Regional Service-Learning Conference Held at Tusculum College

Educators and representatives of community service organizations from throughout the region and from as far away as Massachusetts and Missouri will gather at Tusculum College June 4-5 for a conference entitled "Strengthening Community Partnerships: Service-Learning for Social Justice in Appalachia." The conference, sponsored by the East Tennessee Consortium for Service Learning, Learn and Serve America, and the Appalachian College Association, will feature several nationally-known experts in service-learning as well as opportunities for participants to engage in group discussions.

John Reiff, director of the Tusculum College Service-Learning Center, is the conference organizer. "We hope to give people in the region who are interested in service-learning the opportunity to meet one another," Reiff says. "The conference will let these educators and community service people develop networks of support and encounter ideas about good teaching that will help them move to the next level in the practice of service-learning."

Service-learning is a form of experiential learning that is gaining advocacy all over the United States. Students complete service projects in their communities and gain valuable lessons about particular subjects, about the communities they serve, and about themselves. "There is a reciprocity between service and learning in the service-learning process," Reiff says.

Nadinne Cruz, Associate Director of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University, will deliver the opening remarks at the two-day conference. Cruz will address the relationship between service-learning programs and communities in a presentation entitled, "What Do Service-Learning Programs Need from Communities?"

Dr. John Reiff, director of the Tusculum College Service-Learning Center, is the conference organizer.

"In previous work, Nadinne Cruz has pointed out that the main thing service-learning programs need from communities is to learn what is important to them," Reiff says. "She has worked hard to develop a pedagogy that is based on seeking community perspectives. Approaching service from a community perspective has a transformative effect on our experiences, and that is an effect she will explore in her remarks."

Other speakers include Dwight Giles, professor and director of internships at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and Robert Sigmon, president of Learning Design Initiatives, Inc. of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Giles will discuss his research on teaching techniques with special emphasis on the use of reflection in service-learning and on assessment in service-learning programs. Sigmon, who originally coined the term "Service-Learning," will focus on the needs and interests of the different parties in the partnerships between schools and communities.

Tusculum College, the host institution for the conference, is one of eight colleges and universities that make up the East Tennessee Consortium for Service-Learning. The consortium is funded by its member institutions and by Learn and Serve America. The aim of the consortium is to develop service-learning in higher education as well as in secondary education throughout East Tennessee.

"We started as the Northeast Tennessee Consortium for Service-Learning, with East Tennessee State University taking the lead along with Milligan College and Tusculum," says Reiff. "Now we have expanded to include colleges across East Tennessee, and we hope eventually to be able to create a statewide organization of colleges which place emphasis on service to others in their curricula."

Service-learning has been integrated into several courses at Tusculum College, and in 1993, completing a major service-learning experience became a graduation requirement for all Tusculum students. Students may select a service placement with a community agency for 50 hours, or they may work with other members of the community to design and carry out a "Civic Arts Project" that meets a particular community need.

"Each of the member institutions in our consortium has made a commitment to developing service-learning," says Reiff. "The Tusculum program is just one example of how better teaching and learning can take place with a mind set oriented toward service to others. Service-learning can be a wonderful teaching aid as well as an opportunity to get students to consider the informal mutual support networks that surround us in our communities."

Member institutions, in addition to the the three lead institutions, are Carson-Newman College, Chattanooga State Technical Community College, King College, Maryville College, and Walters State Community College. Next fall the University of Tennessee at Knoxville will become a member institution.