Executive Summary
The Center for Community Service Learning at the University of Texas at Arlington was established in Fall 2001. This mission of the Center for Community Service Learning is to enhance learning and civic responsibility through community engagement. The Center offers resources and services to assist students and faculty to engage in service learning.
There is growing recognition that for community service learning to grow as a valued component of higher education, programs must be evaluated. Institutions committed to civic engagement and service learning must be able to demonstrate the impact of service learning on faculty, students and community participants to ensure program quality, to justify resource investments, and to inform the improvement and expansion of such programs.
Throughout the service-learning literature, there is repeated acknowledgement of the critical role and influence of faculty. The prominent features of quality service-learning depend for the most part on the faculty, including meaningful and adaptive placements, connections between subject matter and community issues, and experiences, critical reflection, and preparation for diversity and conflict (Eyler & Giles, 1999).
In an effort to improve program effectiveness faculty members engaged in service learning were surveyed during the Fall 2002 semester. Surveys were administered to faculty members who taught a service-learning course in Fall 2001, Spring 2002 or Fall 2002.
The faculty survey is intended to describe faculty members’ perspectives, motivations, concerns and attitudes on issues related to their experiences teaching a service-learning course. The information gained through the faculty survey is useful for purposes of planning faculty development programs and for recruiting faculty for service-learning courses.
This executive summary highlights the major findings from the Service-Learning Faculty Survey.
- Thirteen faculty members completed surveys during the Fall 2002 semester, and eight faculty members (61.54%) have been teaching at a postsecondary level for more than ten years.
- Of all respondents, 100% would be willing to teach this course again in the future, and 92.31% currently volunteer in the community.
- Overall, 100% of the faculty “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with the statements “The community participation aspect of this course helped students to see how the subject matter they learned can be used in everyday life”, and “The community work in this course helped students to better understand the lectures and readings in this class” (mean=4.77 and 4.75 respectively).
- On the survey, 100% of the faculty “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with the statement “I feel that the community work being done through this class benefited the community” (mean=4.92). This statement represents the highest-ranking mean.
- Overall, 100% of the faculty “disagreed” or “strongly disagreed” with the statement “I feel students would have learned more from this course if more time had been spent in the classroom instead of doing community work.”
- Overall, 100% of the faculty “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with the statements “I have a responsibility to serve my community”, “Most people can make a difference in the community”, and “I can make a difference in my community.”
- Faculty member were asked to rank their reasons for deciding to teach a service-learning course. The reasons ranked by faculty in order of importance were “Desire for increased relevance in courses”, “Have taught these courses before”, “Need to try something new”, and “Curiosity.”
- Faculty members were asked to rank serious concerns about teaching a service-learning course. The most serious concerns in order of importance were “Coordination of placements”, “Supervision of students”, “Unpredictable nature of community work”, and “Time constraints.”
- Faculty members were asked to rank the areas impacted by teaching a service-learning course. The areas of greatest impact in order of importance were “My relationships with students”, “Other classes I teach”, “My relationships with community partners”, and “My relationships with faculty colleagues.”
Reference
Eyler, J., & D.E. Giles (1999). Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Inc., Publishers.
