Six faculty members have joined more than a dozen others at West Virginia University to reach out to communities around the state through the courses they teach.
The six faculty members have been given the funding needed to create service-learning requirements in their courses, and in turn are helping communities across the state to address problems.
All of this is being made possible with the help of the Campus-Community LINK grant – valued at $30,000 – awarded to WVU’s Center for Civic Engagement through the West Virginia Campus Compact. This Campus Compact pilot program is funded by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and completed in partnership with the West Virginia Community Development Hub.
The grants were given to six colleges and universities around the state, including Concord University, Marshall University, Glenville State College, West Virginia Wesleyan College and Fairmont State University.
“This is absolutely the best thing we could get at this time,” said Kristi Wood-Turner, interim program director for WVU’s Center for Civic Engagement. “We have been working hard to bring civic engagement to academic affairs. This opportunity provides the incentive that faculty need to take that extra step.”
Click below to hear to Kristi Wood-Turner talk more about this opportunity.
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The six faculty members chosen to receive grant funding are:
• Kasi Jackson, Women’s Studies Jackson’s class will be working with a website being created, called OurMountainState.com
• Maja Holmes, Master’s in Public Administration Holmes’ students will be working with the mayor of Anstead to help figure out a way to get more businesses into the area.
• Joel Beeson, Journalism Beeson’s students will be working in McDowell County with the African-American Veterans Association.
• Jiyang Deng, Recreation, Parks and Tourism Resources Deng’s class will be helping Monroe County generate tourism.
• Torie Jackson, WVU- Parkersburg, Journalism; Jackson’s students will be working with Ritchie Progress Alliance in Ritchie County to produce tourism videos.
• Rita Colistra, Journalism; Colistra’s students will be working with the “Buy Local” campaign
Each faculty member was connected to a community that had registered a need with the West Virginia Community Development Hub.
“The Campus-Community LINK project is exciting for West Virginia,” said Franchesca Nestor, director of the West Virginia Campus Compact. “Communities who haven’t been able to work with colleges before are participating, stepping up to say: ‘We have this need, and we think colleges would be great partners in helping us find a solution.’ There’s a real appreciation from these communities, and a sense of true and equal partnership between them and the colleges as they work together. Bringing people together across boundaries to meet shared goals is what Campus Compact is all about, and that’s what we’re seeing here.”
The faculty members will spend the rest of the fall 2010 semester working with the community assigned to them to learn more about the problems the community is faced with. The faculty member will then design a course that would ultimately help to identify, or create, a solution to the problem.
The courses will be offered beginning in the spring of 2011.
Although the Campus-Community LINK is a pilot program, Wood-Turner is hopeful that the Center for Civic Engagement will be able to continue offering such options to faculty members to further promote service-learning.
“These relationships are so beneficial, not only for the communities but for the students and the state as a whole,” she said.
West Virginia Campus Compact, a statewide initiative of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, is a coalition of 27 colleges and universities dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement and service-learning in higher education.
For more information on WVU’s Center for Civic Engagement and the variety of service opportunities offered, visit http://cce.wvu.edu .
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