Service-Learning Celebration, Fall 2014

Yesterday, seven of my first-year writing students presented their service-learning projects at UNCA's Service-Learning Celebration. I always enjoy walking around the Sherrill Center concourse, looking at the different posters and learning about the projects, but this semester the event felt especially energized.

Not only was I proud of my current students, but as I walked around, I saw a number of former students who had gone on to take other service-learning projects, one of them even presenting his final project for completion of the Key Center's Community Engaged Scholar honor. The students I spoke to all spoke of their passion for getting off-campus, getting out into the community, and, as Selena Hileman said in her opening address, "getting their hands dirty." 

As I wandered the concourse I spoke to students working with ABYSA's afterschool program, Brother Wolf, and ASAP; students passionate about sharing their love of chemistry with middle school kids from rural areas, raising awareness of second-hand smoke on our campus, and helping queer adolescents tell their stories through theater. A colleague of mine voiced the general feeling of amazement, commenting on the sheer number of service-learning projects taking place on UNCA's campus. It was truly inspirational! A big thanks to all the students and community partners who participated :)   

UNCA News Center Article

Check out the UNCA News Center article about our food project!

Gleaning

Yesterday, my students and I took our second gleaning trip this semester to a farm in Hendersonville, NC. We ended up with 40 students, filling two UNCA shuttle buses and several cars. It was another chilly but gorgeous WNC day, and in a mere 3 hours at the farm, we managed to glean 4,000 pounds of apples, a large crate of cabbages, and another one of pumpkins. I'm so proud of the efforts of these first-semester freshmen!

Thanks to our community partner, Society of St. Andrew, we were able to load the produce right into Rose of Sharon Mission's truck. I had met Charles and Wilene Williamson, the General Directors of the mission, on our last gleaning trip, and I was excited to see them again and asked about the 2,500 pounds of apples we'd gathered for their organization two weeks ago. Mr. Williamson smiled and told me that the people he and his wife served out in Canton were really excited to have the fresh fruit, but that it was long gone. Hopefully, what we were able to gather yesterday will last a bit longer, but the reality is that there will be little more to harvest in the months to come, and many families in WNC will be forced to subsist on what canned goods and packaged, processed foods they can get through the winter.

I'm excited to work with the Society of St. Andrew with my classes again next fall, but as there will be nothing ready to glean during the spring semester, I'll be looking for other ways to support the organizations in our community that work to make real food accessible to as many people as possible.  My students will continue their work in the community gardens at UNCA which the Student Environmental Center is hoping to expand enough to provide for local food banks, but I'd like to explore off campus opportunities as well. I welcome any and all suggestions!

Food Matters: Cultivating a New Plot

In the past, I have always given my first-year writing students the opportunity to focus their semester on a topic of their choosing and then attempted to find corresponding community partners so that their service and topics were as closely related as possible.  I feel strongly about providing opportunities for student choice since, as Donald Murray urges in “All Writing Is Autobiography,” it allows students to focus and develop their own passions and they are therefore more invested in their written work (73).  I am also, however, concerned with the correlation between my students’ service and their topics.  As Nutefall argues in “The Relationship between Service Learning and Research,” “The theme-based approach . . . is based on the ‘assumption that good writing and good research happen when students consider the writing/research process within a particular context, with a particular purpose, and with a particular audience’” (252).  As much as I have tried to connect students with service-learning projects that are meaningfully related to their topics and as hard as I have tried to base our class discussions around readings related to community and service, at times I have still felt a disconnect between students’ writing and their experiences in the community.

Based on these observations and concerns, I have decided to try a different approach in my service-learning classes this semester, initiating a theme-based structure in which all students are writing on similar topics and participating in the same service-learning projects while still attempting to preserve an element of choice in the class.  This has enabled me to choose readings that will be intricately related to both student writing and community involvement. Working with a colleague and the UNCA Key Center, I developed a first-year writing course titled "Food Matters" through which my students can explore the complex issues surrounding food production and accessibility through reading, writing, research, and service in the community.

This semester, my students have been working with the UNCA Student Environmental Center cultivating and maintaining the three community gardens on campus as well as gleaning produce at local farms. So far it's been a rewarding adventure! 

Service-Learning Celebration, Spring 2014

Last semester, an unfortunate raccoon thwarted the Undergraduate Research Symposium and Service-Learning Celebration when he fell into the electric transformer facility and shut down power to the campus.  This semester, however, we were back on track with both events.  My service-learning classes took full advantage of this opportunity to share their work with a wider audience with twenty students presenting at the celebration.  A big thanks to the student presenters, the community partners, and the UNCA Key Center!

Service-Learning Celebration, Spring 2014

This semester, twenty students from my two service-learning designated classes volunteered to present their projects at the Service-Learning Celebration!  While the turnout for the event was less than expected, the students did a wonderful job presenting their work and talking with the community members and students in attendance.