To serve and reflect

RECENT GRADUATE ERIC BAER DIDN'T appreciate how lucky he was as a student at a well-respected engineering college and a future employee of a Fortune 500 corporation until he began helping youngsters learn how to use computers at the Ryves Hall Youth Center for inner-city teenagers in Terre Haute, Indiana. He also coached the center's basketball team and established close relationships with some of the players. "Many times students at Rose-Hulman, including myself, don't realize how good we have it," says Baer, who majored in mechanical engineering. "We will have college educations and opportunities that some of the kids at Ryves Hall will never experience."

Baer's reaction was exactly what Rose-- Hulman Institute of Technology literature professor Caroline Carvill and Carrie McKillip of the Vigo County Homeless Coalition had in mind when they initiated the service-learning project last fall. By pushing students out of the classrooms and into the community, educators are helping students learn more about the real world than they could by just reading books, attending lectures, or surfing the Net Heightened social consciousness isn't the only goal, however To improve communication skills, student volunteers are required to write 300- to 350-word essays about their experiences volunteering at local service agencies, which have included the Council on Domestic Abuse, the American Red Cross, and organizations to help the homeless. The essays, along with photos taken by the students, are published in a special insert in the Terre Haute Tribune-- Star. Last year's student volunteers got the newspaper interested in the program.

"The goals are two-fold," says Carvill. "To get some real-world practical experience into the classroom and to instill the students with a sense of community stewardship. Hopefully, they'll take that with them when they graduate."

Patricia Carlson, another literature professor, also adopted the service learning approach for her freshman composition class. She wants her students to develop writing skills and learn more about the community. Past proposals have included improving student life on campus and designing Web pages for the Terre Haute district offices of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

"The students gain a greater understanding of how an educational or community service organization functions,- Carlson says, "and they come to see language as a vehicle for accomplishing change."

Because most of the students are future engineers, Carlson also wants her students to learn the importance of funding and how to approach foundations. "They have to learn persuasion skills as if they already had a working program, instead of just a proposal," she says.

"The community service projects are a reflection of the professions our students are going into," says Jim McKinney, a civil engineering professor who promotes the integration of classroom work with community services. "They are actively giving back to the community."

Sophomore mechanical engineering major Aaron Horn, who helped finish a roofing project on a home constructed by Habitat for Humanity, agrees. "I hadn't had that much fun in a long time. It was nice to help others."

And even after the academic requirement has been filled, some students have stayed on at their volunteer agencies. Eric Baer continued to participate in Ryves Hall's intramural basketball program. "I had several students who continued to volunteer after the term ended," says Carvill. "You can't hope for anything better than that."

Maryam Miller is a Prism editorial intern.

Copyright American Society for Engineering Education Nov 1999
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