Minimum Academic Service Learning Guidelines

All academic service learning courses should:

1. Fully integrate community service into the curriculum of the course: service provided to the community is not used as an “add-on” or volunteerism.

2. Emphasize pre-flection and contextual knowledge: Significant class time should be used to instruct students about the history, challenges, triumphs, agency and needs of the community being served. This is an effort to fully educate our students so that they will be a help, not a hindrance, to the community groups they serve.

3. Provide opportunities for pre-service critical reflection on self/identity issues. Our students must develop a basic understanding of who they are in the world and how their identity impacts others.

4. Critically reflect on the service experience: Courses should incorporate structured opportunities for students to examine how their experience challenges or corroborates their beliefs and knowledge.