GC&SU helps promote service learning

A conference in support of promoting service learning in Georgia schools was recently held at Georgia College & State University.

The day-long spring conference in Community Service and Service Learning was co-sponsored on March 19 by the Georgia Campus Community Service Association (GCCSA), the GC&SU office of experiential learning and the J. Whitney Bunting School of Business.

Kendall Stiles, president of the GCCSA and director of the GIVE Center, is very pleased with the outcome of this first time event for GC&SU.

“I feel that it was a great opportunity for us at GC&SU to let other schools see what we’re all about, as far as our community service and service learning work is concerned,” said Stiles. “It was a great chance for us to showcase what we’re doing and to learn more about what other schools are doing with their community service.”

Dr. Robin O. Harris, director of the office of Experiential Learning, felt strongly about the need for a conference of this nature. “Part of the Regents’ goal is to increase community service among students, yet there is so little money to go around lately,” said Dr. Harris. “We felt that if we had an opportunity for campuses to gather and share ideas when there is not so much money to go around, we should do what we could.”

Dr. Harris was thrilled with the results of the conference, which featured Ann Kramer, director of community relations for IBM, as keynote speaker.

“We had 16 public and private campuses from across Georgia represented, including GC&SU. Five of those campuses had no service learning program at all, so they were hungry for information,” said Dr. Harris.

The conference was held on the GC&SU campus because of the level of involvement of the University and the GIVE Center.

“We co-sponsored the event,” said Stiles. “We were very excited to work with the office of experiential learning and the school of business.”

Stiles is delighted to work with the GIVE Center, the foremost program of its kind in the state.

“I think we’re a model for other schools when they look at what we’re doing here,” said Stiles. “As president of the GCCSA, and having four other officials from GC&SU, we’re very well represented within Georgia schools and service.”

The conference was a chance for administrators from Georgia schools to gather and learn from one another.

Kim Benfield, undergraduate assistant for the GIVE Center, was a featured speaker at the conference.

“I spoke about how service learning has helped me make decisions for my future,” said Benfield. “Dr. DePaolo and Dr. Gormly spoke to us afterwards, so it was very nice.”

Benfield enjoyed having the chance to share with other schools the benefits of service learning.

“There was a lot of discussion on how faculty, staff and administrators could support each other and how they could put the service learning aspects into their classrooms,” said Benfield.

Dr. Harris was a key member of the planning team behind the spring conference.

“GCCSA has annual conferences around the state. We were able to co-sponsor it with them this year,” said Dr. Harris. “We are really cutting edge as far as community service goes in the state. Other services are beginning to see us as a resource, so we may extend this and do it again.”

Teresa Taylor, service learning coordinator with the office of experiential learning, was positive about the success of the conference.

“Institutions that had never had any dealings with service learning are now able to take back with them program models that they can replicate at their own institutions,” said Taylor.

This conference was a first for GC&SU, but Dr. Harris feels that the need for such programs is rising.

“I’m so proud of what we’re doing, because we are on the cutting edge, and we wanted to share that information with other people that aren’t as far along as we are,” said Dr. Harris. “We were able to give them some very important and valuable information. To see their gratitude and appreciation of what we could give them was great.”

Taylor encourages GC&SU students to become involved in some form of community service.

“It can be a life-changing experience that you will take with you long after you leave GC&SU,” said Taylor.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 4 2003. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry