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 | FAQs for Community Partners
 What is CCELL?
What is service-learning?
What kinds of service do service-learners provide?
What are some examples?
How is service-learning different from volunteerism or internships?
How can community agencies or groups get involved?
Where can I find forms to record or evaluate service?
What is CCELL?
CCELL helps Faculty, Students, and Community Partners build mutually beneficial community-classroom partnerships.
The Center for Community Engagement, Learning, and Leadership:
- promotes Community Engagement by serving as a clearinghouse for Service-Learning pedagogy and community partnerships;
- promotes Learning by informing and helping to coordinate planning, research, pedagogy, and assessment associated with Service-Learning and other innovative student learning initiatives; and
- develops student Leadership skills by facilitating service-learning and related student initiatives.
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What is service-learning?
Service-learning is a method of teaching and learning in which students fulfill the learning goals of their academic courses while serving the community. Service-learning emphasizes hands-on experiences that address real world concerns as a venue for educational growth. The service experience provides a context for testing, observing, or trying out discipline-based theories, concepts, or skills. Likewise, the academic context enriches the service experience by raising questions about real-world concerns and providing a forum for probing these concerns in-depth.
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What kinds of service do service-learners provide?
There are two kinds of service. For both types, students should be able to relate their work directly to the mission of your organization.
- Deliverable projects are service projects that require the completion of some project as the service goal. An example of this sort of service project is business writing students writing grant proposals for a local nonprofit organization. It is the end product, the finished grant proposal, which is required for the completion of the project, not a certain number of service hours. Projects must be well defined. Students must be provided with information and access to a knowledgeable individual who can answer their questions.
- Placement projects are service projects that require a number of hours of service as the service goal. Placement projects should have consistent hours so that students can serve regularly throughout the academic semester.
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What are some examples?
- Veterinary medicine, kinesiology, chemistry, and theater students worked in inner-city classrooms to reinforce K-12 institutional standards.
- Biological engineering students collaborated with elementary school students to design and construct environmentally sensitive playgrounds and butterfly gardens.
- Business students developed job descriptions and interview protocols for nonprofit organizations.
- Technical writing students prepared successful grant proposals for local nonprofits and public schools.
- Education, English, and math students served as tutors and mentors in public schools and community-based after-school care programs.
- Social work and communication students contributed to programs that support battered women, neglected or abused children, and family development.
- Landscape architecture, interior design, and English students worked together to develop environmental education program resources for a public nature center.
- Information systems and decisions sciences student teams designed and implemented software development projects for nonprofit organizations.
- Environmental studies students developed disaster management plans for public facilities.
- Architecture students assembled plans, designs, and a website to facilitate community development and communication.
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How is service-learning different from volunteerism or internships?
- Service-Learning is designed to benefit both the student and the community. The service activities meet community needs and enhance student understanding of course content. Service goals are aligned with learning objectives.
- Volunteerism and community service activities are designed to benefit the community. The benefit to the student is limited to learning how service makes a difference in the lives of the service recipients.
- Practicums, field education, internships, and co-op education are designed to benefit the student by providing experience in a particular field of study. The student typically works in the private sector rather than for a nonprofit and may even be paid for the work.
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How can community agencies or groups get involved?
Call 578-9264 or email ccell@lsu.edu
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Where can I find forms to record or evaluate service?
Click here to see forms.
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