The Office of Service-Learning has chosen its second group of fellows for the 2006-2007 academic year. Five faculty members were selected for their interest in promoting service and civic engagement at UGA and integrating such pedagogy in their teaching and research.
“The Service-Learning Fellows are innovative scholars who are redefining the boundaries of faculty work by strengthening and deepening student learning through community engagement,” said Shannon Wilder, coordinator for the Office of Service-Learning, which opened in 2005. “Their work in community-centered teaching, research and service embodies the true spirit of our most deeply held values as a public institution.”
The five fellows, awarded up to $3,000 each to develop their service-learning projects or courses, are Diane Bales and Denise Lewis, child and family development department in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences; Danny Bivins, Fanning Institute; Chris Cook, clinical and administrative pharmacy department in the College of Pharmacy; and Alfie Vick, College of Environment and Design.
The fellows will investigate how community-oriented activities conducted by UGA students impact their learning experience and how service-learning projects and courses bring academia and the community closer together in finding solutions to social and economic problems. The fellows’ projects include internally- and externally-focused programs.
Child and family development students will visit residents of personal care homes and evaluate the personal and social influences such interactions have on the people involved in Lewis’ Friendly Visitors program.
Journalism and environment and design faculty and students will continue environmental and community development along the Chattahoochee corridor through Bivin’s project, a three-year regional initiative of UGA’s Fanning Institute.
Bales will lead a service-learning task force of family and consumer science faculty and students. She also will develop a mentoring program for teen parents at Classic City High School: A Performance Learning Center.
Pharmacy students in Cook’s project will be involved in activities to increase access to healthcare resources and education on preventative medicine, chronic disease management and medication choices for senior citizens and underserved populations.
Vick’s landscape architecture students will plan and set up a rain garden-a shallow depression surrounded by native plants that slows, captures and infiltrates rainwater-in a selected low-income area of Athens-Clarke County.
The new fellows join the inaugural group of fellows in joint meetings and events planned throughout the year. “We want to create an extended faculty learning community around service learning where connections are made and ideas shared,” said Wilder.
