SERVE
Service, Experience, Reflection and Vocation in Education

Program Description

The Guilford Initiative on Faith and Practice and its co-sponsors, the Department of Career and Community Learning and the Faculty Development Committee, are pleased to announce the continuation of a new professional development program:  SERVE -- Service, Experience, Reflection and Vocation in Education. All faculty and staff who work closely with students, are cordially invited to take part. Set to begin again Fall 2005 and run through Spring of 2007 (2006 for staff participants), SERVE will enable its participants to strengthen Guilford 's curriculum, the educational experience of our students, and the college's mission.

Guilford 's strategic long range plan calls for dramatically increased integration of co-curricular experiences into the courses we offer, through the creation by 2006 of two major initiatives:  the Center for Principled Problem Solving and the Guilford Challenge. For those faculty and staff who will work most directly on these initiatives, SERVE provides an opportunity to explore the fusion of experiential learning with traditional academics at the level of personal experience before we generate institutionalized programs. By offering significant financial support to its participants, the program will create collegial space for faculty and staff to think, reflect and discuss the art of excellence in teaching and course creation.   SERVE will also enhance our efforts to provide students with the skills and experience to explore and discern their diverse vocations in life. Finally, SERVE will provide a new context for community building through deeply meaningful connections among faculty, staff and students.

The two-year cycle of the project is divided into three parts:  a training phase, a course development phase, and an implementation and assessment phase.

Phase One

During the 05-06 academic year, faculty participants will attend eight workshops (see calendar below) for which they will receive a $700 stipend. To receive the stipend, faculty must attend 3 of 4 workshops each semester and will receive half the stipend for attending 6 workshops and the entire amount for attending all 8. Staff participants who attend the 6 workshops designated for staff will receive a $300 stipend, prorated for absences.

The workshops will train participants in three essential areas:

1. Understanding and effectively integrating experiential and service learning elements into academic courses
2. Utilizing available campus resources to support teaching and learning in this exciting new context
3. Assisting students with vocational reflection and discernment on their co-curricular experiences in these courses

Some of the workshops will be video-taped to allow for make-up options. Each workshop will also be open (without compensation) to colleagues from Guilford.

Phase Two

Faculty participants will spend the summer of 2006 modifying an existing course, adding either a service learning or an experiential learning component and a vocational discernment component. Although we do not want to encourage this option, faculty so interested may instead develop a new course, in consultation with their respective departmental colleagues (to make sure it fits curricular needs within the department), the curriculum committee and with the director of the Guilford Initiative.

Phase Three

Faculty participants will teach their new courses once during the 06-07 academic year and participate in assessment on completion, along with the Initiative director and the director of Community Learning, and other designated faculty and administrators. Upon completion of phase three, faculty members who modify an existing course will receive a $1700 stipend and up to $300 in course related expenses (books, travel, field trips, meals for class, etc). Anyone who develops a new course would receive a stipend of $2000 plus $300 for related expenses. Several times during the course of Phase Three, Faculty Development Committee will offer discussion opportunities for SERVE participants to explore problems and opportunities.

Faculty who elect to teach their new or revised courses again the following year will receive $500 and up to $200 in course-related expenses upon completion of assessment. Our long-range goal is that these courses will become a permanent part of the curriculum.

Staff participants will not be asked to undertake any specific SERVE-related tasks. Instead, by participating in the workshops they will become stronger mentors to the students they serve in diverse co-curricular activities. Our hope also is to create a richer dialogue and sense of colleagueship between faculty and staff who share the work of preparing our students to engage the world most richly. Finally, we want to honor the value of co-curricular teaching at Guilford .

The Application Process

All Guilford faculty and interested staff will be invited to the opening workshop in September as an open-ended opportunity to consider the project in some depth. During the following two weeks, interested faculty will be asked to complete an application form, indicating commitment to participate fully in all three phases of the project. Faculty who would like to add a course will submit an additional application to their respective department chairs and to the director of the Guilford Initiative for approval.

Interested staff will need to complete a proposal form and submit it to their supervisor (for time release during the four relevant workshops) and the director of the Guilford Initiative. Although no staff member will be discouraged from submitting an application, we are particularly interested in inviting staff who work closely with students in a mentoring relationship of some kind.

Impact on Students

Beyond registering for these new courses, students will be affected by this project in a number of ways. First, all students enrolled in one of these courses will participate in Community Learning's volunteer training retreat (scheduled at the beginning of each semester). Second, participating faculty who so choose may require their students to register for an I-300 internship (a modified version of the current I-290 internship) as a way of meeting SERVE requirements for experiential learning and vocational discernment. Third, we recommend that each of these courses add a Community Learning teaching assistant to assist enrolled students in adjusting to their internship sites.

A Timeline for SERVE Training, 2005-2006

Where two sessions of the same workshop are offered, attendees are free to choose the session most convenient for them.

Aug. 16	SERVE announcement at opening faculty/staff meeting
Sept. 2, 2:15pm-5:15pm	Introductory Workshop on Service Learning (Scott Pierce Coleman and James Shields)
Sept. 23, 5pm	Deadline for applications, submitted to Leslie Essien (lessien@guilford.edu)
Oct. 7, 2:15pm-5:15pm	Alumni Reflections on Service Learning (Blaine Lukkar)
Nov. 4, 3:30-5:30pm	Curriculum Development Workshop (Patti Clayton)
TBA	*Wednesday, two occasions during the first semester, James Shields will take participants to current sites
*Jan. 13, 2:15pm-5:15pm	Reflection and Self-Care workshop (Deborah Shaw)
*Feb. 3, 2:15pm-5:15pm	Gifts workshop (Initiative Staff)
*Feb. 17, 2:15pm-5:15pm	Listening/Clearness Committees workshop (Deborah Shaw)
*Mar. 18, 9am-3pm	Wrap-up Workshop (Garry Hesser)

NOTE: Staff participants would be asked to attend the spring semester workshops denoted by an asterisk (*).

Information about Workshop Speakers

Scott Pierce Coleman graduated from Amherst College and earned an M.A. from the Earlham School of Religion, where he first came into contact with Quakerism. He spent his first three years of teaching in Japan but has spent the past fifteen years working in Quaker education at both the secondary and post-secondary level. In addition to teaching, Scott has served over the past decade as dean of students, academic dean and coach, as well as admissions counselor. He currently directs the Initiative on Faith and Practice and the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program at Guilford .

Patti Clayton is Coordinator of the NC State Service Learning Program and a Visiting Lecturer in College of humanities and Social Science. Patti has provided leadership to the Service Leadership Program since its inception in 1999: developing and co-facilitating faculty development workshops and reflection leader training, co-authoring the programs, co-authoring the program's reflection framework and its assessment strategy, supporting a campus-wide strategic planning process, and integrating service-learning in all of her own sources. She also works with other colleagues and universities on the development, implementation, and refinement of their service-learning initiatives.

Garry Hesser is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Division of Social and Natural Sciences at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is past president of the National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) and has led workshops on service-learning and experiential education on over fifty campuses and at professional meetings, including AAHE, AC&U, CIC, Campus Compact, and American Sociological Association. He is the author of Experiential Education as a Liberating Art, among other publications.

Blaine Lukkar is Coordinator of Guilford's Interdisciplinary Leadership for Social Change program and is also on the staff of the Initiative on Faith and Practice. He is a 2000 Guilford alum. Blaine served as Resident Director of Guilford 's Guadalajara program and moved back to Greensboro in January of 2005 after working with Guilford students in Guadalajara for the last three years. One of Blaine 's primary focuses is working to solidify relationships between alumni and current students.

Deborah Shaw shares her time between the Guilford Initiative on Faith and Practice and Friends Center . She has kept a personal journal for years and often advises students in journal keeping to aid in their reflection and spiritual discernment. Deborah has also shared with many groups about the 'clearness committee' as a tool of discernment.

James Shields directs the Community Learning Center at Guilford. In addition to supervising the Bonner Scholars, he oversees volunteer groups working on prison literacy and AIDS, he also teaches about the Underground Railroad, both conventionally and as a stage actor.