2009 Service Learning and Civic Engagment Poster Presentations

Desktop documentary making provides an opportunity for history to come alive for both history students and their communities.  Students become civically engaged by interviewing community members and visually documenting local areas of historic relevance in order to produce a visual narrative that may then be given back to the community through public presentation and preservation in community institutions.

A disparity exists between Americans’ support of scientific and technological advances and their working knowledge of the subject material. Despite growing interest, general science knowledge in the United States has not been improving. A recent study suggests nearly one-half of U.S. scientists do not participate in any form of public outreach or engaged learning practices. In addition, traditional methods of teaching science-based content often isolate the physical world from the artistic, cultural, and humanitarian aspects of our society. Here, I propose to develop a symposium series, conducted away from the UI campus, based upon topic areas identified by the local community as areas of interest and concern. The symposium will feature two seemingly distinct UI graduate student or faculty scholars: one from the lab or computational sciences and one from the Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences. Each scholar will engage the attendees in their work relative to the chosen theme to uncover deeper and perhaps more subtle ties between the two areas. The participants will interact with the scholars, and through a healthy dialogue, seemingly non-existent connections will be drawn in a reciprocal fashion. In this way, scientific research is not presented as an isolated lecture, but instead put into more accessible contexts where the learners become the teachers and vice-versa.

Acedia literally means the inability to care for much of anything and to be unaware that you possess this in-ability. Acedia is a phenomenon that denies one the simple joys of life. Acedia comes across, in our present society, as boredom, hectic, full schedules and a lack of concern for our neighbor. Historically, school and community counselors didn't have to deal with the type of client concerns that they are faced with today. Could this be a result of a lack of acedia? Acedia and the lack of knowledge about this phenomenon may be responsible for the heightened violence in our society and academic institutions. As most of the world is searching for answers to increased violence and decreased love let us not overlook this possible link to what we see happening in the world around us and to how our clients are reacting to these happenings. This program will look at counseling concerns several decades ago and counseling concerns today. We will unpack this mysterious phenomenon and discuss how acedia, depression, and God are all interconnected. Implications for Counselors, Counselor Educators and Counseling supervisors.

The current presentation is an abbreviated version of the diversity ambassadors workshops designed for students. The purpose is to help individuals from disciplines across the campus engage students in diversity work. Addressing the needs of the campus climate at the University of Iowa, the workshops emphasize six areas: personalizing the definitions of diversity, understanding individuals’ values and beliefs, characteristics that create diversity conflict, creating open direct communication, and cultural competency.  The student ambassadors represent various colleges on campus. They focus each workshop on the applicability of the content to their field of study; emphasizing how to implement diversity work within and beyond academia. The focus of the current presentation outlines methods to engage students in diversity work. Tools, tips, techniques, and exercises will be suggested as to what to include and how it is possible to engage students in diversity work. Finally, the content will emphasize bringing personal awareness to the participants’ skills, biases, and knowledge and creating an understanding of how they can engage other students in diversity work.

Although body of research in science learning theoretically emphasizes the important role of disciplinary engagement in learning science, practically creating an educational environment engaging students in science inquiry is one of the challenges in science education. The focus of this presentation is on the case of an elementary teacher in rural area of Iowa who has developed inquiry-based approach of teaching over five years. The first part of the presentation shows how students' authorship and accountability, as a sign of engagement and learning, in science inquiry have been improved in the classroom of that teacher. We conjectured that this improvement maybe related to some changes in the position of the teacher from teacher as "source of power and knowledge" to teacher as "learner and facilitator." In the second part of the presentation, the rational and advantages of further study on this case has been explained.

A resource to provide guidelines for supervisor’s who are responsible for preparing novice substance abuse counselors for credentialing. As an expected part of their job, supervisors are responsible for the professional development of counselors upon entry into a clinical position, and throughout clinical practice. It is also expected that novice counselors obtain credentialing within specific time frames which vary from state to state. The guidelines are developed from theoretical models of supervision, theoretical models of counseling, ethical and legal principles and specific areas of knowledge. Specific suggestions are given for supervisors to ensure appropriate supervision.

The Iowa City Film Project is a proposed collaboration between community- and university-based filmmakers and poets who attend the International Writing Program (IWP). The project would invite one of the visiting poets in the IWP to work on creating a short film while with the help of a production team. The poet would be challenged to form and describe in images his or her vision and the filmmakers would transform these imaginings into film/video images. The resulting film or video would be submitted to festivals in the US and abroad to expand the reach of this cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural dialogue.

War, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, immigration issues, economic meltdown - in times like these, one might wonder why we study literature. But as those who have worked in the trenches of these traumatic events will tell you, the art of sharing stories becomes essential in these times. In this proposed general education of literature course, my students will examine texts which speak to how the act of storytelling provides catharsis for those who are both directly and indirectly affected by traumatic events. This course will partner with a local non-profit agency in order to allow students the opportunity to witness first hand personal stories of struggle in their own community as they serve as volunteers for the organization. As they pursue their work, they will begin to collect stories. Through their own encounters and through conversations they have with staff members and other volunteers, students will piece together a literary picture of the agency. In partnership with the agency, students will determine a creative way to synthesize their collected stories. The finished collection will be an archive for the community partner to use as an asset for fund raising, grant writing, and volunteer recruitment.

"Fresh Threads of Connection: Mother Nature and British Women Writers," an exhibition currently on display in the Humanities Gallery of the Old Capitol Museum, is a joint project sponsored by the UI Museum of Art, UI Special Collections, the UI Department of English, the Old Capitol Museum, and local public libraries, in conjunction with the 2009 British Women Writers Conference, which will be hosted at the University in April. Designed to attract local elementary school field trips, reading groups, families, university classes, and scholars, the exhibit considers changing conceptions of nature within women's literature in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, and includes rare books and portraits of authors such as Mary Shelley, George Eliot, and Charlotte Bronte. Events held in conjunction with the exhibit include lectures by UI and visiting faculty, a parlour performance of Jane Austen's Emma, and a Peter Rabbit-themed petting zoo.

Prior to entering the profession, pre-service teachers take a required course devoted to understanding the implications of diverse student populations in their future classrooms. This presentation describes a curriculum that uses action research and service learning as methods to help teachers analyze the socialization processes beyond the school walls. Using participant observation and other data collection techniques during their time of service in community-based programs, pre-service teachers then analyze their data and determine a course of action to address the sources of limited educational opportunity. Participation in community-based programs better allows pre-service educators to see school institutions as component of society, rather than a stand-alone operation devoid of context.

In the study of American literature, those texts written from or about the American Midwest frequently take a backseat to the regional literature of other areas of the country.  Similarly, there is a general lack of knowledge or interest in the existence and survival of its prairie landscapes, both by those living within and outside of the Midwest.  Part of this may be due to the fact that, over the last two centuries, the native ecosystems of this region have been increasingly lost to the forces of industrialized agriculture, and so simply finding a native prairie is a difficult thing to do.  Furthermore, just as studies of regional literature tend to focus on coasts, mountains, and forests, so too have most large-scale preservation efforts as initiated by environmental groups in the last fifty years.  The project that I am proposing would seek to address these many issues by creating a literature course with three main objectives: reading texts written from our about the American Midwest, learning about the history and ecology of prairie landscapes, and actively engaging in prairie restoration efforts.  The overall goal of these activities is for students to acquire stronger aesthetic and ethical appreciation for prairie landscapes.

Café Symposium is an after-school program that engages high school students in philosophical discussion on topics of their choosing.  Through this challenging and complex social interaction, students gain a variety of skills important to success in their lives, including critical thinking, interpersonal communication, and the ability to appreciate diverse perspectives and ideas. Additionally, the skills and mentorship developed through this program will assist students as they begin to apply for and attend higher education institutions.

Since the earliest foundations of our public school system, civic education has been acknowledged as a critical component of the normative agenda. Even today, most schools explicitly articulate in their mission statement a commitment to the socio-civic development of their students. Unfortunately, most students' civic education is limited to courses in history and other disciplinary subjects within the social studies department. In these learning environments, civic education is often overshadowed by the prevailing disciplinary content. This format provides students with little opportunity to gain practical experiences as active community members.  To help enrich the civic education component of the school that I will ultimately work at, I intend to create a culture of civic engagement. My goal is to develop, or expand on an existing, service-based organization devoted to active engagement in the community. Service projects will be conceived by the students themselves, based on their own personal interests and concerns. Whenever possible the group will connect with community-level service organizations to establish cooperative partnerships and broaden the overall impact of the project. The idea is that if students have positive experiences associated with civic engagement, then they will be more likely to maintain these behaviors indefinitely.

As an increasing number of people join the World Wide Web, the potential dangers resulting from malicious attacks and unintentional actions increases. My project proposes the creation of a web site designed to be used by parents and their children. The website conveys the very basic tenets of web security. In order to improve the usability and educational nature of the website, I plan to partner with technology teachers who need the curriculum offered by the website to instruct their students in web security. In turn, these teachers will provide me with feedback based on their student's experiences with the website in the classroom.

What is dramaturgy?  An often unknown and ambiguous term, I will use this presentation to describe the historical context of dramaturgy, roles of dramaturgy in the American theatre, and emerging models of dramaturgy in the 21st century.  By examining dramaturgy etymological, historical, theatrical, and theoretical lenses, I plan to pose a central question: How can scholars and artists extend the implications of their work in the 21st century?  My process of using new media (wiki, facebook, myspace) in the art of theatre creation will be detailed to give examples of ways that dramaturgy inhabits American society and ways that the academy can spread research for the people to the people.

An extension of my artistic practice is civic engagement. Since 2005, I have been the creative director of Iowa City Senior Center Television (ICSCTV) where a dozen crewmembers, ranging from sixty-five to eighty years in age, create six hours of television each month for the Internet and three public access channels. In 2006, I launched the "Linn Street Intergenerational Collective," a series of short and long term collaborative video projects with the Senior Center video crew and students from the University of Iowa. For these collaborations, which have resulted in programs about race, gender, sexuality and politics, I act as a facilitator, producer and teacher rather than a filmmaker. The ultimate goal of the "Linn Street Collective" lies not only in the videos that the intergenerational producers create, but also in the conversations that occur and the personal reflections that result while making the videos. This collective has offered an opportunity to individuals who have traditionally been socially segregated by age to share their personal stories and, in doing so, gain a renewed sense of who they are and the society in which they live. Since it's launch, this project has produced over forty videos with graduate and undergraduate students from five different departments.

Governments, non-profit social service providers, schools, health care providers, and other partners of service learning and public scholarship often have unmet information needs. Research institutions and institutions of higher education struggle with how to evaluate public scholarship in terms of its impact. Decision makers in post secondary education struggle with how to assess the learning impact of service learning. In addition there is no evaluation on the impact for underrepresented clients, stakeholders, beneficiaries, or consumers of the community partners of academic public engagement. Meeting information needs will allow the partners of academic public engagement to improve their operations. Meeting information needs also can help decision makers in higher education and research institutions to make sound judgments on the worth and merit of academic public engagement. This project proposes to collaborate with academics doing community engagement and their community partners to integrate rigorous evaluation designs into their projects. An evaluator would guide community and academic partners in framing evaluation questions that would help to answer their most important information need, and all parties would collaborate in implementing a data collection design to be used in evaluating the academic engagement project.

Two years ago I began volunteering in the Four Oaks facility that houses homeless teens ages 11-17 in Iowa City. Though I was initially asked to teach yoga, in the back of my mind brewed a far more ambitious plan: I wanted the impassioned peers in my graduate writing program at UI to work with these teens. Why? As overworked and underpaid we graduate students feel to be, we have much to contribute and learn by working iwth marginalized populations. I was convinced that not only would at-risk teens gain invaluable reading and writing skills, but by working with writers/artists the teens would be given the opportunity to channel their energy into an artistic field that potentially engenders a postitive identity. Last spring six graduate students from various writing programs partnered with Four Oaks to teach weekly creative writing and reading workshops. It sounds romantic. It was not. Some of us worked in the evening and some during school hours, coordinating our assignments with the in-house teachers. One week a nine year old girl worte, "I want to be a writer when i grow up and that would be just great for me." At the end of the semester we created a 24 page book of their work.

In response to the alarming news that the Iowa River is the third most endangered river in the country, MFA playwright Andrew P. Saito proposes to conduct oral histories of farmers and other residents from various communities in the Iowa River watershed.  The oral histories will shed perspectives on both the current, polluted state of the river, contributing behaviors, and ideas for concrete actions that can be taken to alleviate the situation.  The oral histories will serve as primary texts for the creation of a play, which will be performed in the communities of origin, serving as a springboard for engaged cross-community, regional dialog about what can be done.

This poster describes efforts to engage undergraduate students using service learning projects in classes across the University of Iowa campus.  First, selected service project guidelines are outlined and issues related to identifying and enlisting community partners are discussed.  Next, examples of particularly noteworthy student projects are presented.  Finally, qualitative and quantitative feedback collected from students 2-3 months after they completed a course with a service learning component is analyzed.   The analysis suggests that many Iowa students find service learning experiences to be beneficial, memorable, and engaging, particularly when projects are closely connected to course objectives.