Grant awarded for new program

Through a grant from the USA Group, an insurance company, the Community Outreach and Partnerships in Service-Learning have made four Chancellor's Faculty Fellows service-learning teaching classes available for the first time this semester. Chancellor's Faculty Fellows, set up in honor of Herman B Wells, connect faculty's professional life to the communities in which they live.\n"It's just a different type of education," said JoAnn Campbell, IU Community Service associate director and visiting research associate.\nEach service-learning class is paired with a community partner to combine academics with service work for the community, she said.\n"Many of these classes existed before the grant was issued, however now we have added service-learning in collaboration with community-based organizations," Campbell said. "Some of them are still structured very similarly to the way they originally were." \nUnlike the Alternate Spring Break classes, which include six weeks of intense and condensed classroom and service work, these classes last the entire semester. During the course, students do class projects applying their subject matter in the community.\n"The way the classes were structured, we basically taught ourselves with hands-on experience," said Sheila Petty, a student from the Health Program Planning class before the grant was issued. "That's the best way to do it. These classes prepare students on how to better prepare themselves to achieve their goals."\nThe Health Program Planning class, taught by assistant professor Thomas Tai-seale, teaches how to plan health promotions for communities. Students are given a mock project where they evaluate a health problem.\nAnother class offered is Sociology S101: Envisioning the City, taught by associate professor Laurel Cornell. \n"This class combines urban sociology with landscape architecture," Cornell said. "The class consists of three projects, one of which is devoted to service work, in which the students work for Bloomington Restoration Incorporated or BRI."\nFor this project, students map out the west side of Bloomington, focusing on the Prospect Hill neighborhood due to the proximity to campus and the amount of historical houses in poor condition found there. Students restore the houses so that low income families can afford them, she said.\n"In the future when these students begin to settle down with families and become members of their communities, they will be more sensitized to the characteristics they should be looking for in homes," Cornell said.\nA different service-learning class is P432: Healing Outreach Program Elective, taught by Whitney Schlegel, which deals with medical science.\n"We will discuss in the context of our learning and experience this semester health care issues as well as the future roles of nontraditional health care practices and alternative medicine," Schlegel said.\nSchlegel said she separates her course into two components. The first is an academic component, which studies behavior and physiology. The other is service, where students observe human and animal behavior in a health care setting, reflect on this experience and explore animal-human interaction, she said. To do this, the class is partnered with VIPaws and Meadowood Retirement Community, she said.\nThe last of the four classes offered is Ed McGarrell's Criminal Justice Class, which has partnered with the Bloomington Juvenile Correctional Facility, Campbell said.\nCampbell said she sees these classes as a valuable way for students to learn more than they could sitting in a lecture. \n"I would like to see these classes continue," she said. "They offer a source of powerful learning and are taught by dynamic teachers who have put so much extra work into their classes"