UCOP Report:

Volunteer Community Service and Service-Learning

at UC Berkeley

February, 2005

Prepared by

MEGAN VOORHEES

Director, Cal Corps Public Service Center

and

ANDREW FURCO

Assistant Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Education

Director, Service-Learning Research and Development Center

SECTION I: VOLUNTEER COMMUNITY SERVICE

(A) Overview and General Description

Students at UC Berkeley are engaged in community service and civic engagement activities through many different programs across campus. Although it is difficult to determine how many students are engaged in community service, a recent campus survey found that 80% of undergraduates said they volunteered during their tenure at the University.

The Cal Corps Public Service Center (a component of the Office of Student Life), founded in 1967, is the campus’ central office for student civic engagement and community involvement programs. Their mission is to: engage the University and the community in reciprocal partnerships to create educational programs for students, to promote leadership through service, and to foster social justice and civic engagement. Cal Corps’ portfolio includes a breath of programs and services aimed as complementing the educational experience of Berkeley students by connecting them with onetime, short-term, and ongoing service opportunities coupled with structured developmental, educational, and reflective trainings.

(B) Specific Information

The Cal Corps Public Service Center offers the following programs:

Volunteer Generation:

Cal Corps has a volunteer center with recruitment information for over 250 local nonprofit agencies, as well as one-time and short-term projects for students interested in afterschool and weekend opportunities. Placements through the volunteer center include all aspects of community service including: AIDS, animals, arts, community development, criminal justice, cultural/ethnic, disability, environment, food distribution, government/politics, health, homelessness, international, legal, lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender, mental health, research, seniors, tutoring/mentoring, women, and youth. The volunteer center also coordinates campus relationships with postgraduate service programs like Teach for America and the Peace Corps.

Student Groups:

Cal Corps provides leadership in advising to 25 student groups whose primary mission is off-campus community service. Student groups can apply through sponsorship by Cal Corps which includes specialized advising services, access to administrative resources, funding (a total of $30,000 in 2004-2005), assistance in planning an accompanying co-curricular service-learning course, leadership training, and risk management advice.

AmeriCorps National Service Programs:

Cal Corps serves as the administrator of the Bonner Leaders Program, an AmeriCorps initiative of the Bonner Foundation of Princeton, New Jersey. The Bonner program places 48 developing and existing student leaders in service internships while providing ongoing leadership and career training as well as structured opportunities for reflection and analysis of social issues. Students receive a $1000 education award for 300 hours of service.

Cal Corps also serves as a coordinating partner of Destination: College, an AmeriCorps collaborative administered by the Center for Educational Outreach. Destination: College unites nine campus and community partners running quality tutoring, mentoring, and pre-college advising programs. 73 student AmeriCorps members work in a number of school and community settings while receiving valuable training and development opportunities.

Finally, Cal Corps recently partnered with Campus Compact and the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare to create the Graduate Internship AmeriCorps Program (GAIN) that provides 25 AmeriCorps positions for graduate social welfare students who are addressing gerontology issues in the Bay Area.

Bears United in Literacy Development (BUILD)

This expansive literacy program is funded by federal America Reads funding that provides 100% of work-study wages for students who are serving as tutors for K-8 youth. Cal Corps now oversees 11 sites with 118 tutors in Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond. Additional funding is provided by the RGK Foundation, Dreyers Foundation and Cisco Foundation.

Co-curricular Service-Learning Opportunities:

Cal Corps offers a number of opportunities for students to get academic credit as part of their service project. Cal Corps administers the campus’ Alternative Breaks program taking students around the state to spend a week or week-end working on specific service issues in a local community (i.e. coastal restoration in Pescadero, housing and homeless in San Diego, etc.) Break participants participate in a semester-long seminar to learn about the social issues related to their break, focusing largely on reflection and the role of volunteerism.

In partnership with the City of Berkeley and the Department of City & Regional Planning, Cal Corps coordinates the Cal in Berkeley Student Internship Program. Cal in Berkeley interns are placed in part-time internships in the City of Berkeley and local community-based organizations while attending a weekly seminar of community politics and civic engagement.

Cal Corps also offers “Expanding Education Through Social Action”, a student-led seminar on volunteerism and social issues for students doing on-going individual volunteer placements.

The fourth course is through the Write to Read program which teaches 30 students to serve as literacy tutors for incarcerated youth, in partnership with the Alameda County Libraries and the Alameda County Juvenile Courts.

Events:

Cal Corps also oversees a number of events: the annual Chancellor’s Service Awards, “Cal Community Action Days” which is a week dedicated to involving new students in service programs, “Rebuilding Together” which organizes 300 campus staff, faculty and students to improve low-income housing, and five service fairs that educate students about volunteer opportunities. Cal Corps also partners with the Career Center on non-profit career fairs, and co-sponsors the annual student Leadership Symposium.

In March 2005, Cal Corps will be hosting the national COOL-Idealist Conference which will bring 1500 student leaders of community service programs to campus.

Additional Service Programs:

A number of campus units and student groups carry out programs and projects that fulfill the University’s mission of public service. These included: community-based research projects coordinated through the Institute of Urban & Regional Development; k-12 educational outreach projects coordinated through the Center for Educational Outreach and related-campus units; alumni volunteer programs coordinated through the California Alumni Association; and student group and Greek-letter organization service projects.

Off-campus Campus-Linked Programs:

A number of nonprofits are directly linked to the campus in promoting public service. These include Stiles Hall, a nonprofit founded in 1884 to provide Cal students with community service opportunities, supporting local K-12 students, and promoting democratic values. The University YWCA provides a number of service programs including a volunteer placement center targeted largely at the Cal student population and South Berkeley community.

(C) Volunteer Community Service Best Practices

As Cal Corps has expanded dramatically over the last four years without a comparable increase in funding, the Center has implemented several creative new funding strategies that could easily be implemented on other campuses:

· Fee for Service Placement: All sites that receive a BUILD literacy tutor, Cal in Berkeley Intern or Bonner Leader pay $500 per placement. This fee helps to cover program administration, volunteer recruitment and training. Cal Corps has found that community agencies have actually become stronger partners because of the fee, as agencies feel it is important to be more engaged if they have to pay.

· AmeriCorps education awards: Cal Corps has partnered with both Campus Compact and the Bonner Foundation in order to receive AmeriCorps education awards for student leaders. Campus Compact and Bonner manage the AmeriCorps grants, so the campus only needs to manage the AmeriCorps members. The awards provide incentive to student leaders to commit to service for a year, ensure that student leaders receive regular training and support, and provide students with $1000 towards their education.

SECTION II: SERVICE LEARNING

(A) Overview and General Description

Service-learning was formalized at UC Berkeley in 1994 with the establishment of the Service-Learning Research and Development Center (SLRDC). Charged with advancing and coordinating service-learning activities in academic departments throughout the campus, SLRDC works with the Faculty Policy Committee on Service-Learning, (see Appendix A for list of committee members), to implement campus policies that support faculty and departments in service-learning and academically-based civic engagement activities. Among the activities SLRDC facilitates are:

• A Service-Learning Faculty Minigrant Program: As part of the campus’s larger instructional minigrant program for teaching and learning, the service-learning minigrants provide funds up to $2,500 to support individual faculty and faculty groups in the development of service-learning courses.

• Service-Learning Faculty Forums: These lunchtime forums engage service-learning faculty from throughout the campus in discussions of key service-learning issues (e.g., tying service-learning to faculty scholarship; service-learning as a requirement; etc.).

• A Service-Learning Departmental Institute: Established in 2005, the institute brings together teams composed of three or four faculty members and administrators from a department who work to develop and ultimately implement an action plan to advance service learning in their department.

• A Junior Faculty Mentorship Program: This program supports senior service-learning faculty members to serve as mentors to junior faculty members interested in developing service-learning courses and tying community engagement work to their research and other scholarly activities.

• Cal/Stanford Faculty Forum for Service-Learning: This forum convenes service-learning faculty from UC Berkeley and Stanford University to share information, ideas, and experiences about service-learning and its tie to engaged scholarship (community-focused, socially responsible research and scholarship).

• The Chancellor’s Faculty Award for Academic Service-Learning: Offered since 1999, this award singles out one faculty member at UC Berkeley who has developed high quality service-learning courses in his/her department and/or who has made a significant contribution to advancing academic service-learning at UC Berkeley.

Service-learning is tied to a number of important teaching and learning initiatives on campus including the Freshman Seminar Program and capstone experiences. As a part of UC Berkeley’s recent Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) accreditation report, service-learning was highlighted as a pedagogy that can help maximize teaching effectiveness across the campus. Currently, service-learning (through SLRDC) is represented on the campus-wide Council of Academic Partners (CAP). CAP is composed of representatives from key teaching units who provide recommendations for advancing faculty and departmental support for the continued advancement of teaching and learning at UC Berkeley.

The service-learning activities facilitated by SLRDC are closely linked with other campus-wide service initiatives including K-12 educational advancement initiatives, various campus/community partnerships, and most importantly, the work of the Cal Corps Public Service Center. Since its establishment, SLRDC has taken advantage of the expertise and resources that are available through Cal Corps by working with the Cal Corps staff on connecting faculty members with community agencies.

It should be noted that organizational structure for service-learning at UC Berkeley is unique. The campus-wide service-learning advancement activities are housed within an academic unit (SLRDC) that serves primary as a research center. The center conducts investigative research on the impacts of service-learning on teaching, learning, and schooling at all levels of education. As the nation’s first university-based research center for service-learning, SLRDC, under the direction of Education professor Andy Furco, has completed more than two dozen research studies on service-learning. In 2001, the center served as the inaugural host of the first Annual International Conference on Service-Learning Conference, and is currently the site for the Spencer Foundation-funded National Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Research Directory (http://gse.berkeley.edu/research/slrdc/resdirectory/). The ties to an academic department (Education) and to ongoing civic-focused, educational research activities have been cited by faculty members as being important in helping to legitimize the academic and educational components of service-learning.

(B) Specific Information

In 1999, the Faculty Policy Committee on Service-Learning completed a strategic plan for advancing academic service-learning at UC Berkeley. The plan calls for the establishment of at least one service-learning opportunity in every department on campus.

Since 1994, the number of service-learning courses has increased steadily. Currently, approximately 90 academic service-learning courses are offered across 30 departments (See Table 1 and attached partial list of current course offerings). In addition to these academic service-learning courses, more than 60 co-curricular service-learning and service-based internship courses are offered across 45 departments.

Table 1. Number of Academic Service-Learning Courses at UCB: 1994-2004

94-95	95-96	96-97	97-98	98-99	99-00	00-01	01-02	02-03	03-04
14	27	59	85	141	149	136	140	89[1]	92

These participation data are intended to serve as best estimates of faculty, student, and departmental participation in service-learning courses on campus (See Table 2-4 below). In interpreting these data, it is important to keep in mind that the data collection procedures have been revised over the years (e.g. via phone and personal contact 1994-97, via e-mail survey 1997-present). These changes in data collection correspond with large fluctuations in the annual results. In addition, much of the data represent information reported by individual faculty and departments. In most cases, they do not represent actual observation of service-learning activity.

During the 2002-2003 academic year, a stricter standard for defining service-learning activities was adopted by the UC Berkeley Faculty Policy Committee on Service-Learning. Courses that were previously designated as “service-learning” were divided into three types of service-learning courses: academic service-learning courses, service-based internships, and co-curricular service-learning courses.) (See Appendix B: Proposed Review Criteria for Service-Learning at UC Berkeley). Beginning in 2002-03, the data reflect only those courses that meet the new, stricter criteria for “academic service-learning”.

Table 2. Number of Faculty Who Teach Service-Learning Courses at UCB: 1994-2004[2]

94-95	95-96	96-97	97-98	98-99	99-00	00-01	01-02	02-03	03-04
14	27	57	137	104	111	91	98	107	94

Table 3. Number of Departments and Academic Units that Offer Service-Learning at UCB: 1994-2004[3]

94-95	95-96	96-97	97-98	98-99	99-00	00-01	01-02	02-03	03-04
12	16	21	45	35	41	36	40	44	39

Table 4. Estimated Number of Students Enrolled in Service-Learning Courses at UCB: 1994-2004[4]

94-95	95-96	96-97	97-98	98-99	99-00	00-01	01-02	02-03	03-04
200	450	800	1500	2250	2375	2100	2200	2200	1820

(C) Service Learning Best Practices

Among the many different types of service-learning courses being offered, two successful courses that are different in structure and content are:

1) Environmental Sciences

Course: EnvSci 10. Introduction to Environmental Sciences. (3)

EnvSci 10L. Introduction to Environmental Sciences Lab (1)

Instructor: Geology Professor WILLIAM BERRY

This Environment Sciences course contains three hours of lecture, one hour of discussion per week and one 8-hour fieldtrip per semester. The course presents a survey of biological and physical environmental problems, focusing on geologic hazards, water and air quality, water supply, solid waste, introduced and endangered species, preservation of wetland ecosystems.

The service-learning component engage UC Berkeley students work on creek and spring restoration projects in what is called Tennessee Hollow in the Presidio. These restoration programs connect Cal students with students from Galileo High School in San Francisco who work together in exploring complex environmental issues as water quality, sediment loads in streams, and fish and other wildlife census-taking at several academic levels.

This course uses the “lab” or “fourth-unit” model for service-learning, in which service-learning is a required lab (field work) activity that is taken in addition to course lectures. The course also engages college and high school students to work collaboratively on service-learning activities (known as a “cascading leadership” approach). This course has been offered for several years, allowing currently enrolled students to build on the work of students from previous semesters. Student attitudinal survey results reveal high satisfaction with the course and with the educational value of the service-learning activities. Professor Berry, the course instructor, received the 2004 Chancellor Faculty Award for Service-Learning for his work on this and other service-learning courses.

2) Department: Molecular and Cell Biology

Course: MCB 135K. Physiology of the Aging Process (3 units)

(Variation of the course: Interdisciplinary Studies: IDS114A: Advances in Aging, 3 units)

Instructor: Molecular and Cell Biology Professor PAOLA TIMIRAS

This course explores aging human body; structural and functional changes at organismic, cellular sub-cellular and molecular levels. Comparative epidemiological and environmental aspects are discussed. The course reviews theories of aging modification and life extension.

In this 3-unit course, students have the option of completing a 10-page paper or engaging in a service-learning activity in which they spend a minimum of one hour per week interacting with a mature adult in the community exploring an authentic manifestation of a key topic (e.g., mobility limitations) discussed in the course. Students who select the service-learning component are required to conduct a 10-15 minute presentation of their experience to the class at the end of the semester; the presentation needs to tie their community experience to the concepts and theories discussed in the course.

This course utilizes the “service-learning” option model in which students can select to engage in service-learning in lieu of another assignment or set of activities. On average, approximately 50% of students in the course select the service-learning option. The fact that students have the option to engage in the community experience helps to ensure that the students who are assigned to mature adults in the community are committed to serving the senior citizens for the full semester; having students following through on their community assignments is key to sustaining strong and healthy partnerships with community agencies.

Pre-post data on student attitudes towards civic participation, academic learning, and community service reveal that students in the course who selected the service-learning component were more likely to report (p = .05) a higher satisfaction with the course, a stronger commitment to community service, and a more positive attitude toward civic engagement than the student who selected the course paper option, when controlling for pre-test differences between the groups. However, these data have not been consistent over the years; in some semesters, there has been no statistically significant difference noted between the groups.

Because this course engages science students, who traditionally are less accustomed to community-based learning activities and therefore, may be more reticent to participate in service-learning, it provides a good example of how such students can be eased into a service-learning experience. Professor Timiras received the 2002 Chancellor’s Faculty Award for Service-Learning.

APPENDIX A

UC BERKELEY FACULTY POLICY COMMITTEE ON SERVICE-LEARNING

The Faculty Policy Committee on Service-Learning is composed of faculty members from various departments and offices throughout the campus. Its function is to develop campus-wide policies for academic service-learning activities and initiatives at UC Berkeley. The Committee reports directly to the Chancellor through the Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.

Members (2004-2005)

FRED COLLIGNON, Associate Professor, City and Regional Planning, (Chair)

ALICE AGOGINO, Professor, Mechanical Engineering

MICHAEL AUSTIN, Professor, Social Welfare

WILLIAM BERRY, Professor, Geology and Geophysics

K. PATRICIA CROSS, Professor Emerita, Education

MICHAEL HARDIE, Office of Media Services

GLYNDA HULL, Professor, Education

KAREN KENNEY, Dean of Students

LISA KALA, Lecturer, Education

MEREDITH MINKLER, Professor, Public Health

CYNTHIA SCHRAGER, Principal Analyst, Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education

STEVEN SEGAL, Professor, Social Welfare

ALIX SCHWARTZ, Director of Academic Planning, Undergraduate Education

PAOLA TIMIRAS, Professor Emerita, Molecular and Cell Biology

RUTH TRINGHAM, Professor, Anthropology

FRANCES VAN LOO, Associate Professor, Business

Ex-Officio

ANDREW FURCO, Director, Service-Learning Research & Development Center

Assistant Adjunct Professor, Education

Former Members

WILLIAM BANKS, Professor, African American Studies

ROBERTO HOROWITZ, Professor, Mechanical Engineering

SUSAN KEGLEY, Lecturer, Chemistry

JOYCE LASHOF, Professor Emerita, Public Health (Former Co-Chair)

JANE MAULDON, Associate Professor, Public Policy

MARY ANN MASON, Professor, Social Welfare

PEDRO NOGUERA, Associate Professor, Education

MICHAEL RANNEY, Associate Professor, Education

HAL REYNOLDS, Student Affairs Officer, Student Activities and Services

MARTIN SANCHEZ-JANKOWSKI, Associate Professor, Sociology

RHONA WEINSTEIN, Professor, Psychology

APPENDIX B

Faculty Policy Committee on Service-Learning

University of California at Berkeley

Proposed Criteria for Service-Learning Course Review at UC Berkeley

(February 15, 2002)

The service-learning course review process was established to ensure that academic quality is maintained in all credit bearing activities that utilize service-learning as an instructional strategy. A goal of this process is to ensure that all activities identified as service-learning meet a set of minimum standards for academic rigor.

It is acknowledged that there are many different types of community-based learning opportunities, some of which are integrated with courses and offer students credit. Academic policies at UC Berkeley suggest that academic credit (units offered through departments) are given based on student learning. In this regard, service to the community, albeit an important experience, does not qualify for earning academic units unless the activity is connected to an organized curriculum with clear learning objectives for students.

Technically, students in community service-learning activities do not receive credit for tutoring; rather, they receive units based on what they have learned from their experience. However, there are many courses currently being offered in which students receive credit for service activities that contain no formalized course structure or curriculum. In some cases, these courses are called service-learning when in fact they are actually credit-bearing community service activities.

At a minimum, all service-learning courses must meet the following broad criteria:

a) the course has a formal, academic curriculum that is rooted in the discipline in which the course is being offered;

b) the course contains a set of organized community-based learning activities through which students directly serve a constituency as a means to address an identified community need; and

c) the course provides structured opportunities for students to connect their service activities to the course curriculum.

What isn’t service-learning?

A course that has students meet each week to reflect on what happened at the service site, for example, is not service-learning because the course does not meet the first criterion; “reflecting on what happened at the service site”, albeit important, does not comprise academic curriculum. This is a credit-bearing community service experience.

A courses in which students go into the community to observe or conduct research, for example, would not be service-learning, since observing and conducting research do not constitute providing a direct service that addresses a community need.

This is a field studies course.

A course that has students go into the community to do projects, but the projects are never discussed during the course, would also not be service-learning since these courses do not meet the last criterion. This is a project-based learning course.

Types of service-learning courses at UC Berkeley

In general, there are three types of service-learning courses prevalent at UC Berkeley:

1) Co-curricular service-learning: In co-curricular service-learning courses, all three minimum requirements of service-learning are met. These courses are usually elective courses that are not usually a central part of a students’ degree program. Co-curricular service-learning courses tend to have a strong service component that has a strong influence on the nature and focus of the curriculum. These courses do not need to be part of a department’s ongoing course offerings. These courses can be offered without approval from the department academic review committee or the campus committee on courses. The instructor of these courses need not hold a faculty appointment.

Typically, these courses have a 97/197 or 98/198 course designation.

2) Academic service-learning: In academic service-learning courses, all three minimum requirements of service-learning are met. These courses are usually ongoing, departmental courses that have a relationship to students’ degree program. Academic service-learning courses tend to have a strong, academic content that could, without the service component, stand on its own as an individual, academic course. In academic service-learning courses, the academic content drives the types of community service activities in which students are engaged. These courses are typically offered only after receiving approval by the department’s academic review committee or the campus committee on courses. The instructors of academic service-learning hold faculty appointments.

Typically these courses have a regular departmental course number.

3) Service-learning Internships: In service-learning internships, all three minimum requirements of service-learning are met. These courses are usually departmental courses that have a relationship to individual students’ degree program. Service-learning internships tend to engage advanced students, who already have a strong academic background, in activities in which they apply their knowledge in professionally-based settings that serve the public good. In service-learning internships, a students’ academic expertise is tapped and applied to an authentic setting. Oftentimes, a service-learning internship experience results in a culminating academic or professional product that is submitted formally for faculty review. Typically, service-learning internships are offered in graduate programs and professional schools and enroll students individually or in small groups. The instructors of academic service-learning hold faculty appointments.

Typically these courses have a regular departmental course number or use 299/399/499 course designations.