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Pilot Project Profile - Washburn UniversityLead Contacts | Issue Focus | Pilot Project Plan | Timeline | Progress Reports Lead Contacts
Issue Focus
Progress Reports
Pilot Project PlanBackground
Learning in the Community (LinC): The Center for Community Service and Civic Engagement has been providing opportunities for community service to the students of Washburn University for the past thirteen years.
Beginning July 1, 2006, LinC became the official Center for Community Service and Civic Engagement for the entire campus. This has given the Center and the Bonner Leader Program a much higher profile. The Center now coordinates all major service initiatives, as well as providing consultation to faculty involved in either service learning projects or CBR activities. Students at Washburn University engage in service (long-term and/or short-term) with approximately 65 different nonprofit organizations. We have more community partners, but the sites that host Bonner Leaders in any given academic year vary slightly based on the interests of the membership and the current organizational needs. Of these current sites, six are considered to be committed partner sites. These include Big Brothers Big Sisters, Community Action Head Start, Let’s Help, Salvation Army Early Childhood Center, W. Clement Stone Nature Center, and YWCA Battered Women Task Force.
We define committed partners as those organizations that have hosted a Bonner Leader at least three consecutive years (some of those listed are going into their seventh consecutive year with the program); have embraced the mission and vision of the Bonner program and proactively support the developmental model; provide outstanding mentorship to the Bonners at their site; and have engaged in an ongoing, collaborative, working relationship with the Washburn BLP.
In addition to community organizations, several projects have been developed and coordinated by students under the umbrella of the Center for Community Service. These programs are developed, coordinated, and directed by Bonner Leaders under the mentorship of the Center staff. For example, the Literacy Education Action Project (LEAP) pairs college students with preschool children from low-income households to work on literacy, language, and social skills; Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week involves a week of educational events and activities to raise awareness about these issues; Alternative Winter/Spring Break coordinates groups of college students to go to a different community for one to two weeks of service and Into the Streets engages the campus community in a day of service with the Topeka community.
Over the past two years LinC has been overseeing a Community-Based Research Grant. Through this initiative we have been able to support twelve new course based CBR projects: two in History, three in Mass Media, four in Human Services, one in Political Science, one in Phys. Ed. and one in Sociology. This semester LinC is supporting three more courses: one in Human Services, one in Mass Media, and one in Anthropology. The expectation is that through the initial support faculty will continue to include CBR projects in their classes. We have also been maintaining a contact list of agencies and organizations that are interested in CBR so we can match them with the appropriate courses. Last spring HS302 Social Change and Advocacy included an assignment which focused on the development of issue briefs. Each student developed a paper following the policy issue brief template found at PolicyOptions.org. Two students posted their policy briefs on the web page.
Student Engagement
By the beginning of the spring semester it is our intent to bring on two student interns to spend the next four semesters implementing the project. The two interns will be recruited from those who have already been involved in a CBR project in one of the twelve courses delivered thus far through the CBR Networking Project. Initially these students will receive training in both wiki development and the PolicyOptions.org format. During the spring semester their primary responsibility will be to work with the faculty identified to assist them in identifying important community issues that develop from the CBR course. In addition, they will work with the Bonner Leaders to identify key issues that arise through their community service. Once the issues have been identified the student interns will work with teams of students (either Bonner Leaders or those involved in a class) to guide the development of issue briefs using the PolicyOptions template. The interns will then post the issue briefs on PolicyOptions.org.
Faculty Engagement
Participation of faculty will initially be identified through their previous participation in the CBR Networking project. It is expected that from their previous work issues would have arisen that lead naturally into this project. With the assistance of the student interns, faculty will develop issue brief projects related to the topics identified through the CBR. Students in the course will develop issue briefs using the PolicyOptions template. These issue briefs will be reviewed and eventually posted at PolicyOptions.org.
Deliberative Democracy Forum
Following the completion of the review of each round of issue briefs Learning in the Community will host a forum involving the entire community. Washburn students, community partner representatives, community members, policy makers and Washburn faculty will collaborate to make final policy recommendations related to the issue briefs. The deliberative democracy forum will create an atmosphere where an informed, stable consensus will be reached through thoughtful deliberation of the issue. It is anticipated that LinC will host a Deliberative Democracy Forum once a year (in the spring) so that policy issues can be presented to the local governmental agencies prior to the beginning of the Legislative session.
As preparation for the forum the issue briefs will be posted and partners will be given access to PolicyOptions.org. In order to make sure each participant has reviewed the issue briefs they will also be disseminated via e-mail and through USPS.
Editorial/Advisory Board
An advisory/editorial board comprised of nine members (Director of LinC, two student interns, two faculty members, one representative from our State legislative delegation and one representative from City government, and two representatives from community agencies) will be formed in the first semester of the project. It will be the responsibility of the board to review the issue briefs and organize them for distribution prior to the annual forum. During the spring 09 semester the advisory/editorial board will develop the criteria for inclusion and dissemination of the issue briefs. This project will function under the direction of Learning in the Community (LinC): The Center for Community Service and Civic Engagement.
TimelineFall 2008
Spring 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2009
Spring 2010
Summer 2010
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