Service-learning

• Enhances your learning
• Connects what you’re doing in the classroom to the real world
• Expands your leadership skills, clarifies your value
• Makes you feel good about your work and who you are
• Fosters your connectedness to the community
• Allows you to try out possible careers
• Builds your resume, gives you new skills, creates a network
• Increases your scholarship eligibility
• Encourages you to always give back

There are three primary ways to make sure service-learning is a part of your academic experience, while you are a student at Scottsdale Community College. And, if you find that your courses are not including service-learning, ask your favorite faculty member to make it a part of her/his curriculum. Our office is here to help them and you!

One: Experience Approach

Each semester, our office plans and hosts Signature Service Learning Events. Many classes connect with service-learning through this option. Just like with the In-course Approach, this style will likely ask you to reflect on your experience and apply your classroom learning. The biggest difference between the two is that the details of the Signature Service Learning experience are all handled by our office. Simply show up, serve, reflect, and celebrate! View the Service-learning events for students.

Two: In-course Approach

Service-learning is embedded into your classroom experience in this method. You might be asked as an individual or small-/large-group to select and serve an approved community partner. Or, your faculty member may already have an organization in mind. You will need to then contact the approved community partner and arrange the features of your service work – an important part of your available learning. Plus, there will be a cumulative academic assignment that is reflective in nature. This might be an individual/group presentation or creative element, a campus/community event, data collection analysis and report, or semester journal. Whatever the details, service-learning is a very definite part of the course. Our office maintains a list of courses that we know regularly include service-learning. Please contact us for more info. If you believe you know of others, please share them with us.

Three: Honors Approach

SCC offers an Honors Contract in Service-learning and, you don’t even have to be an Honors student to do one! This option allows you to select a class where you would like to add service-learning and work with that faculty member to design the experience. If you are an Honors student, this also allows you to receive Honors credit for the semester of enrollment. More information is available by visiting the SCC Honors Program Office in LC, Rm. 320 or Office of Student Experience and Leadership in SC, Room 185.

Allen and Angie Watts Scholarships

The qualifications for this scholarship are as follows:

• Must be enrolled in 6 or more credits at SCC
• A college cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 2.8 or higher
• Must complete 6 or more official Service-Learning events at SCC. These events must be part of official Service-Learning projects coordinated through the college or through a specific course
• Preference is given to Arizona high school graduates
• Preference is given to Arizona Resident

Visit the SCC Scholarship website for more info!

Honors Student

If you’re an SCC Honors student (or think you’d like to become one), there is scholarship money available for your service-learning work.

• Served at least 25 hours at an approved community partner?
• Earned a 3.25 GPA or higher?
• Remained in good academic standing?

Full-time SCC Honors students are eligible for a $500 award – and, part-time SCC Honors students (9+ credit hours) are eligible for a $250 award. All Honors Achievement students and students enrolled in Honors classes are encouraged to apply. Visit the SCC Honors Office for more info!

Scottsdale Community College participates in the America Reads Program. This program allows SCC students to work as in-person or virtual tutors in reading at local K-8 schools or agencies. Students will need to commit approximately 10-20 hours per week.

Program Requirements

• Qualify and be awarded Federal Work-Study Funds
• Agree to fingerprinting, drug and/or background check, where required

For more info, stop by the Office of Student Experience and Leadership or email [email protected].

For a volunteer experience to be recognized as service-learning, you will find the following four basic notions occur:

• Intention – The experience must be intentionally connected to the curriculum.
• Need – The experience must meet a need determined by the approved community partner for which the service is to happen.
• Reflection – Students must reflect upon their experience in some manner. This is where their learning takes place.
• Celebration – Students' contributions must be acknowledged. Recognition encourages future collaboration, reaffirms partnerships, and renews/encourages a continuing commitment to serve.

Volunteering is performing a service or good work, but it is not necessarily connected to classroom instruction. Internships involve hands-on learning experiences but there may be little or no emphasis on service. Service-learning focuses equally on the service being provided and the learning taking place. Service-learning meets a learning goal and involves reflection.

• Engages student in active learning
• Increases student retention of material
• Reinvigorates teaching
• Allows you to mentor students
• Establishes meaningful relationships with students and community
• Develops sense of difference-making for students and community
• Provides opportunities for research and publication

• Furthers college vision, mission and values
• Increases student retention
• Presents college as active, engaged community partner
• Encourages innovation in teaching
• Enriches quality and relevancy of provided education
• Engages faculty and student in community issues
• Increases development and preparation of graduates

There are a number of ways to incorporate service-learning into your classroom at Scottsdale Community College – none being any better than the next. What’s most important is for you, as the faculty member, to figure out what feels most comfortable, start small, seek help from fellow faculty and the Office of Service-learning & Leadership, and build gradually. During that process, consider the following:

One: In-course Approach

• Small Group: Students are organized into smaller groups or as individuals to complete a service project. The community partners served might be your determination or up to your students; the service may occur at one community partner location or more than one. Process, deadlines and number of hours served would also be up to you.
• Large Group: As a class, you and your students would complete a service project at a community partner. Again, the project parameters are up to you, and final assignments could be individual or group.

Two: Exchange Approach

• Any student can have the choice of completing a service-learning project (and related academic work) instead of a paper, presentation or exam. You have the flexibility to determine project components related to the process, deadlines, number of service hours and even potential community partner service locations.

Three: Experience Approach

• Each semester, our office plans and hosts different signature campus events. Many classes connect with service-learning through this option. The biggest difference between this approach and others is that our office handles all the details of the experience.

Four: Independent Project Approach

• SCC Honors Contract in Service-learning: Any student can create an Honors Contract to complete service-learning in any one of your classes. Specific parameters are in place regarding the process, deadlines and number of service hours, and both the Honors Program and the Office of Service-learning & Leadership are available to help your student.

• PowerPoint
• Syllabus Statements
• Faculty Starter Kit on Canvas
• Service Learning Institute (Summer Professional Development)

Service-learning Committee

• Matt Healy, co-chair and English faculty
• Robert Martin, co-chair and Nutrition Faculty
• Sara Beakley-Mercill, Computer Information Systems Faculty
• Dr. Sheila Brandt, Computer Information Systems Faculty
• Dr. Jeff Butcher, English Faculty and SCC Honors Program Director
• Jamie Cooner, Forensic Science Faculty
• Sean Geraghty, Computer Information Systems Faculty
• Lori Wedding, Nursing Faculty
• Relindis Mawo, Chemistry Faculty
• Cindy Gemberling, Business faculty
• Mark Helzer, Nursing Faculty
• Danielle Stallings, Film Faculty
• Dr. Shana McCalla, Psychology Faculty
• Christina Novak, Music Faculty
• Carole Redden, Communication Faculty
• Kim Sabin, English Faculty
• Elizabeth Sage, Nursing Faculty
• Maria Saporito, Architecture Drafting Faculty
• Dr. Larry Tualla, English Faculty and department chair
• Kristine Alcon, Student Service Manager
• Kanisha Saunders, Student Service Analyst

For more info, stop by the Office of Student Experience and Leadership (SC-185) or email [email protected].

Campus Compact

The Campus Compact organization is dedicated to fulfilling the public purpose of higher education. When visiting this website, you will find it to be an outstanding resource for information on service-learning from colleges and universities all across the United States – project ideas, best practices, information on current issues, reflection activities, articles, books, and much more!

National Service-Learning Clearinghouse

The National Youth Leadership Council organization is said to be our nation’s largest library of service-learning resources. You can find tons of free information for K-12, higher education, community-based organizations and tribal communities. Visitors to the site are invited to learn, plan and connect.

Service-learning is a learning approach that involves students collaborating with faculty and community partners, such as non-governmental organizations or government agencies. Together, they develop a project that applies to the course content and community-based activities.

Community partners play a vital role in our SCC students' academic journeys. As a community partner, you have a unique chance to guide SCC students on broader social, cultural, and political topics that shape our world. Additionally, you can equip them with knowledge about the community or population they work with and the services they provide. This can help them better understand their work and the impact they can make.

Are you interested in becoming a community partner and working with our students? Please contact our office at (480) 423-6590, [email protected], or submit the Community Partner Information form.

• Provides human resources to meet needs
• Offers ways to expand services
• Renews sense of community and citizenship
• Enhances relationships with college
• Encourages participatory democracy
• Allows for contribution to educational process
• Enriches roles for supervisors

• Students support your organization and community needs!
• Students participating in service-learning can either come to your agency or create an event on campus through a class, group, or individual project.
• Students learn from you, your organization, and the community! As a professional in the field you have an opportunity to mentor those that will work alongside and after you.

You should note that, while related, service-learning is different than traditional volunteerism. Service-learning is a teaching-learning approach where equal value is placed upon the service to the community and the learning for the student.

At Scottsdale Community College, for a volunteer experience to be considered service-learning it must:

1. be intentionally connected to the curriculum;
2. meet a need determined by your agency;
3. be critically reflected upon by the service-learner (this is where the learning occurs); and,
4. be celebrated.

As a representative of your non-profit organization, you are able to assist with the first two steps.

Interested in becoming a community partner and working with our students? Please contact our office at (480) 423-6590, [email protected], or submit the Community Partner Information form.