Community Partners for Civic Participation and Social Change

Dave Wells

Assistant Faculty Director

Interdisciplinary Studies Degree

Arizona State University

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Outline• Overview• Models to help you think through

possibilities (25 minutes)

• Evaluating possibilities for you (25 minutes)• Exploration Sheet (feel free to jot as I

present)• Time to complete sheet• Discussion in small groups• Sharing and trouble shooting

• Assume you’re interested. Not going to spend time on educational theory to convince you.

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Why do it?• Education More Meaningful

– For Students (beyond textbook learning, integrates learning with doing and models what we’d like to see students do after they graduate)

– More Student-Centered– For Faculty (you’ll learn something in the process)

• Makes Teaching More Challenging– You may partially lose control and class may be less

predictable– Students may find a need to talk about their experience

• Making Impact on the Community, with the community as your partner

• You’re like me

- so devoted to social change and civic engagement that it NEEDS to be part of aligning your life with your teaching.

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Why not do it?

• Developing and maintain relationships with community organizations takes time!

• Makes Teaching More Challenging (you saw this before!)– You may partially lose control and class may be less

predictable– Students may find a need to talk about their experience

• Challenges at your institution like…• Inadequate support (course release, staff support, …)• Not what will enable you to keep your job• Student time constraints• Making students aware of unique offerings

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Course Planning

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Many Models to Choose from(start thinking and jotting!)

• Short-term or Episodic opportunities on or off campus (Example 1)

• Creating social action field trips (Example 2)• Matching with existing on campus programs for off campus work

(Example 3a)• Creating on off campus opportunities with limited hours for

added credit (Example 3b)• Developing community-based research (Example 4a)• Community Research for social change outside organization

(Example 4b)• Social Action in collaboration or independently (Example 5)• Paired Internships with Integrated Courses (Example 6)

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Example 1: volunteer or match with on campus program

• Ask Students to volunteer in a course related community project• In my BIS 301 class, I’ve had students do a “boundary

crossing“ experience, where they either do “Voices of Discovery“ on campus or volunteer at a community agency for at least 6 hours a semester which required them to cross a race, gender, social class, religious, age or other “boundary“ and then write about it.

• ASU has an office that maintain a volunteer data base including long-term, short-term and episodic (1 time) opportunities.

• Could have students attend a City Council Meeting or other public meeting (or expand that to becoming involved in a community issue under discussion).• In Tempe a rental housing task force has been formed.• Also, looking at Pay Day Loans

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Example 2: Social Action Field Trip

• Colleague plans to give class an option of going to Mexican border with Borderlinks, a nonprofit organization based in Tucson (we’re 100 miles north of Tucson)• Likely tour maquiladoras and see housing

conditions and compare with appearances on this side of border.

• Meet with representatives of various organizations

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Example 3a: Service Learning Course Match

• ASU’s Service Learning Office runs tutoring and other instruction aid programs in many schools in Phoenix serving at risk youngsters.

• Instructors match their courses with the program• Service Learning could be added credit• Could replace assignments in the class—with

students not doing service learning having something else they do.

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ies • Primary partners: school districts and non-profit agencies

• Funding partners: education, business, and industry

• Provides training, oversight, research, and community engagement opportunities for students and faculty

• Regular courses linked to credit-bearing semester-long internships or course-embedded projects

• Students apply classroom knowledge in the community

• Students infuse classroom with their community learning

• Students reflect on community experiences via computer-mediated, instructor-led discussions

Service Learning Program Background and Design

The Service Learning Program

at ASU

Academically-Linked Service Learning

Internships

Stretch 101

ENG 480

Department ofMathematics

MTE 180

School ofArchitecture

Dept. ofPhysics andAstronomy

Any PHS

Any PHY

Dept. of Geological Sciences

GLG 101/103

LIN 572

Dept. of

Plant Biology

PLB 108

BIS 401Office of

Climatology

Dept. of

Biology

SPA 202(Fall

2002)

ARP 494

Dept. ofGeography

GPH 111

Center forSolid State

Science

UNI 494ScienceIs Fun

BIO 100

Dept. of

Microbiology

MIC 205Dept. of

Languages&

Literatures

ENG 471

ENG 312

Department of

English

ENG 102

ENG 217

ENG 101

UNI 494Leadership

University College

Education

RDG 301

RDG 507

College of Public

Programs

JUS 341

DCI 498

Honors College

HON484

AFH 333Fall 2002

AFH 353Fall 2002

AfricanAmericanStudies

GPH 373

UNI 494Capstone

UNI 494CommunityWeb Dev

DepartmentOf

Psychology

PGS365

PSY 101 GerontologyProgram

GRN 440, 498, 540

SWG 591

AmerEnglishCulture

Program

BIO 187

Dept. ofSociology SOC 470

SOC 341

The Service Learning Program

Tutoring Sites

M.L.. King

J.F.Kennedy

Sunland

Kenilworth

Aguilar

TempeSchoolDistrict

#3

Laird

Fees MiddleSchool

MesaCorps

PhoenixCitadelCorps

EdPastor

RooseveltSchoolDistrict

Phoenix Elementary

School District #1

The Salvation

ArmySouthwest

Div

Salt RiverPima-Maricopa

IndianCommunity

Salt RiverElem.

Eisenhower

Mesa SchoolDistrict

South MountainYouth and

FamilyCenter

ValleyView

Carminati

M.O.Bush

Tempe UnionHigh School

District

MountainPointe

High School

Nevitt

WilsonSchoolDistrict

Wilson School

Booker T.WashingtonHead Start Rose

Linda

MLK, Jr.

Percy Julian

Cesar Chavez

M.O.Bush

Sierra Vista

C.O.Greenfield

Lassen

Conchos

Jorgensen

SouthMtn. H.S.

Akimel

ENGLISH COMPOSITION:

• COMMUNITY: raising Stanford 9 scores in the Valley’s most in-need schools

•CLASSROOM: using community work as basis for semester’s research and editing

•English 101•English 102•English 217•English 312

EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY – CLASSROOM LINKS

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LITERATURE FOR ADOLESCENTS:

• COMMUNITY: helping adolescent readers improve literacy skills and gain insights into themselves and the larger world

• CLASSROOM: creating a real-world application for classroom learning

METHODS OF TEACHING WRITING:

• COMMUNITY: helping young writers practice the Six Traits of Good Writing

CLASSROOM: infusing course work with real-world experience

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MATH EDUCATION:

•COMMUNITY : Helping academically at-risk third graders learn basic math skills

•CLASSROOM: Motivating potential teachers to learn material in non-threatening environments

ARCHITECTURE:

• COMMUNITY: Providing gifted but at-risk children with experiences that can help them expand the limits of their aspirations

•CLASSROOM: Enhancing awareness of the public role of architects

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SCIENCE:

•COMMUNITY: Helping minority students realize they have the potential to be scientists

•CLASSROOM: Creating student-centered environments that heighten students’ academic and social engagement in:

•Geology

•Microbiology

•Physical Science

•Physical Geography

•Plant Biology

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SOCIOLOGY:

• COMMUNITY: Assisting at-risk youth develop education-based alternatives to anti-social behavior

• CLASSROOM: Heightening understanding of classroom theories as they relate to community issues

•Urban Issues

•Modern Social Problems

•Racial and Ethnic Relations

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Example 3b: Service hours with multiple placements

(Welfare Reform Course )• Welfare Reform Course at Earlham College

with 20 hour community service component (4 credits instead of 3). Students worked at agencies with local connection to course– Indiana Workforce Development– Women, Infants, Children (WIC)– Richmond (IN) Housing Authority– Family and Children Services– Genesis Battered Women’s Shelter

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Readings plus Experience

• Students read texts giving both history, perspectives on the issue, models of how labor markets worked

• A former welfare mom visited the class to discuss her experience

• The students discussed every week new experiences

• Ultimately students presented their experience for campus community and wrote reports sent to the agencies.

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Example 4a: Community Based Research (Research Methods Course)

• With assistance of Nonprofit Management Institute we solicited requests for nonprofit research projects.

• We match one section (30 students) with an organization and seek to answer their research questions with quantitative and qualitative methods--which the students are learning about in the course.

• Meeting a community need (under funded organization), while providing a lasting educational experience.

• Works best in terms of time involvement if you have a continual relationship with a few organizations.

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Past Projects-Arizona Coalition to End Domestic Violence

– Analyzed Dept. of Public Safety data on arrests and dispositions of crimes that sometimes were connected to domestic violence. With further work after the course, released formal report at press conference with organization.

– CARE Partnership– Door to door community survey with bilingual junior high translators.

– Helped inventory community dental clinics for capacity and procedures as part of an oral health needs assessment.

– Women in New Recovery– Coordinated to support Needs assessment federal grant with survey

distribution and focus group notes.

– Not My Kid– Helped with program evaluation by doing pre and post surveys after

their classroom presentations (drug and eating disorders)

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Example 4b:Community Research (Research in the Class outside organizations )

• We conducted a content analysis of media coverage (print and TV) of politics, especially state government in February 2004.

• Students coded results, developed a paper • Issued a press release, held a press conference• One student got to appear on our public affairs

program on the PBS affiliate.

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Example 5: Social Action in collaboration or independently

• UCLA professor who teamed his social movements course with a union organizing drive for Los Angeles downtown hotels.

• This coming semester, for my “Power, Politics, and Social Change” course, we plan to introduce legislation or work closely with someone new to the legislative process, and then take a significant role in trying to move that legislation.

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Example 6: Paired Internships with Integrated Courses

(“Power, Politics and Social Change”)

• Arizona Public Policy Senior Seminar ( 3 units)• Legislative Advocacy Applied Study Internship (3

units)• Builds off existing internship requirement, but ties

to senior seminar in our curriculum. Run every Spring coinciding with State Legislative Session

• Challenge: How do you find 25 community placements?

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CHALLENGES!

• More than just picking the right books!• Need to recruit organizations and do advance

planning• Need to work on joint expectations (especially

challenging in our research methods course)• Be cognizant of your student limitations. ASU

students have far more limitations (paid work) than did Earlham College liberal arts students.

• May need patience. It took two years to develop and cultivate sufficient internship connections for the paired course building off of 4 prior years of extensive community and political involvement.

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Course Planning

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Contact Information

• Dave Wells, Ph.D.

– Interdisciplinary Studies Program

– david.wells@asu.edu

– 480-727-7038

– Web sites:

– http://www.public.asu.edu/~wellsda/teaching

– http://www.MakeDemocracyWork.org (my archived public policy newspaper op-eds)

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