OU Engage

What is Community Engagement?

Community engagement is the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.

What is Curricular Engagement?

Curricular engagement includes institutions where teaching, learning and scholarship engage faculty, students, and community in mutually beneficial and respectful collaboration. Their interactions address community-identified needs, deepen students’ civic and academic learning, enhance community well-being, and enrich the scholarship of the institution.

What is the difference between Outreach and Partnerships?

Outreach focuses on the application and provision of institutional resources for community use with benefits to both campus and community.
Partnerships focuses on collaborative interactions with community and related scholarship for the mutually beneficial exchange, exploration, and application of knowledge, information, and resources (research, capacity building, economic development, etc.).

What is Service-Learning?

Service Learning is a structured learning experience that combines community service with preparation and reflection. Students engaged in service-learning provide community service in response to community-identified concerns and learn about the context in which service is provided, the connection between their service and their academic coursework, and their roles as citizens.

What is the difference between community service and volunteerism?

Volunteerism focuses on the benefits of the service recipients. The students receive some benefits by learning more about how their service makes a difference in the lives of the service recipients, but there are no specific learning objectives.

Service-learning is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of students engaged in service, or the educational components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled. Service-learning provides structured time for thoughtful planning of the service project and guided reflection by participants on the service experience. Overall, the most important feature of effective service-learning programs is that both learning and service are emphasized.

Is service-learning a new idea?

The practice of service-learning dates back much further than the term itself, beginning with educational movements and social change in the late 1880s. The intellectual foundations of service-learning in the United States trace back to the early 1900s with the work of John Dewey, William James, and others who promoted models of “learning by doing,” and linked service to personal and social development. The term “service-learning” was coined by two educators in 1967 to describe the combination of conscious educational growth with the accomplishment of certain tasks that meet genuine human needs.

How do I start a service learning project?

There are several resources to help you investigate and start a service learning project. OU’s Program for Instructional Innovation assists teaching faculty and organizational units to provide educational programs of the highest possible quality and would be a good place to start. There are also several publications listed on the Engage Web site that can help facilitate service learning projects.