PROVO -- For years, students at Brigham Young University have volunteered for countless hours of community service. Law students visit senior citizen centers to advise the elderly about wills and trusts. English students write handbooks and manuals for nonprofit organizations. Public relations majors plan campaigns and raise money for worthy causes.
But only recently has there been a thrust from school administrators to formally implement a relatively new concept that is widely known in academic circles as "service learning."Numerous universities throughout the nation, including the University of Utah, have created service learning centers in an attempt to enhance student understanding by joining classroom theory with out-of-classroom action.
Many BYU professors and administrators believe service learning and the school's mission go hand-in-hand. Selfless service, after all, is found at the core of the gospel taught and espoused by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns BYU.
"With the motto, 'Enter to learn, go forth to serve,' BYU offers a natural environment for the concept of service learning," says President Merrill J. Bateman, who first became acquainted with the formal theory of service learning while serving as dean of BYU's School of Management 20 years ago. "Our goal has always been to prepare our students for lifelong service."
As a longtime professor and chair of the Health Sciences Department, Dr. Keith Karren has been concerned that the information being shared in his courses wasn't being applied to a real-life setting. Earlier this year, he read an article about service learning in a professional journal and became intrigued.
Not long after that, Bateman addressed faculty members about the importance of implementing a structured service learning curriculum. That was enough to spark Karren to study service learning in-depth.
"The criticism we've had from students is that the course content was wonderful, but they weren't able to apply what they were doing in the real world," Karren says. "Service learning is an instrument that would allow us to do it. It's not a fad. I'm a neophyte, but I realize its tremendous potential for us."
Karren was granted a professional development leave this semester to gather as much information as possible on service learning.
Armed with enthusiasm and 27 years of teaching experience, Karren has spent the past few months immersed in the study of service learning, having visited schools with established service learning centers, like the one at the University of Maryland and the University of Utah's Bennion Center.
"They've been a big help," Karren says. He has also attended national conferences on the subject.
Because the school is in the beginning stages of coordinating service learning efforts, the methods of implementing the project are not yet known.
"We are exploring different ways to help the departments and faculty go into communities and provide service," says student leadership director Paul Warner.
Creating a organization similar to the U.'s Bennion Center "is a distinct possibility in the future," Karren says. He favors working through the faculty center and appointing a university service learning coordinator who would oversee and assist each department at the university in setting up service learning classes.
And, like at other schools, students could be required to take service learning classes to earn a diploma. "I would love to see that happen here, for students to document their service in the community to graduate," Karren says.
For now, new service learning-oriented classes are being added to the class schedule all the time. Administrators and teachers emphasize that service learning is not merely gathering a group of students on a Saturday afternoon and performing manual labor and then moving on.
"It integrates community service with academic learning," Karren says. "It needs to involve students, faculty and the community and should be connected to what's being learned in the courses. The most important aspect is reflection. After service, class discussions must be conducted. They must be an organized, introspective activity."