What Impact Will the Academic Service-Learning Project Have on the Community? How Can I Best Prepare My Students to Work at an Off-Campus Community Setting?

Abstract

Camp Sharigan began as a summer service project. I tested it in communities in Tampa, Chicago, Dallas, Akron, and the Bronx in New York. Once I was certain that Camp Sharigan would work in any community, I brought it back home and based my academic service-learning pedagogy on Camp Sharigan. Students and faculty from computer science, math, sociology, criminal justice, education, nursing, communication, biology, history, English, and naturally psychology participated in Camp Sharigan. Community organizations that worked with children requested permission to send children to Camp Sharigan. Parents, whose children were struggling in school, frequently contacted me seeking help. When I expanded the Camp Sharigan Project to a year-long program, even the schools were contacting me asking to be allowed to send students. A single academic service-learning project can become a community project that helps hundreds. Academic service-learning is more than just community service. The students are at a community worksite for more than just putting in a certain number of service hours. Students bring new information, new solutions to old problems, and the desire for change. Research shows that the benefits of academic service-learning are the same regardless of the institution’s scope—community college, 4-year, private, or research university.