2008-2009 Service Learning Courses

FALL 2008

SPRING 2009

Fall 2008

EDUCATION 121: Social Foundations of Education
Professor Sarah Bair
The coursework includes a survey of the legal, philosophical, political, and sociological contexts of American education. Students examine the ideals and the day-to-day practices of the American education system through research on competing definitions of an educated person, the university and the community college, the comprehensive high school, school politics at the local, state, and national levels, the Supreme Court and desegregation, reform movements, and the teaching profession and teachers’ unions.

Student service relies on field placements in which students work directly with children and young adults in assigned settings. At site placements including Lamberton Middle School, the Dickinson College Children’s Center and Carlisle High School, students perform 20 hours of tutoring, homework help, observation or service as educational aides.

EDUCATION 221: Education Psychology
Professor Sarah Bair
The coursework includes an examination of physical, cognitive, and psychological developmental theories and research. Furthermore, theories of learning and their related current teaching practices in middle-school and secondary classrooms are surveyed. Issues related to inclusion, exceptionalities, race, class, gender, and multiple intelligences are explored.

Student service relies on field placements in which students interact with mentor teachers at various sites, including Carlisle High School, Cumberland Valley High School, Wilson Middle School and Lamberton Middle School. Throughout the semester, students research of topic of interest to their mentor teacher. At the conclusion of the semester, students present their findings during a research symposium and provide the mentor teacher with an annotated bibliography on the research topic.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Professor Candie Wilderman

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Art and Memory

Prof. Elizabeth Lee

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Growing a Healthy Community: The Story of One Community's Response to America's Health and Health Care Challenges

Professor David Sarcone

This seminar will explore one community’s response to inherent American health and health system problems. Since its formation in June 2001, a Carlisle area community health foundation, The Carlisle Health & Wellness Foundation (CAHWF), has led efforts to ensure the continuous improvement of the Carlisle area’s community health status by advocating for individual accountability and the elimination of barriers to health care services. Community stakeholders believe CAHWF’s efforts to improve the overall status of community health have been effective in the short run. The objectives of the seminar will be to answer the following two questions: Are there lessons from CAHWF’s early successes that may benefit other communities focused on community health improvement? Will CAHWF’s efforts lead to sustainable health status improvement in the Carlisle area community? 

HEALTH STUDIES 400: Senior Seminar

Prof. Dan Schubert

 

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT 110: Fundamentals of Accounting

Professor Michael Blue

 

MOSAIC: Black Liberation

History 211: History of the African American Civil Rights Movement

History 274: South African History

History 315: Comparative Oral Histories

Music 209: Ethnomusicology-Black Liberation Movements

Professors Jeremy Ball, Kim Rogers and Amy Wlodarski

SOCIOLOGY 313/ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 311: Venezuela: Sustainable Ago-Ecosystems and Cooperative Methods

Professors Susan Rose and Jennifer Halpin


SPANISH 239: Spanish for the Health Professions
Professor Wendell Smith
The coursework relies on developing skills in medical Spanish to tackle a pressing problem – the provision of culturally and linguistically competent healthcare to Spanish speakers.  Coursework educates students in appropriate vocabulary for medical settings, an understanding of the importance of language and culture to medicine, and the problems that arise from a cultural divide in healthcare delivery.  The class discusses language, public policy, anthropology, and sociology as such disciplines are related to cross-cultural healthcare.

Students are required to serve once a week in a setting where healthcare is being delivered to Spanish-speakers.  Many students accompany nurse practitioners from Keystone Migrant Health to labor camps for migrant fruit workers to register clients for health service at Keystone’s clinic in Gettysburg.  Students assist with filling out forms and paperwork for Spanish-speaking clients.  Bilingual students may serve at the Wellspan Health Connect van in Biglerville as receptionists and medical interpreters and help with paperwork and medical interpreting during patient appointments.  Other students will volunteer at the Hamilton Health clinic in Harrisburg serving as interpreters and providing document translation.

 

Spring 2008

EDUCATION 121: Social Foundations of Education
Professor Sarah Bair

The coursework includes a survey of the legal, philosophical, political, and sociological contexts of American education. Students examine the ideals and the day-to-day practices of the American education system through research on competing definitions of an educated person, the university and the community college, the comprehensive high school, school politics at the local, state, and national levels, the Supreme Court and desegregation, reform movements, and the teaching profession and teachers’ unions.

Student service relies on field placements in which students work directly with children and young adults in assigned settings. At site placements including Lamberton Middle School, the Dickinson College Children’s Center and Carlisle High School, students perform 20 hours of tutoring, homework help, observation or service as educational aides.

INTERCULTURAL SEMINAR, Dickinson's Program in Malaga, Spain
Professor Mark Aldrich

This intercultural seminar discusses ways that Malagans form community.  The community based research and learning component will focus on helping a group of Malagans restore and preserve a rural chapel on a mountain above the city.  This little chapel is very important to the community of people involved in 'verdiales', a kind of music that is 'native' to the countryside surrounding Malaga. The research component will involve researching the history of the chapel and trying to help the community document this treasure.  The students will spend three Saturdays on site at the chapel where they will get direct experience understanding how Malagans form community.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT 300-04: Fundamentals of Nonprofit Management
Professor David Sarcone
The major course components will include the following: a historical review of management theory to include a discussion on the similarities and differences between for profit management and nonprofit and public management; the governance of nonprofit organizations; nonprofit strategic management; nonprofit operational management; and the management of newly emerging models of nonprofit collaboration – the development of inter -organizational networks created to more effectively address complex and recurring community problems. The course will be taught utilizing Carlisle area community health care task force as the context for the course material. Students will be actively engaged in working with local organizations associated with the community health care task force.

LAW AND POLICY/ POLICY MANAGEMENT 200: Foundations in Policy Studies
Professor James Hoefler
The goal of the course is to educate students about the context of policy decisions that are made every day in the public and private sectors.  Students are encouraged to consider ethical, economic, and political factors in decision making in order for them to truly grapple with the difficult process of policy making.  Sustainability is a primary concept in the course because it is a theme from which many case studies dealing with ethics, economics, and politics emerge.

Students will work with a wide variety of community contacts ranging from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy to the Water Efficiency Technical Advisory Group for the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.  Students will interview clients and work closely with them to devise reports on how community partners can advance their sustainability initiatives.  Some possibilities include bringing Zipcars to Carlisle, creating a more Bike-friendly community, encouraging reuse and recycling, and methods for more LEED buildings.  The long-term goal of the course is to move beyond the college boundary in the promotion of a sustainability-conscious community.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 132: Environmental Science with Lab
Professor Candie Wilderman
The course provides an integrated, interdisciplinary study of natural environmental systems and the human impact on them.  Basic concepts of ecology and energy will be examined and utilized to study world resources, human population dynamics, pollution, and human environmental health. 

Student service will be provided through student conducted toxic release inventory audits.  The area known as Cancer Alley is located within a 100-mile stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana.  The area is home to over 100 industries and its residents face significantly high rates of cancer.  Local environmental and advocacy groups have requested toxic release inventory audits of many of the Cancer Alley industrial sites.  Students in the class will use published data to graph trends of chemical releases and emissions.  The students will contact individual companies and community groups before sending the data to the local environmental activists.  The data will ultimately be used to compile community health reports.

MOSAIC: South Asian Diaspora

American Studies 200: Gender, Narrative and the South Asian Diaspora

Sociology 230/Religion 260: Lived Religion and Inter-Group Relations in the Indian American Diaspora

Sociology/Anthropology 240: Qualitative Fieldwork--Researching Diasporic Communities

Sociology 230: Retracing Migration--Indian Society and Culture, Mumbai and Kerala

Professors Sharon O'Brien, Susan Rose and Shalom Staub