How to Join the Consortium as a Member-Institution

We are pleased that you are considering membership in the consortium. Below you will find all of the required documents and instructions on applying for membership in the Consortium.

Instructions:

On this page there are several links to documents that will assist you in your commitment to joining the Midwest Consortium for Service Learning in Higher Education. You can link to them directly from the instructions or from the quicklinks in the sidebar.

The first step in joining is to read the letter of welcome and Invitation to Join from our Director, Dr. Gary Heusel. This letter introduces some of the basic concepts and goals of Consortium.

The Commitment Partner Definitions is the next step to gain understanding of the specific goals of the Consortium as well as the definitions of both Academic and Co-Curricular Service-Learning. Once you have read through it and are feeling confident in the commitment your organization will be making, print a copy of the Commitment Statement.

The Commitment Statement then needs to be signed by two people on your campus. The first signer must be a chosen campus representative and the second must be an Institution Administrator who can legally commit your organization to the Consortium. The process of choosing a campus representative is at your discretion, and may be a faculty member, the service-learning coordinator, or an administrator on your campus. However, whomever you chosen must be able to travel to 90% of the Consortium meetings (4-6 annually) and disseminate the information from these meetings to others on your campus in a timely fashion. The signed Commitment Statement must be accompanied by copies of the two remaining documents below, the FURCO and the Evaluation Baseline.

The FURCO is a national measurement tool that each of the member-institutions must fill out once per year. This tool offers an opportunity to measure the improvement of your campus involvement in service-learning. The FURCO may seem a bit intimidating, but think of it as a helpful tool rather than something that requires a perfect score. No institution should be able to rate themselves at 9 in all levels at this point. Rank your institution honestly and openly so that areas needing improvement can more easily be seen. Doing so will improve your institution's ability to meet its service-learning goals.

The Evaluation Baseline is another tool developed locally for the purpose of seeing where our members started in their service-learning endeavors and where they are regarding various stages of re-evaluation. Again, be very honest in the assessment your institution when filling out this document.

With regard to the FURCO and the Evaluation Baseline please remember one thing, “It is always easier to improve when you have something to improve upon.” If your institution is already “perfect” it will be more difficult for the Consortium to assist your efforts and enhance your service-learning involvement.

Of course, the office staff are always available to assist in the application process. They will be pleased to answer your questions and give you the names of current members who may offer additional insights.