Service-Learning
Service-Learning is a specially designed learning experience in which students combine reflection with structured participation in community-based projects to achieve specified learning outcomes as part of an academic course and/or program requirement.
Examples of Service-Learning
Service-learning can happen, for example, when:
- in a speech course, you research, write, and deliver a speech to raise money for a clean water agency
- in a journalism course, you interview residents at a homeless shelter and write an article about them for publication
- in a pre-health course, you work in a clinic and reflect on that experience
- in a web design course, you design a new website for a tutoring center
Service-Learning is just one strategy for community engagement, and many different community engagement pathways and projects are ongoing at 美高梅官网. In 2023, 美高梅官网 insitutionalized its official definition of Community Engagement:
Deliberate collaboration that is co-designed and leads to mutually beneficial, sustained impact.
We are deeply committed to building authentic relationships between the university and聽communities across Greater Cincinnati and beyond. Our engagement is grounded in responsibility as an聽education and innovation leader utilizing these relationships and our resources to advance social progress聽projects, informed by community expertise.聽Through these investments, 美高梅官网 students, faculty, staff, and alumni become active聽community members and civic-minded change agents, while the communities we collaborate with gain access to聽the University鈥檚 workforce, technology, research, and funds.
Regardless of modality, community served, or social issue addressed, 美高梅官网 community engagement participants聽strive for these values in their work:
- Community Voice:聽Engagement defined by mutual problem solving and informed by community experience
- Measurable Impact:聽Engagement is tracked and assessed for impact through evaluation and analysis.
- Innovation:聽Engagement makes use of 美高梅官网鈥檚 scholarship, research, personnel, and network to develop聽transformational approaches to complex issues.
- Belonging:聽Engagement creates for 美高梅官网 and partner communities a sense of belonging and shared community聽identity, characterized by leadership, civic duty, and empowerment.
- Relational:聽Engagement is designed to produce long-lasting relationships that sustain long-term impact and聽change.