What IS service-learning?   According to the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, “service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.”ning? 

What is service-learning at DSU? 

Delta State University is excited to offer many opportunities for students interested in quality civic engagement practices to participate in classes that directly link service to learning. Students and faculty meet the academic rigor of the course curriculum by experiential learning—that is, they learn and use academic skills, meet academic objectives, while they work towards serving an identified community need.  Some of the disciplines offering such practical, rich, intercultural, and or interdisciplinary experiences are biology, languages and literature, family sciences, social work, art, health and physical education, social sciences, and political science. Through DSU service-learning practice, students come to understand their place in and claim their responsibility towardsthe communities they call their own, and they come to understand the practical nature of education, the application of their knowledge in the real world.      

DSU Service-Learning is proud to be associated with the Center for

Community and Civic Engagement, an independent statewide

agency housed at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM)

http://www.usm.edu/ccce/.  Under the Center’s umbrella is a

Learn and Serve program known as the Mississippi Higher Education

Consortium (MHEC) that provides resources, professional development,

and technical assistance to Institutions of Higher Learning, Community-

Based Organizations, and K-12 Schools.  MHEC also provides financial

support to five subgrantees who are known as members of the MS Lighthouse Partnership.  Colleges and Universities taking part in this Partnership

include Delta State University, the University of Southern MS, East Central

Community College, Rust College, and Tougaloo College.  Each of these five subgrantees’ mission is to institutionalize service learning on their

campuses and provide after-school opportunities with a service learning

focus for K-12 students.  Also, the CCCE’s Reading is FUNdamental program

is always looking for K-12 sites for that program to help distribute books

to kids.   GREAT NEWS FOR FUNDING NEEDS!!!   The Center provides

funding in the form of departmental mini-grants and faculty mini-grants http://www.usm.edu/ccce/Fellowships.htm. 

The DSU Service-Learning Committee, a University Standing Committee,

takes on the challenge of assisting professors interested in this experiential

learning practice to plan curricula, identify and coordinate with local agencies

and partners, secure alternate funding sources for needs associated with

service activities.  The S-L Committee also actively seeks funding for

professional development opportunities for faculty.  Delta State Service

Learning practice is greatly enhanced by the efforts of the

Contact:

Student Engagement Committee