History

Student Involvement began a new co-curricular service learning program titled "Community Challenge" in the fall of 2001. The program has received the Community Spirit Award from Lincoln Action Program, and it has also received recognition from the Governor.

The objectives of this program include:

1. To have a focused, reciprocal relationship with agency partners. The relationship results in better communication and improved mutual awareness of needs and resources.

2. To have a student AmeriCorps member (called a Community Challenge Coordinator) assigned to each agency. The students are trained on service learning pedagogy and the agency's mission, history, services, challenges, and unique staffing needs. The Community Challenge Coordinators recruit service learning participants and develop the training, reflection and evaluation elements of service learning projects with the partner agencies.

3. To increase the number of participants in co-curricular service learning projects, by developing an e-mail listserv that disseminates weekly announcements of upcoming service learning "challenges" and providing promotional items that double as recruitment tools and prizes for participant recognition.

4. To evaluate projects and track participant data. This results in a report of service learning hours, participant learning outcomes, and impact on the community that can be provided to university officials, potential corporate sponsors and legislative bodies. The report will promote co-curricular service learning as an important pedagogy, worthy of community attention and permanent funding.

Community Challenge will build by gradually adding more partner agencies and student coordinators. We will provide workshops for student leaders developing service learning projects and creating their own challenges with our partner agencies.

The most important lasting result of the Community Challenge program is the increased ability to evaluate and assess progress. There are endless possibilities for evaluation and assessment once there is a process of tracking co-curricular service learning participation, evaluation and community impact.