DDCE
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
VSLC Strives to Help Create Meaningful Academic Service Learning Courses for Students, Community
While fellow students at The University of Texas at Austin were interning in places like New York City or were lounging at the beach, graduate student Rian Carkhum was getting an up-close view of Ghana, an African nation that gained its independence only 52 years ago. From late May to late June 2009, Carkhum was enrolled in “Ghana—Community and Social Development,” a Maymester course taught by Dr. Dorie Gilbert, associate professor in the School of Social Work. Through volunteer projects with non-governmental agencies, schools, and community-based organizations, students in this cross-listed course not only learn about but also actively participate in community and social development projects focused on education, health care, micro-financing, engineering technology, and youth empowerment. A unique aspect of the course is that UT student groups work alongside Ghanaian university students to carry out the service learning projects, which are shortterm, high-impact, and sustainable projects implemented during week three of the four-week program. Carkhum—a student in UT’s Education Policy and Planning Program—was assigned to a youth empowerment group that worked with administrators at Ashaiman Senior High School to create a long-term plan to meet the counseling and career guidance needs for the school’s 600 students. According to Gilbert, “The course content dovetails with the nature of community service in three critical ways: 1) UT and Ghanaian students’ learning is enhanced, 2) small-scale community needs are met, and 3) students are able to critically reflect upon their experience of contributing to sustainable change.”
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“It was a life-changing experience,” said Carkhum, a graduate research assistant in the UT Division of Diversity and Community Engagement’s Longhorn Center for Academic Excellence. “Going to Ghana was never about what we could teach them or the projects we could do. In my opinion, my time in Ghana was about listening and learning.” Life-changing experiences like Carkhum’s serve as the foundation of the university’s academic service learning courses, which integrate community service, academic learning, and civic learning to prepare students for living and working in a diverse world. Topics of the university’s nearly 50 academic service learning courses range from nonprofit consulting to sustainable development to the Texas juvenile justice system. Dr. Steven Moore, professor of Architecture and Planning, was an early adopter of academic service learning courses— he has taught service learning courses in the School of Architecture for five years. This past summer in Advanced Architectural Studio Design, 15 students participated in the design and construction of sustainable, green, and affordable housing in east Austin through the Alley Flat Initiative.
Division of Diversity and Community Engagement