Volume 2   Issue 2   Winter 2005

In This Issue:
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE

WACC HIGHLIGHTS

STUDENT / CAMPUS PROJECTS

BEST PRACTICES

DATES / ANNOUNCEMENTS

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE

WACC ON SCHEDULE AT MIDYEAR; STUDENTS IN SERVICE GETS 2005-2006 FUNDING
Jennifer Dorr, Executive Director, Washington Campus Compact

Most of us are just past the midpoint of the 2004-2005 academic year. Some of you may be anticipating a very busy spring. Others may feel already behind on projects started last fall. I invite you to stop for a moment (or two) and reflect on where you are at this point. Are you where you want to be? Are there changes you need to make? Commitments you need to adjust? When was the last time you looked at your strategic plan? This is a wonderful time of year to take some time to reflect on your work and set strategies for not just surviving, but thriving in the second half of the academic year.

At midyear for Washington Campus Compact (WACC), I believe we are mostly on track. We are progressing with our 2004-2005 organizational goals. The successful Campus Connections and Students in Service programs are meeting program objectives. We had a successful members’/board/presidents’ meeting in November. The Continuums of Service conference planning is on schedule. (See Julie Muyllaert’s article for a conference update.) Our legislature outreach has begun. (See Brian Heinrich’s article for more details.) We have almost completed the design of our new advisory committee. (See article in this issue.)

For their support in developing the advisory committee, I include a special thank-you to Rhosetta Rhodes, Sima Thorpe, Melanie Brown, Lisa Moulds, Jackie Meyer, Tom Pritchard, Zoe Freeman, Michaelann Jundt and Keith Kelley. We truly appreciate their leadership and significant contributions to this field and to WACC. We will provide more detailed information about this initiative within the next couple of months.

As part of my reflection, I also thank all of you who attended the Members’ Meeting, Presidents’ Meeting or board meeting last November. I thank Michaelann Jundt for her support in coordinating the three meetings and the University of Washington for hosting them. I am always inspired to hear about your work on your campuses and in your communities. I feel honored to be a part of such a dynamic, talented and compassionate group of people. The students are incredible! I continue to learn and grow professionally and personally as a direct result of my relationships with you. Thank you.

As we move to thinking about the future, I have some great news. We just learned (in mid-February) that our Students in Service program will receive funding in 2005-2006. We were awarded another $2.67 million for student service scholarships for next year! As we work to increase opportunities for students to serve in their communities, keep in mind that these scholarships can really help students offset the increasing costs of their education. Again, I appreciate all of you for helping to make Students in Service a success in this state. We would not continue to receive these grants without your work and your students’ service.

I do encourage you to take time to reflect about your efforts and to make adjustments as needed. I hope 2005 brings with it renewed vitality for your valuable work.

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WACC HIGHLIGHTS

MLK DAY OF SERVICE PROVIDES INSIGHT TO CAMPUS CONNECTIONS MEMBERS; STUDENTS IN SERVICE SETS PARTICIPATION RECORD; WRC CONTINUES SUCCESSFUL LITERACY EFFORTS

Campus Connections Program Update
Laura Reedy, Campus Connections Program Coordinator/Points of Light YES Ambassador, Washington Campus Compact

This has been a busy and fulfilling quarter for the 33 members of the Campus Connections AmeriCorps program. Members currently serve at 13 colleges and universities, pursuing a mission of fostering an ethic of civic responsibility among Washington state higher education students. Members are working in a variety of ways to engage students in service opportunities that meet a range of critical needs in their local communities. They provide literacy training, address issues of poverty and engage in projects to support the environment.

In addition to their work recruiting and engaging students in service opportunities, each member helped plan and participated in a service project for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service themed “A day on, not a day off.” Spokane members helped with a Martin Luther King march in downtown Spokane, which included a reenactment of the “I Have a Dream” speech. Members in Ellensburg and Toppenish also participated in a march that engaged many middle school-aged youth and community members. Members in Seattle, in collaboration with the United Way of King County, volunteered at the Pomegranate Center and provided artwork for a painted fence for a West Seattle community garden. Other Seattle members joined volunteer chore services to provide cleaning services for elderly residents of the Seattle Housing Authority. Bellingham Campus Connections members organized a “read-in,” recruiting Western Washington University students to read multicultural and social justice-oriented literature to children at a local bookstore.

Following their day of service, members shared some of their reflections:

• “For the first time during the process, I felt that I understood MLK Jr.’s legacy. His life and dream and dedication made our lives what they are today. We live in his legacy every day whether we are aware of it or not.”  David Newell (Western Washington University)

• “I had the best time during the service project. I loved the smell of cedar fence planks throughout the workplace while we were sculpting them with jigsaw and grinders; I liked the free exchange of creative ideas … I’ve missed the satisfaction of seeing my creative endeavors come to fruition.”  Ben Boyce (Antioch University Seattle)

• “I guess MLK day helped me revisit why I choose to do service … The larger goal I have is to be involved in a bigger social movement of making our community, country and world a better place. That no matter how small my part is, I am still choosing to make a difference. Dr. King reminded me that my choice to help others, to serve, does matter — even the little things!”  Dana Weldon (Western Washington University)

• “What is important is that I had an opportunity to connect with all the people who attended the event. I had an opportunity to look into the eyes of my brothers and sisters and to stand with them for whatever human rights issue brought them downtown on a cold, nasty, rainy day.”  Theresa Schinzel (Gonzaga University)

In addition, Edmonds Community College will host a campus/community forum on disaster preparedness and emergency response on May 3. The day will include an evening of guest speakers, training projects, and opportunities to speak to representatives from nonprofits and emergency response resources in the King County area. Details will be forthcoming!

Students in Service Program Update
Lee Wiles, Student Engagement Coordinator, Washington Campus Compact

Washington Campus Compact’s Students in Service AmeriCorps program has progressed significantly since the start of 2005. Students at colleges and universities across the state are enrolling in the program, and we anticipate that many more will become involved as summer approaches. Since August 2004, more than 340 students in Washington — a new program record for this state — have enrolled in Students in Service and are serving their communities on and off campus. These students support programs that provide vital services to thousands of individuals. In return, a student receives — in addition to the knowledge, skills and understanding he or she gains through service — an education award that can be used to pay education expenses.

We hope the education award will be an incentive for students to serve or to continue serving. We are proud to make the award available to students who are motivated to improve their communities and their world through service.

This is an especially timely season in which to reflect on and appreciate the service of students. Studying and serving, not to mention students’ other commitments, is a difficult juggling act. April 17-23 is National Volunteer Week. As you plan how you will celebrate this week dedicated to all those who give their time and effort freely, please consider ways to incorporate and recognize Students in Service members at your institution.

The Students in Service program staff recognizes the efforts of all those who coordinate the program on individual campuses around the state. The continued growth of Students in Service and our record-breaking year for participation is largely due to your efforts. Faculty members, community service directors, students, AmeriCorps volunteers, service-learning coordinators and many others at participating institutions have devoted their creativity and time to showing students the benefits of participating in Students in Service. You are invaluable contributors to the success of the program and the students with whom you work.

Many more positions remain for students who serve their communities. With your continued help, students at your institutions will take full advantage of the education awards available to them. The potential for continued growth is great, and your efforts this year will ensure an even brighter future for Students in Service in the remaining months of this program year and in future years.

Remember, more students enrolled in Students in Service means more students serving, which means more persons and programs served, which means more money for the educations of serving students. All of you who help coordinate the program on your campuses are an integral part of this cycle of success. Thank you for all you have done and all you will do.

Washington Reading Corps Program Update
Heather Weaver, Education Specialist, Washington Campus Compact

Washington Campus Compact’s Washington Reading Corps (WRC) is a literacy program that involves 21 full-time AmeriCorps and VISTA members in eight area elementary schools. With the 2004-2005 year well under way, the WRC program is achieving much of note: 

• 565 K-6 students tutored in reading

• 501 K-12 students engaged as peer and cross-age tutors

• 55 community members engaged as volunteer tutors

• family involvement and migrant education initiatives

• volunteer chore and coat-drive service projects

• active partnerships with local middle schools, high schools and libraries, Page Ahead, Skagit Valley College, Western Washington University, Skagit County Community Action Agency, Skagit County Best SELF, Educational Services District 189, and numerous area businesses and foundations

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CONTINUUMS OF SERVICE CONFERENCE BUILDS BRIDGES BETWEEN AND AMONG SERVICE-LEARNING PRACTITIONERS, COMMUNITIES AND CAMPUSES
Julie Muyllaert, State Network Director, Washington Campus Compact

As we prepare for the eighth annual Continuums of Service conference — entitled Building Bridges: Values, Knowledge, and Skills for Vibrant Communities and Campuses — I find myself reflecting back on the early years of, and our goals for, the conference. It was 1996-1997, and many of us found ourselves isolated in fledgling or adolescent campus programs hungry for any opportunity to gather with our peers from across the state and region. Service-learning as a philosophy, pedagogy and practice was relatively young; the need for professional development was highly desired.

Washington Campus Compact (WACC) responded to these needs by offering an annual, regional convening of service-learning practitioners. Now known as one the best service-learning conferences in the country, the Continuums of Service conference features high-quality plenary sessions, skill-building workshops and foundational issue forums presented by experienced and emerging leaders in the field.

The success of the conference has been rewarding on many levels. To name just two, registration has grown from 125 to 500 participants and the number of collaborative presentations — offered by cross-campus, -community, -institutional and -state partnerships — continues to grow every year.

This year, the Continuums of Service conference will be held April 11-13 in Portland, Ore. Informed by the conference theme, the conference offers more than 60 workshops with focused strands for faculty, students and community partners. Designed for new-to-advanced practitioners, the program highlights the latest “best practices” and models for quality service-learning and civic engagement work.

We encourage you not only to attend the conference, but to register for one of the nine outstanding pre-conference workshops offered April 11. These offer in-depth information on specific topics:

• Civic Institute (full day)

• Hunger and the Search for Community Food Security: A Portland Area Service-Learning Experience (full day)

• Transformative Education for Justice at the End of the Day: (Think Big, Get Real, Keep Whole!) (full day)

• Assessing Service-Learning and Civic Engagement (half day)

• Community Service-Learning Directors’ Roundtable - University-Community Partnerships Challenges and Successes: A Case Study of a Rewarding and Challenging Partnership (half day)

• Federal Work Study Community Service: Serving the College and the Community (half day)

• Integrating Civic Responsibility into the Curriculum (half day)

• Introduction to Service-Learning and Building Effective Community Partnerships (half day)

• Leveraging Financial Resources for Campus Service-Learning and Civic Engagement (half day)

For more information about the Continuums of Service conference and registration, visit our conference website. For information about WACC and our other services, please visit our main website.

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WASHINGTON CAMPUS COMPACT ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE HORIZON
Julie Muyllaert, State Network Director, Washington Campus Compact

Over the last four months, invited member and community representatives have convened to conceptualize and advise the development of a Washington Campus Compact (WACC) advisory committee. The advisory committee will serve the WACC membership by providing formative input, relevant information, guiding advice and timely feedback to the WACC executive director and staff regarding strategic planning; program development; and other related projects, events and initiatives.

The advisory committee will consist of 12 members representing service-learning staff, faculty, administrators, students, community partners, geographic areas, institution types and other interests.

Advisory committee application and nomination forms will be available soon. Please look for an announcement within the next week via WACC’s listserv. The forms will also be available on WACC’s website.

The first advisory committee meeting is planned for April 11 at the Continuums of Service conference.

WACC staff extends appreciation to the following for committing their time, energy and talents to the development of the advisory committee: Keith Kelley (Whitworth College), Sima Thorpe (Gonzaga University), Rhosetta Rhodes (Spokane Falls Community College), Melanie Brown (Washington State University), Tom Pritchard (Bellevue Community College), Lisa Moulds (Western Washington University), Zoe Freeman (Pike Market Senior Center), Michaelann Jundt (University of Washington) and Jackie Meyer-Garza (Heritage University).

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STUDENT/CAMPUS PROJECTS

WACC BEGINS LEGISLATIVE OUTREACH ON HIGHER EDUCATION DAY IN OLYMPIA
Brian Heinrich, Communications Coordinator, Washington Campus Compact

Each year, the Washington State Legislature hosts higher education practitioners from throughout the state at Higher Education Day. Higher Education Day was held on Feb. 15 this year. I took this opportunity to visit with members of the House Higher Education Committee and the Senate Early Learning, K-12 & and Higher Education Committee. While I was unable to meet with all members of the respective committees, I did meet with seven legislators who have Washington Campus Compact (WACC) member campuses in their districts.

In the House, I met with Reps. David Buri, Timm Ormsby, Maureen Walsh and Brian Sullivan. In the Senate, I met with Sens. Mark Schoesler, Paull Shin and Craig Pridemore. All told, these members represent Washington State University, Eastern Washington University, Gonzaga University, Spokane Community College, Edmonds Community College and Walla Walla Community College.

Before the meetings, each of these member campuses gave me valuable information that allowed me to explain to the legislators the work being done at our campuses and in our communities. The information that I was able to share helped to paint the picture of what WACC does to help support the work of our member institutions throughout the state. I’m grateful for the assistance I received in compiling this information. Thank you.

During the visit I learned that although the legislators are familiar with campus activities, they didn’t realize the role of service-learning directors, faculty and students in making the events and activities possible. I view this as a great opportunity to communicate our successes and challenges with our elected officials so that they may better understand the work being done on member campuses and in the communities that they represent.

The legislators were genuinely interested in the good work happening on campuses throughout our state. This is encouraging. The next step, for us, is to continue to let them know what we are doing and how they can assist in our efforts.

To that end, several legislators requested that we communicate with them regularly so that they know about your work in your geographic area. This can be as easy as including their office mailing addresses on your newsletter distribution list or extending an invitation to events happening on your campus or with a community partner. Please let me know if you need assistance in getting the appropriate contact information.

Finally, we will not restrict WACC communication and outreach efforts with the Legislature to a single day. Involving legislators in our long-term plans can only benefit the work of our member campuses and their communities.

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BEST PRACTICES

LEARNING AND COMMUNITY-BUILDING INTERSECT AT SKAGIT VALLEY COLLEGE
Gary Tollefson, President; Lynn Dunlap, English Faculty; David Muga, Behavioral Sciences Faculty; Maureen Pettitt, Director of Institutional Research; Skagit Valley College

A number of undergraduate reform initiatives concerning diversity, engaged pedagogies (learning communities, first-year experience, cooperative learning), and service and community-based learning have moved to the forefront in undergraduate education over the last two decades. As David Schoem has pointed out, we can exhaust ourselves and our resources pursuing these initiatives on a singular rather than an integrated basis. In this article, we describe the efforts at Skagit Valley College (SVC) to implement some of the initiatives in a collaborative, integrated manner.

The Community College — based as it is within a community system of traditions, patterns of engagement, relationships, and expectations of change and continuity — is at once a complex crystallization of civic behavior, citizenship skills, teaching and learning. In its ideal incarnation, the Community College is at the intersection between those who serve and those served. However, it struggles to create and maintain a communal teaching and learning environment through a reciprocal exchange between equals. It exists to create connections, deepen understanding, broaden horizons, recognize and act on diversity, and thereby offer nothing less than a transformation of the world in and through its nexus with community and learning.

SVC envisions itself as just such a community college, marshalling its curricular efforts to help learners prepare for success in a variety of communities: their home, classroom, campus and work communities; and a more global community. As a learning college, SVC focuses on building partnerships. It carries the learning institution into the community as a meaningful instrument of service, but also — as Marie Eaton, Jean MacGregor and David Schoem have argued — invites and welcomes the community as an essential and necessary component “for helping learners encounter alternative perspectives, listen across boundaries of difference and understand the experiences that have shaped the identities of others.”

In short, SVC seeks to create learning experiences that engage learners in a democratic, scholarly process of inquiry, community-making and collaboration, and the construction of a coherent, consistent and responsible approach to the complex challenges of everyday life.

General Education Values and Requirements
A curricular initiative that significantly contributes to this learning process is SVC’s General Education values and requirements, including learning communities. SVC’s degree requirements distinguish between composition-based learning communities (which we call writing links) and all other learning communities (which we call learning communities). Students must take at least one writing link, one learning community that combines courses from two different distribution areas, and a third interdisciplinary combination that can be one of these two or any other combination of two courses, including developmental courses.

Both General Education values and outcomes and learning community offerings are immensely valuable ways for achieving learning goals within SVC’s concept of a learning college.

General Education values help ensure issues are examined systematically and consistently. They provide standards and guarantee that learners will be exposed to the core practices of citizenry, of intellectual work, human nurturance and care. Moreover, General Education values help to ensure that issues are examined in multiple ways. They provide a framework and guide for thinking about problems from multiple perspectives, which helps learners develop a more complex understanding of the world. In addition, General Education values and associated learning outcomes provide a much-needed mechanism for measuring, and thus for improving, the learning experience to make it both efficient and accountable. Learning becomes a feedback loop, a cycle, for continuous individual and community improvement and thus becomes a promise for the future as well as an instrument for the integration of current needs.

In practice, our interdisciplinary, co-taught learning communities challenge student learners to rethink the teaching/learning dynamic, to reconsider who learns from whom. They force the issues of community, solidarity ties and organic connections to larger social forces, patterns of inclusion and/or exclusion, hierarchies, management of resources and participant responsibilities. Finally, learning communities engender reasonable risk-taking to allow movement beyond isolated comfort zones to encounter differences in social class, geographic region, religious background, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and “habits of the heart.”

Like other community college students, many — if not most — of those at SVC work full or part time, attend college part time and have family responsibilities. The decision to require learning communities for transfer students derived from our recognition of the need to provide a more coherent curriculum. Whatever the course combinations, the core experiences of these learning communities consist of community building within the class and project-based activities that help students to connect disciplines and extend their learning beyond the classroom. In recognition of limits on students’ time and energy, these courses employ a variety of strategies to help students move from narrow definitions of community to an understanding of the complexity of larger communities, including members who are often “invisible.” Activities are structured to help students learn how they can enter into engaged relationships with these larger communities. A few examples may help illustrate this.

Learning Communities in Action

In this learning community (ethics and composition) —The Write Thing To Do — Lynn Dunlap, English and Larry Sult, Social Science have a “fishbowl” critique of the results of group work. Students have developed claims, supporting reasoning and evidence about what Marx might determine to be either (a) tourists’ ethical responsibilities in disaster areas, or (b) individual or community responsibility with respect to the homeless.

Quite often, the college itself is the focus of “community.” Many learning communities schedule exhibits of student projects in small galleries and forums on campus. Courses like El Podor y Color del Alma (writing and art) and Vanishing Views (art and natural science) engage in more formal, extensive projects. As part of their study of the art and cultures of Mexico and Mexican Americans, students in El Podor y Color developed imagery that was then converted into a “barrio” mural for the campus by a design class. In another year, El Podor students studied the culture and conditions of farm workers and hosted a gallery installation about farm work conditions, “Better Living Through Chemistry” by Cecelia Alvarez. The class sponsored a college-wide panel about the impact of pesticides on the environment and the farming community. Students in Vanishing Views examined environmental issues and design, then visited several sites where artists had created built environments that address environmental issues (e.g., “Waterworks Gardens,” East Division Reclamation Plant, Renton). Students then researched environmental issues on the college campus and designed works that address these issues. One of these projects resulted in “Nesting Harbor,” a retention pond installed and landscaped during new construction at the college.

Students in learning communities also actively participate in SVC’s annual social sciences symposium, to which the campus and community are invited to hear students' presentations on the results of their research for the quarter. Last year, students’ research in ¡Viva!: Mexican Voices/American Dreams (sociology and literature) included intensive interviews with local community leaders and statewide Mexican-American leaders. This led to a number of presentations, including:

• “Como Homo? A History of Sexual Violence and Gender Discrimination in the Chicano Community”

• “The Journey: Human Rights Violations Endured by Undocumented Mexican Immigrants on their Sojourn to the Land of Opportunity”

• “Abuses of Workers in Maquiladoras”

• “A Chicana’s Work Is Never Done: A Human Rights Struggle for Equality in the Workplace”

• “Slavery in the Fields: How the Treatment of Mexican-American Farm Workers Violate Human Rights”

Some learning communities use the media — including the college radio station, KSVR — to expand their connection to the campus and the local community. Students in SEX.comm (human sexuality and mass communications) translate their learning into newspaper or magazine articles or web pages to disseminate information to their peers about pregnancy or gender roles. They have also recorded 30- to 60-second radio spots with information and resources about sexual coercion and rape. Last fall students in The Road to the White House (U.S. government and mass communications) developed “get out the vote” public service announcements for KSVR. In the past, students were required to write a letter to one of their legislators requesting that he or she reconsider a position on an actual bill currently before a legislative committee — but only after they had researched the legislator’s voting record, the district profile, the makeup of the district constituency, the legislator’s financial supporters for election bid, and special-interest ratings (as many as could be found throughout the spectrum of allies and opponents).

For the past three years students in Better Living Through Chemistry? (chemistry and global issues) have used their informal connections and formal assignments to learn ways of using classroom knowledge to judge and act — not just know. This year, students studied the potential impact of the Kyoto accords on the local community (e.g., the Skagit Farmers’ Association, the elders council of the Swinomish Nation, Tesoro refinery employees, the Better Business Bureau and commercial fishers). They spent class time analyzing the impact of commuting and then developed car pools with each other. In addition, faculty and students are working with local community groups to develop booths for a sustainability fair for the local community. Students design their final projects — poster sessions on the local and global impact of environmental issues — as “first runs” at developing booths for the fair.

To help broaden notions of community, some classes invite the community into the classroom; others send students to the community. New Words on the Native American World (Native American history and composition), Literature and Sociology of Appalachia and ¡Viva! have all hosted local cultural leaders and elders in the classroom. Students in Neighbor Nations (ethnic studies and art) visited the Swinomish smoke house, learned bone games, hosted Swinomish and Upper Skagit elders in class and sponsored a public lecture with Vi Hilbert, Upper Skagit elder, linguist and storyteller. Neighbor Nations students developed final group presentations that explained the history of a contemporary issue (e.g., fishing rights) and proposed solutions.

Finally, students in Baring It All (American legal systems and art) researched censorship cases that were currently in the courts or had recently been in the system. They flew to Washington, D.C. to meet with local U.S. Rep. Jack Metcalf, the National Gallery of Art tour director and the office staff of the now-defunct National Campaign For Freedom of Expression organization. As a result of their work, student groups presented these censorship cases to the class with resolutions that addressed opposing issues.

This sampling of learning community efforts shows the range of ways that our learning communities attempt to connect students, the curriculum, learning and community. For us, as a college, the learning has been equally powerful.

Qualities of an Engaged Civil Society — and Learning Communities
The lessons we have learned through collaboration and community-making in these efforts — including faculty-faculty, faculty-students, department-department, academic-student services and administration-staff interactions and relationship-building — have taught us that curricular and institutional coherence are dynamically related. Thus, the qualities we envision for engaged civil society are the ones that must be practiced throughout the entire college as well as in the classroom and the external community. Some of the most significant qualities follow.

Democratization Processes - Learning communities provide a mechanism for connecting student, staff, faculty and community voices in a common, knowledge-based endeavor. Through the process of connecting diverse voices and viewpoints, traditional boundaries are challenged, reworked and ultimately transformed into newer, more effective and relevant paradigms of learning and accumulation of knowledge. Using these practices as benchmarks, we can — and should — also assess the degree to which our institutional practices foster connections among the college’s constituencies, foster diverse perspectives and foster opportunities to challenge existing knowledge and paradigms.

Listening - Through an emphasis on peer learners listening to each other, learning communities provide an opportunity to dissolve traditional barriers of territoriality and status distinctions, to “see” things in a different way, to empathize with the other, and to take risks that are an organic part of any meaningful learning process. In these ways, learning communities encourage the learner to go beyond the accumulated pool of received knowledge and to reach out for broader understandings of difference and similarity. Learning communities remind us, as practitioners, of the critical role of genuine listening in healthy, authentically democratic societies and institutions. It is worth taking time to reflect on and discuss the degree to which our institution encourages listening as a measure of respect and as a way to enhance a sense of dignity in relationships and interactions throughout the institution.

Transformative Actions - Learning communities remind us of the importance of translating theory into practice and thus, ultimately, of transforming even those organizational systems of which they are a part. Learning for the sake of learning remains sterile unless it is connected to concrete activity that furthers the well-being of society and its members. The object of the learning process is not merely to accumulate knowledge, but to transform the world itself, a world that reflects the human potential for good. This can only have meaning when learners take responsibility and ownership for what they have learned.

Understanding — and practicing — these characteristics in our processes, our procedures and our pedagogy is important at the institutional level. Clear understanding and endorsement of the specifics of what it means to be an effective learning college is crucial for communicating across status positions and, ultimately, for fostering any substantive change in the overall learning environment within the institution. Transformative actions thus require a willingness to take the next step, to move beyond mere knowledge and to engage the surrounding institutional networks in utilitarian, ethical, moral and just ways for purposes of broader understanding of issues.

Transformation Continues at SVC
SVC began its transformational journey in the early 1990s, focusing mostly on undergraduate curriculum reform. Several years into the effort, the college discovered that curricular reform led to faculty development and transformation. Now, more than a decade later, we are focused on transforming not just the curriculum and student learning, not just the faculty and their view of teaching and learning, but the entire college and its perception of what it means to be a learning college — that is, a college that not only links “those who serve and those served,” but also transforms the existing paradigm of service-learning as a fundamental vehicle for community building.

For more information, see:

• Marie Eaton, Jean MacGregor and David Schoem, “The Educational Promise of Service-Learning Communities,” and Jean MacGregor, editor, Integrating Learning Communities with Service Learning, (Olympia, WA: National Learning Communities Project Monograph Series, 2003).

• David Schoem, Change, November-December, 2002. Available at: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1254/is_6_34/ai_94129285

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DATES / ANNOUNCEMENTS

March 9
CYBER ROUNDTABLE
A statewide gathering of service-learning and civic engagement practitioners on the second Wednesday of every month

To learn how you can join this informative meeting of colleagues, please contact Lorinda Anderson, Director of Civic Engagement at Central Washington University: 509-963-1643 or  Lorinda.Anderson@cwu.edu.

March 13-16
SERVES Institute
Ocean Shores, Wash.

Required for all AmeriCorps members statewide, including members of WACC’s Campus Connections, Students in Service and Washington Reading Corps programs

Mid-March
DIALOGUE FOR DEMOCRACY DOCUMENTARY AVAILABLE (DVD Format)
Download the Order Form. (requires Adobe Acrobat)

April 1
REGISTRATIONS AND HOTEL RESERVATIONS DUE
For the eighth annual Continuums of Service Conference
See conference website for details.

April 11-13
EIGHTH ANNUAL CONTINUUMS OF SERVICE CONFERENCE
Portland, Ore.
Downtown Marriott
See conference website for details.

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