide to Civic Engagement and Service-Learning. Anker Publication Company, 2007.

Other CFT Guides About Community Engaged Teaching