Spring10 FIG-3 Acquiring Empowerment and Activist Skills

Area: Service Learning

Participants:

Matt FreemanStephanie Sanders-Badt
Juana Alicia Montoya
Katie Koelle

Research Question:

How does this project help you feel a sense of empowerment and what activist skills did you acquire that you can apply beyond this semester?

Findings:

Student response on student empowerment:

  1. Increased student awareness of their capacity to work towards positive social change;
  2. Increased ability to take knowledge and skills learned in the classroom into the world;
  3. Increased overall self-confidence and awareness, especially around personal, community, or social issues.

Activist and organizing skills acquired during projects:

  1. Improved work with others (classmates, community members, etc.);
  2. Practiced planning and implementing projects;
  3. Understood the difficulty of gathering resources;
  4. Synthesized ideas as a part of planning project.

Resolutions:

  1. Instructors would like to build a more diverse and inter-disciplinary team of faculty who use service learning into their classes;
  2. Acquire faculty release time for future development;
  3. Host a staff development flex day in spring 2011.

Project Report: