About the Center
What is Service-Learning?
Service-learning is an experiential teaching method that intentionally integrates academic learning and relevant community service.
Through providing service for a community agency or school, students take part in activities in which both the server and those being served teach and learn. Students, faculty, and community members are interconnected partners and each play a critical part in this dynamic process.
The student contributes knowledge, energy, and ideas to the community, and in return, the community provides the student with real-life experiences and observations. The faculty then integrates the experience into course curricula to facilitate learning.
Service-Learning Distinctives
Academic: Integrated into course goals and outcomes
Reciprocal: Community partners and students teach and learn from each other
Making a Difference: Service-learning activities meet real needs
Service-Learning at APU
Organize for Excellence
The center, as an academic unit, is unique in its dependence on the skill
and commitment of both undergraduate and graduate students to organize, manage,
and ensure quality service-learning experiences across the campus.
“Each activity I have helped facilitate has taught me to put the
needs of others before my own. Through participating in service-learning,
I feel better prepared to make a positive impact.”
- Tiffanie Montgomery, undergraduate service-learning advocate
Empower Students
The center, as a member of National Campus
Compact, enables students to move from theory to practice, preparing them
for a lifetime of learning, service, and civic engagement.
“Instead of simply reading about marketing research in a textbook,
our class got to do real marketing research for city planners and present
our findings to them.”
- Megan Klingensmith, marketing major
Build Community
The center facilitates collaboration between the university and the community,
with other institutions of higher education, and across academic disciplines.
“The greatest benefit has been the development of trust, understanding,
and friendship between the senior citizens and APU students, two important
groups of our community that otherwise would not interact.”
- Heath Hamilton, recreation superintendent for the Azusa Senior Center
Serve Faculty
The center assists faculty in integrating a service-learning component in
their course curriculum that develops service opportunities, trains and orients
students, assists in reflection and evaluation, and supports research and
publication.
“It continues to be a highlight of the class, helping students learn
through real case scenarios. Service-learning reinforces the classroom experience
as legitimate.”
- Jim Thompson, Ed.D., art professor
Enhance Scholarship
The center promotes APU’s culture of scholarship throughout both campus
and community by learning, using, and sharing knowledge gained from service-learning
through conference presentations, undergraduate and graduate research, faculty
publications, and evaluation research.
“My experiences guiding my students in service-learning have energized
my own research and writing to discover more ways service-learning can support
my students’ learning.”
- Karen Sorensen, M.A., journalism professor
