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Service Learning &
Civic Engagement
Collaboration Awards

 
  
2009 Service Learning Collaboration Award Winners

The Community College National Center for Community Engagement announces the winners of its 2008 Service Learning Collaborations Awards. This national competition recognizes exemplary community college collaborations in five categories: Collaborations with Social Agencies, Business and Industry, Universities, K-12 Schools, and International Service Learning.

Collaboration with Social Agencies
Brevard Community College and
UC Clermont College
International Service Learning
Clark College
Collaboration with K-12 Schools
Parkland College
Collaboration with Universities
Tohono O'odham Community College


Left to right: Rita Karpie and Susan Phillips(Brevard Community College)

The CCNCCE is honored to recognize Brevard Community College, located in Melbourne, Florida, as one of the 2009 recipients of the Service Learning Collaboration and Civic Engagement Award in the Category of: Collaboration with Social Agencies.

BCC is partnering with community organizations on many environmental and green initiatives. Some of their community partners include Brevard County Department of Parks and Recreation, Brevard County Regional Stormwater Utilities Department, Brevard Co. Natural Resource Management Office, and many more.

Through BCC's partnership with the Parks and Recreation department, students gain first-hand experience to support classroom lessons by providing hands-on service. Biology students maintain storm drains, remove invasive exotic plants and Brazilian pepper trees, plant mangroves, weed planters, and collect trash at a local park.

BCC works with an organization called "Keep Brevard Beautiful" to help maintain more than 72 miles of Florida coastline. Service learning students have volunteered more than 2,128 hours and have removed more than 1,167 bags of trash from Brevard's beaches while learning about recycling, conservation, and beautification.

Through these and other service learning activities, BCC students have been motivated to continue their community service beyond their college years, millions of dollars have been saved by Brevard County, and classroom lessons have been enhanced with real world experience. Thousands of students have been positively impacted by learning the value of "giving back" to the community.

Contact Person: Evelyn Young
Phone: 321-433-5614   Email: younge@brevardcc.edu


Left to right: Vicki Hammer, Austin Watts, and Barbara Wallace (UC Clermont College)

The CCNCCE is honored to recognize UC Clermont College, located in Batavia, Ohio, as our other 2009 recipient of the Service Learning Collaboration and Civic Engagement Award in the Category of: Collaboration with Social Agencies.

UC Clermont College has established solid partnerships with many local public school districts and nonprofit organizations. One particular community partner has gone above and beyond the call of duty to strengthen their partnership. The Boys & Girls Clubs have changed their training to specifically meet the needs of service learners and regularly do in-class presentations. Because of this organization's willingness to create meaningful opportunities and placement of a great many students, this training greatly improves the students acquired knowledge of their courses, the community, and themselves.

Projects at the Boys and Girls clubs have been developed based upon the particular needs of a course. English composition students provide services to learn about poverty and illiteracy. Child Psychology students work with young children, and medical assistant course students work with children to educate them on how to avoid the spread of flu germs.

Other courses involved in the project include Introductory Psychology, Adolescent Psychology, Spanish for Health Care Professions, and EMS and 1st Responder classes. As a result of their experience at this organization, students gain valuable knowledge and insights that help them to rise above their misperceptions and become positive role models and coaches to the children.

This collaboration has made a tremendous and long-lasting impact on the local community, while meeting the needs of the most at-risk people in the region. It can be replicated in many areas because it is a model for great ideas and communication, ongoing improvement, mutual benefit, and growth in order to solve or ameliorate many serious community problems.

Contact Person: Barbara Wallace
Phone: 513-732-5279   Email: barbara.wallace@uc.edu


Left to right: Anita Fisher, Pat Mehigan, and Jody Shulnak (Clark College)

The CCNCCE is honored to recognize Clark College, in Vancouver, Washington, as the 2009 recipient of the International Service Learning Collaboration Award.

The Clark College History Club and the service learning program developed a 3-week study abroad and cross-cultural service learning project in Egypt. Prior to traveling to Egypt, students were required to take an Ancient Egyptian History class to prepare them for their service learning experience. These History students then facilitated an English summer camp at the St. John American School, a K-12 on the outskirts of Cairo, to improve English conversation skills among Egyptian students.

The teachers of St John had indicated in advance that their students were in need of supplemental English-speaking experience and coordinated an orientation day for the Clark College students.

They also provided the resources and support needed to facilitate an English language conversation summer camp for their Egyptian students. This project afforded the Egyptian students an educational opportunity in addition to fostering new friendships with the college students.

Through this experience, Clark College students gained valuable insight into the cultures and customs of the ancient and modern-day Egyptians. Service learning within the city of Cairo allowed for a first-hand experience of diverse cultures while students learned about the importance of service to others. Upon returning home, each student put together a PowerPoint presentation to capture their learning experience.

Both Egyptian and American students expressed enthusiasm about the valuable opportunities this project provided to learn about another culture and to develop rewarding friendships with one another.

Contact Person: Jody Shulnak
Phone: 360-992-2447   Email: jshulnak@clark.edu


Left to right: John Duffy (University of Massachusetts-Lowell), George Miguel and John Bair (Tohono O'odham Community College)

The CCNCCE is honored to recognize Tohono O'odham Community College, located in Sells, Arizona, as the 2009 recipient of the Service Learning Collaboration and Civic Engagement Award in the Category of: Collaboration with Universities

Tohono O'odham Community College and University of Massachusetts-Lowell collaborate to address a great need on the reservation: indoor plumbing for the elderly and indigent. The Tohono O'odham Nation is the second largest reservation in the United States. The unemployment rate is approximately 40 percent and over 50 percent live below the poverty level.

There are still hundreds of homes on the Tohono O'odham Nation that do not have indoor plumbing, or the existing plumbing is not working properly. To address this problem, TOCC students in the Apprenticeship Program have begun building modular bathrooms as a part of their service-learning initiatives.

On an average, there are ten to twelve apprentices working thirty hours per week, along with a journeyman carpenter and plumber employed by the tribal utility company that help to mentor the apprentices, including the instructors from the college.

Dr. Duffy from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and his engineering students design the units and "green" components in Massachusetts as well as travel to the Tohono O'odham Nation for 1 week a semester to provide training and technical assistance to the TOCC students, faculty, and journeymen on building solar units. All students and faculty work side by side to build solar and non-solar bathroom units (which are then given to the identified families on the reservation) and also maintain one prototype unit on campus.

The knowledge and the experience each apprentice gains is priceless. The building of each bathroom unit provides each apprentice an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the areas of construction math, layout of a building, electrical, plumbing, painting, texturing, floor covering, learning how to use different tools of the trades, and learning the building codes needed for this project and most importantly, building green.

Faculty and students from Tohono O'odham Community College and the various partners present at national conferences to ensure the work being done at TOCC be available on a global level and hopefully replicated by hundreds of other communities throughout the world. This project is made possible through collaborative funding by the Arizona Community Foundation and the Learn & Serve America ASSETS grant.

Contact Person: Dr. John Duffy
Phone: 978-934-2968   Email: john_duffy@uml.edu


Left to right: Marsha Reardon, Brian Nudelman (Parkland College), and Lauren Smith (Champaign Unit 4 Schools)

The CCNCCE is honored to recognize Parkland College, located in Champaign, Illinois, as the 2009 recipient of the Service Learning Collaboration and Civic Engagement Award in the Category of: Collaboration with K-12.

Parkland College has formed a partnership with Garden Hills Elementary School, a Title I K-12 school, to develop the "Homework Club", a program that provides quality small group tutoring to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders.

The program provides meaningful learning experiences in a wide range of disciplines. For example, Parkland College students enrolled in a Composition II course explore local community issues that surface during their experiences at the school through reflective writing, classroom discussion, and academic research and then share their experiences through formal writing assignments, while students enrolled in an Advanced Photography course provide photography services desired by the children enrolled in the program. Parkland students are given the real-world experience of working for a non-profit client.

Over 100 Parkland College students from a diverse range of disciplines have mentored some of the district's most at-risk children. This program serves not only to support the children's academic success, but provides life enriching opportunities for growth and personal success by introducing them to their local college at an early age, and teaching them the importance of volunteerism and community engagement through the college students' participation at their school.

The Homework Club collaboration provides the opportunity for stronger, more engaged learning experiences for both the college students and elementary students, while also strengthening the community by engaging college students with their community as mentors who have a stake in the outcome of the success of the elementary students they work with.

Contact Person: Brian Nudelman
Phone: 217-373-3899   Email: bnudelman@parkland.edu

2008 Awards