Sun, Service, and South Beach

I recently logged into Facebook and much to my horror, I was tagged in a spring break photo. After closer glance and much to my relief, I realized the picture was taken from an alternative spring break trip I took students on a few years back. I have not thought about that trip or those students in quite a while, but looking at those pictures brought back some great memories.

While working at a small private college, a colleague and I were recruited to take students on a weeklong, working adventure to Florida to participate in hurricane relief cleanup. While other students planned to soak up the sun and indulge in fruity drinks during spring break, this particular group of students planned to pay their own way to stay in a hostel for the week and work. Inspired by their willingness to commit their time and energy, coupled with the idea of a sun-filled week away form the office, how could I pass on this opportunity?

As we prepared for our excursion, we engaged in lots of dialogue regarding service. As our college was embarking on a full-blown service learning initiative hiring an AmeriCorps Member and working with Campus Compact, this trip, along with others like it taking place that week in various parts of the country, served as a great kickoff. The College had a history of providing service opportunities for students, but it had yet to really tie that to a strong academic or classroom focus.

When the time finally came for us to depart for the week, I still had some concerns, but the students were phenomenal. They worked hard and played hard throughout the week, getting up early, working all day, cooking dinner, and participating in group reflections nightly. Working at such a fast pace allowed them time for some relaxation toward the end of the week. We even made it to South Beach one day (I do not recommend driving a 15 passenger van there—ever!).

For me, I am still amazed by those students, but what is more amazing is what I was able to witness them do. Beyond pulling together to work hard and really put forth an effort they were proud of, it was a week of firsts for some of the students that I recall now: first time flying, first time traveling outside of North Carolina, first time seeing the Atlantic Ocean, first time eating alligator, and the first time staying in a hostel. And now for the first time, it is all available for the world to see on Facebook!

Mia Leggett

CCLP Block 65

Learning While Serving—That’s My Kind of Style

Service learning is an excellent method for engaging students, faculty members, and the community. Across the country, students from all academic levels from elementary school to college are involved in many different kinds of service learning projects. I have valued its impact since my first service learning experience in college!

A requirement for admittance to Michigan State University Teacher Education Department/Special Education Program during the late 1970s furthered my interest in this topic. Students and teachers were engaged in various projects in Lansing, Michigan, including working in the special needs classrooms from different elementary schools. These experiences taught me the value of serving, and learning by doing while observing various teachers. And, Michigan State University still provides this type of learning experience by continuing to offer service learning projects in its courses.

In my role as a department chairperson of the Environmental, Design, and Building Technologies (EDBT) Department at Lansing Community College (LCC), I encouraged faculty members to utilize service learning across the curriculum. The faculty members and I worked to create a handbook for use throughout the department. The goal of this project was for the EDBT Department faculty members to create worthwhile service learning projects for students to perform within the communities in Mid Michigan. Our plan was to bring together faculty members, advisory committee representatives from departmental programs, community leaders, and students to conduct high-quality service learning activities. To date, several programs are engaged with service learning!

If you are interested in learning about organizations who can partner with your community college to provide service learning opportunities, visit the American Association for Community College’s website.

JaNice Marshall, CCLP Block 65

How to Help Students Learn From SERVICE LEARNING

Service learning is an opportunity to expose young people in how to become engaged in community service projects to benefit their community or a community in another part of the world. Service learning can be an interesting way to tie in classroom projects or topics that your students are learning. Service learning is not limited to one academic subject area. It can be applied to a variety of subjects and grade levels.

Service learning projects can lead to increased class participation and engagement from your students, increased attendance in school and mold social responsibility. It encourages students to use what they have learned about a subject to creatively solve the problems related with that topic in a real world way. Locally students can learn about economic hardships of certain parts of their city to the economic hardships of entire countries. Service learning ties academic perspectives to human realities.

There are numerous organizations that are happy to work with student groups. For example, the Bay Area Houston Alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. in Houston, Texas, has adopted a school of 450 students in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Their goal is collect over 400 new shoes for each child within the school. According to the President, Alicia Jones, they would be “more than happy to work with any group of students interested in helping students in need in Africa.”

St. Theresa Primary School is Sierra Leone, West Africa

Below are a few tips for faculty to engage student in service learning project:

1. Link a topic that you are discussing with a service-learning event in the community. Class participation within the community can foster a sense of caring for others.

2. Discuss educational conditions for students in the same age group as your students in a particular country. Ask the students to come up with creative ways to help them. This may help them understand the variation in education around the world, help them appreciate their education, and can nurture problem solving skills.

3. Start an inexpensive pen pal program with students from your class with students in another country. This encourages them to write, read, and share their experiences with others.

In this era of “I” a true sense of “WE” can be instilled in our students early if we just take the time to do it. Not only will your students grow personally as people, they will learn the subject at hand and may have fond memories of their service learning project at the same time.

Which service learning projects have you conducted or participated in as a student? Did those projects build your commitment to service?

Marie J. Sesay

Doctoral Student

Community College Leadership Program-Block 64

The Library...The times, they are a changing...

The library ranks in my top five favorite things of all time right behind Diet Coke, antique shops, Spanx, and my dog. So, when a classmate of mine recently declared his intent to complete his Ph.D. without ever stepping foot inside of Perry-Castañeda Library, my first, second, and third response were something like— “Are you kidding me?” The more I really processed his idea though, the more I started to see how this could potentially work.

As much as I love libraries and think they should be visited at least once a week, I cannot say I have done much research in libraries over the past several years. Gone for me are the days of pulling microfilm and microfiche. No longer do I spend tons of time scanning CD after CD to find that one elusive article. This semester alone, I can access one of my textbooks, pull research articles weekly, and explore dissertation topics by reading one dissertation a week—all via the Internet—and all while logged on to the library from the convenience of my home computer. Maybe my friend is on to something, but what about those books you just cannot find online?

My solution is quite simple. One of my new favorite things to do is scour the web in search of the best deal I can find on books I need for research or class. I am not sure if it is the bargain hunter in me or the challenge of seeing what I can find, but I can spend hours searching for a great deal on a book. That being said, I am still not sold on going an entire degree and not stepping foot in side of the library.

At The University of Texas at Austin alone, I can attend a face-to-face training on how to use Endnote (which I hear will make its way into my top five list soon), how to research from home, and how to use the new 6^th edition of APA—and what I enjoy most about these sessions is that I am able to ask my questions in person.

My friend may be successful in his attempt, but for me, I will continue to utilize the library, the one with bricks and mortar, to browse for books I need for my book club or those I just cannot bring myself to buy; find a good place to take a nap from time to time; and enjoy it as much as I did back when I was five, and my mother took me to the library twice a week. When it comes time to do some research though, I will gladly sit back, relax, and work from the comfort of my couch.

Mia Leggett, CCLP Block 65

Digital Alternatives

The door to community colleges appears to be open, but barriers exist from the moment students enter. One of the obstacles is the spiraling cost of textbooks, which more often than not either deters students from entering or prevents them from succeeding. According to the National Association of College Stores, “nearly 60 percent of students nationwide choose not to buy all the course materials.” With the sheer volume of discussion regarding retention, part of the challenge in student success can be attributed to the fact that students cannot complete their readings and homework without the required materials. In this age when current research, provocative articles, and graphically enhanced audio, video, and written content are being made available each day, digital course lectures and readings may enhance the learning process and engage students without the high cost that prevents students from entering our doors and succeeding in our classes.

Students are keenly aware that the cost of textbooks each year exceeds the cost of a computer and printer combined. According to Educause Quarterly, “A typical college student spends up to $1,000 per year on textbooks, and many students don’t buy textbooks at all because they’re too expensive.” Students, faculty, and administrators could blame publishing companies, but this will not change the cost of books. On the other hand, if students urged their professors to use digitized course materials, put their lectures and materials online, and draw their reading assignments from web sources, costs could be significantly reduced. Handouts could be placed on the web and saved on student laptops and assignments could be sent digitally or printed from a computer as needed. At a time when college students have access to computers either via libraries, class computer stations, or their own computer, the answer to college and student cost cutting measures may be found in digital course content.

Social networking sites and e-learning platforms provide convenient and centralized focal points for educational content. These web-enhanced portals also allow for greater student interaction through discussion threads on issues posted by the instructor or hosted by student-directed dialogue, thereby enhancing critical thinking and comprehension. Faculty could engage students in general weekly topics, and then subtopics could illuminate innovative solutions to problems or ways of thinking about an issue. Students studying various disciplines with eclectic interests would make the course fresh each semester with innovative ways of viewing the weekly issue or idea. These posts may generate new course content in an evolutionary, multidisciplinary way that could be published outside of the college. The resulting posts may transcend department or institutional halls to spawn an even wider take on the topic in hubs on other campuses.

Initiatives are cropping up on the national level with the passage of the Higher Education Reauthorization Act in 2008--e.g., textbook rental programs, open source initiatives, digital textbooks, and the availability of Kindle/Sony E-Reader materials. The creative integration of digital content can counteract the rising cost of textbooks and remove one more barrier to student success.

Rachel Winston, CCLP Block 65

Online Registration: Taking the LINE out of Registration

The year was 199*, and I was an anxious freshman on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. It was a quiet day in East Texas, and I was very excited that morning. I was going to register for my first college class ever. I was so excited that I hardly ate my french toast sticks just thinking about the classes that I wanted to take. The opportunity to bask in new knowledge, meet new people, and experience college culture made me restless. I walked to the science building to register for the first class I wanted to take. To my surprise, hundreds of students were already in line eagerly waiting to take the same class that I wanted to take. Needless to say, I wished I had not skipped breakfast.

Registering for college courses has a history of being a long, tedious process for students and staff. Waiting in line for hours was not a new process for students at the Registrar’s office. Online registration has become a common tool within community colleges across the nation. This new technology does have its problems. There is no guarantee that the student will get the course that they want, and at times, there are technology issues.

Here are a few suggestions from a gal who registered the “old school” way and loves the current online registration system.

Be familiar with the your registration period. Look up your registration period, and sit at a computer five minutes before you are to register. Have the registration screen up and ready to go when the clock strikes. This may help you get the courses that you want. Have all of the course names and numbers in front of you as well.

Have a plan B. In case you do not get into the classes that you want, make sure that you have alternate classes to fill your schedule. You may be able to drop those Plan B courses to get into the course that you want. Also, find out if there is a waiting list, and see if the instructor can override the system and manually register you for the course.

Be optimistic. Repeat this with me “8:00 a.m. classes are not the end of the world.” Be open and flexible to taking a course very early or super late. If you really want that class, then take the time slot that it is being offered. Also, be open about the instructor that is teaching the course. For example, Instructor S may be the popular choice, but if you really want to take the course on that particular day and time, Instructor R may be a better option.

Kudos to all the college students prior to 199*! You survived a stressful period in college registration. To those of you who do not know what I am talking about, be grateful. Online registration has taken the LINE out of registration.

Marie Sesay, CCLP Block 64

Fearless: The First Day of School for Faculty

What if they don’t like me?

Is my shirt wrinkled?

Am I too overdressed?

Will they even show up?

Am I talking to myself?!

These questions, and many more, will echo through the minds of first-time faculty this semester. In fall 2009, thousands of first-time faculty will walk through the doors of community colleges all over the nation with strong desires to teach, but silent fears of uncertainty. The first day of school is just as nerve-wracking for some instructors as it is for the students. Some of these concerns or fears are common and others can be avoided.

Here are a few tips to getting through the first day of school for new faculty.

1. Don’t overdress. First impressions are important, but you have the job already. Make sure you are professionally dressed and that there is a clear distinction between you and the students.

2. Be prepared. Have your syllabus ready with extra copies just in case.

3. Give a brief bio. It may also be helpful to share some professional information with your students so that they can know who you are.

4. Have an icebreaker exercise prepared. This will help each student know each other and will help you learn their names faster. Knowing your students’ names adds a personal touch to the classroom experience.

5. Lecture. There is an urban myth out there that says you meet on the first day of class, hand out your syllabus, and let your class out early. NOT! Providing a brief lecture sets the tone of the class and allows flexibility further in the semester.

Honestly, I still get a little nervous, and I have been teaching for five years. It is a common feeling when you are walking into the unknown. Preparation for first time faculty is the key to a successful semester. Best wishes to the first-time faculty at community colleges all over the country. Remember, we all had a first day of school.

Marie J. Sesay

Doctoral Student, Community College Leadership Program