What is Civic Engagement?
Civic engagement is intentional and thoughtful activity to engage students toward active social and political involvement to build and strengthen the community.
What is Service-Learning?
Service-Learning: addresses a community need, promotes diversity, includes a curriculum connection and involves a partnership. There are several different levels of quality service-learning.
Why does the program value Civic Engagement?
Civic engagement is beyond connecting community work to course curriculum. Civic engagement is about moving activism and politics from the sidelines to the center of learning by allowing students to connect themselves to the work in the community and classroom in a substantive way.
One of the learning objectives for the program is to “contribute time, knowledge, skills to local, national, or global organizations whose work significantly impacts women and other social justice concerns” This learning objective directly related to connecting with the community. Civic engagement is an expectation of all students' learning and the course fits well within the program's mission and goals, deepens students' understanding by providing them with opportunities to apply academic skills and community experience to the world of public activism, and the public arena.