Students call for more service learning at Pitt

Erica Auker said that she learned her role in a global society, her responsibilities as a… Erica Auker said that she learned her role in a global society, her responsibilities as a citizen and what it’s like for a refugee to assimilate – all through service learning.

Auker is tutoring Somali refugees through a service internship seminar.

During the last year, participation in the class grew from 14 to 24 students. The ratio of Somali refugees to student tutors is nearly one to one. But Eric Hartman, a graduate student who teaches the class, said that this amount of participation is not enough.

“Pitt is increasingly leading in terms of research and quality of undergraduate and graduate students,” he said. “There is no reason why Pitt wouldn’t also lead in service learning.”

Hartman compared Pitt’s service learning program to ones at schools like the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania, and he sees a big difference.

“These schools clearly do much more to engage with the community,” Hartman said.

Service learning at Pitt starts with the Office of Experiential Learning.

“I would say we’re probably more in the initiating phases of [the service learning program],” said Peggy Heely, the director of the Office of Experiential Learning. “It’s hard to critique the amount of participation because it’s so divided between the schools. But you always want to do more.”

The urban studies department has made service learning a requirement.

“It’s the only time you can apply what you’ve learned in the classroom to the real world,” department coordinator Carolyn Carson said. “It allows students to explore their own strengths and weaknesses, and allows them to understand why that agency fits into the larger world.”

Heely explained that faculty initiatives start Pitt’s service learning programs.

The difference between service learning and an internship – according to Heely – is that the student benefits from an internship, whereas the community benefits from service learning.

“A student who has accumulated a certain amount of applicable knowledge can come in and assist an organization in achieving their goals,” she said. “But the student, too, gains from that – they gain an understanding of what the community is doing.”

At Pitt, service-learning opportunities are scattered through the departments and schools.

But Hartman questioned whether there are enough.

“When I look for examples of good peer universities, I look at Michigan or University of Pennsylvania because they have centers that offer students a great diversity of service-learning courses,” he said. “This way, students can cooperate with non-profits that provide services from childcare to environmental protection.”

George Dougherty – the coordinator of the public service major – teaches public service classes that require community service. From talking to his students, he said that he has come to realize that not many other courses require community service.

“I think there is a place between practical application and how much service learning is reasonable and where it fits,” Dougherty said. “I think it’s up to professors to determine how much is reasonable and where it fits.”

Dougherty said that the resources for public service learning all exist at Pitt. His criticism is in the amount of knowledge of service learning that is available to both students and staff.

“It might be nice if there were resources for faculty members that have not used service learning in the past,” he said. “If professors knew what resources were available, they could send students elsewhere [to learn].”

Stuart Shulman, an assistant professor in the School of Information Science, proposed a project called Digital Citizenship, to the National Science Foundation.

He was granted $400,000 in 2000 to teach a class based on service learning. His students go into the community and teach people how to use the Internet.

“Rather than simply read about the specifics, it was a way to actually encounter face to face the people for whom [the Internet] is completely foreign, and understand the hurdles that they face,” Shulman said.

To Shulman, service learning is a way of “using the community as a laboratory,” and that it should be a larger part of the college education than it already is. But he realizes that requiring service learning would be difficult.

“[Making service learning a requirement] is a risky proposition,” he said. “The definition of what you ask people to do in service learning is to step out of their comfort zone.”

After experiencing service learning firsthand, students like Auker and her classmate, Laura Yealy – who is also the volunteer coordinator for the tutoring program – recommended it to other students.

“I don’t think service learning is stressed enough at Pitt whatsoever,” Yealy said. “I think it should be something students have to do.”

But at a large university like Pitt, making service learning a requirement might not be a good idea, Hartman said.

“The universities that engage in civic education want to create opportunities for students to better understand their own communities and the power they have to shape them,” he said. “But people suggest that an outright requirement can turn students off.”

Auker suggested that creating awareness of the programs available at Pitt might increase participation.

“I really would love to see this program get bigger,” she said. “I think if the University promoted them more, people would be more aware.”

The Office of Experiential Learning holds a fair in freshman studies classes every year.

Heely said that even though Pitt’s service learning program faces some criticism, the Office of Experiential Learning works to involve more students each year.

“I think that’s partly why [Pitt] created an OEL,” she said. “Because we’d certainly like service learning to be more extensively interwoven.”