Campus Community Collaborations
Examples & Resources for Community Colleges

Well-designed service-learning projects try to match the learning goals of a particular course with identified needs in the community. At the same time, well-organized service projects designed outside the classroom to meet specific needs can also lead to the overall strengthening of service-learning programs. A brief overview of Glendale Community College's efforts to create a collaborative partnership with its neighboring K-12 district should illustrate some of the challenges encountered when designing and implementing both types of service-learning projects.

In fall 1994, just after Glendale Community College received a grant from the Corporation for National Service to start its Volunteer and Service-Learning Center, two faculty members from our English Department approached the Center's staff looking for a way to improve the reading skills of their students. Together they developed a project for a course, two levels below freshman composition, that focuses on the development of reading and writing skills. By having their students read to children in after-school programs at grammar schools, the instructors expected their students to strengthen their own reading abilities while helping the children learn to read better. The resulting service project was called Read Aloud.

A different kind of service project in a K-12 setting, the Roosevelt Middle School Team Mentoring Program, was initiated by the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center and the Glendale Unified School District in spring 1995. The program is designed to fill a previously identified need for the after-school mentoring of middle school students within the school district. Working in teams of three--including a college student, middle school teacher and community member--mentors at Roosevelt Middle School work with approximately eighty middle school students every other week.

These approaches to service-learning vary greatly--one is faculty driven and the other more community driven. In both cases the projects are designed to meet needs in K-12 schools while providing college students with meaningful service experiences. Yet, as described below, the way a service project is conceived and implemented has important consequences for how the program will evolve.

The service-learning collaborative created by Glendale Community College and the Glendale Unified School District in September 1994 has led to the placement of more than two hundred college students volunteering within the school district. During the 1995-96 academic year, more than four hundred children in school district programs benefited from the collaboration. Planning for the collaboration began in October 1993 when the Glendale Unified School District approached the college about the idea of setting up a shared volunteer center. The idea was to have the center facilitate the placement of college students and community members in volunteer positions within the school district while at the same time introducing service-learning into the college curriculum. As the discussions evolved, the college became interested in developing a service-learning program that would relate students' volunteer experiences in the community to their academic program. The school district was interested both in getting more volunteers involved in the schools and in the promotion of service-learning projects for their K-12 students.

Returning to a discussion of the faculty-initiated project Read Aloud, it's interesting to trace the program's evolution over the last three semesters. By the spring 1996 semester, the project--which has college students read to children in after-school child care centers--was no longer offered as a part of the original basic skills English course for which it was designed. Instead, project Read Aloud was offered as an option for students in three different courses, including sections of Child Development, Children's Literature and Spanish. After conceiving of the projects as a way to boost the reading skills of their students, the two English instructors worked with the college's volunteer center to identify several elementary school sites with after-school child care centers. Sites were originally chosen based on the convenience of location and the level of interest in the program among the child care center's staff. It was decided originally that the college students would read to children who were within the level of grades four through six. Over the course of the first semester, in the spring of 1995, two important lessons emerged: Staff at some of the centers were much more receptive to the program and therefore to the college students' needs to learn through reading, and, in general, the college students were intimidated by the strong reading skills of many of the children. The program, designed partially to boost the confidence of these college students from a basic skills English class wasn't working.

In consultation with the volunteer center's staff, the instructors decided to send their students to the much needier and younger children in the Glendale Unified School District's Even Start program. These children ranged in age from three to six. Even Start targets young children from immigrant families receiving funding through Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The program takes a family literacy approach. In most cases, the children come from families in which their parents are not literate in their own primary languages, let alone English. Although the Even Start program's staff were organized and eager to have tutors, their children's English comprehension abilities were so low in most cases that it was hard for the college students to read to them in English. After two semesters of having their students read to very different groups of children, the English instructors decided to take a break from project Read Aloud.

But a need had been recognized within the school district's after-school programs. Both Even Start centers and other after-school child care centers wanted college students to read to their children. College faculty from an introductory Child Development class, a Children's Literature class and a Spanish class came to the rescue in the spring 1996 semester. The Child Development students gain valuable exposure to young children while working in Even Start centers. Many of the students in the college's Child Development program are bilingual, sharing the same first language as the families in Even Start. Students from the college's Children's Literature class have greatly enjoyed selecting materials and then reading to kids in after-school child care centers at several elementary schools. Students from this class have stronger English skills than those from the basic skills course. The match has worked out well, and even more students are expected to participate in the fall 1996 semester. Several students from a Spanish class were able to practice their language skills while reading to children in Even Start centers. The children do not speak English and many of their parents are also illiterate in Spanish. The college students get an excellent opportunity to practice their Spanish conversation skills, creating another good match. More students are expected to continue reading in Spanish in the fall 1996 semester. Project Read Aloud served approximately 250 children within the Glendale Unified School District during the 1995-96 academic year.

Faculty from the college's English as a Second Language (ESL) division have also worked with the volunteer center's staff and are now placing advanced ESL students in the program. Participating ESL faculty see a benefit to their students both in terms of improving their reading and conversation skills while they volunteer and in terms of improving their writing skills through the process of written reflection about the experience. The experience of reading to the children often gives participating ESL students a visceral experience to write about.

An example of a co-curricular approach to service-learning, the Team Mentoring Program now takes place at two middle schools within the unified school district. The project was initiated by the college's Volunteer and Service-Learning Center after much consultation with staff from the school district and each of the participating middle schools. Both school principals and Glendale Police Department officers felt there was a strong need for an after-school mentoring program targeting young adolescents who would be likely candidates for gang membership. Training and assistance for the program have been provided by Los Angeles Team Mentoring. Each team is made up of a middle school teacher, community member, college student and ten to fifteen middle school students. At each school, the program serves approximately eighty students from low-income neighborhoods. The structured activities are designed to promote teamwork and leadership among participating middle school students. Most of the college student mentors are planning careers in fields that relate to education and social welfare. Mentoring provides these students with valuable insights into their chosen careers.

Although team mentoring started as a co-curricular service activity, the program has led to the strengthening of both the college's recruitment efforts and its curriculum-based service-learning. Because the team mentoring approach requires teacher participation, it has created new contacts and opened doors for more meaningful cooperation. The program provides the college and the middle schools with a common goal--the edification of the middle school students. As a result of the mentoring program, two middle schools approached the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center with the idea of sending their young students up to the college for a half day during the summer. Students now work with middle school teachers and several college faculty members to put on the Wacky Wednesdays project. During the month of July, college students work with the middle school children in projects involving theater, dance and the arts. This project provides the middle school students with an orientation to the college and helps them start thinking about their educational futures. It also brings college faculty and middle school teachers together on a positive, informal basis. Another project resulting from contacts made through the team mentoring program involves students in a college algebra class who will begin tutoring struggling math students from the seventh grade during the fall 1996 semester. After talking with people who run a similar project at the University of Michigan, the participating math instructor decided to have her students from a college algebra class tutor the seventh graders in fractions. The tutoring should strengthen the college students' facilities with fractions while helping the seventh graders to learn.

Another outgrowth of our collaborative efforts with the Glendale Unified School District has been the placement of individual students in volunteer positions throughout the district. College students are currently volunteering in approximately twenty schools--from elementary to high school. Examples of these placements include college students helping fourth graders paint a mural of their school, doing one-on-one tutoring at middle schools, and serving as teacher assistants in high school classrooms. Faculty from Counseling, Child Development, Spanish, Psychology, Social Science, English, ESL, History, Economics, Fine Arts, Biology, Allied Health and Sociology have all referred students to do volunteer work in various areas in the schools. A large number of these are students considering careers in education.

Serious consideration should be given to several factors when setting up a similar program. One key factor during year one of the program was working with a liaison who was a Glendale Unified School District employee and who also worked part-time for the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center. This liaison within the school district not only helped to facilitate the logistics during the first year of operations, but also provided valuable knowledge about the inner workings of the school district. In our second year of operation, the Center hired a school district coordinator on the college campus to work with students and faculty to ensure their participation in service-learning projects created the previous year. Having a coordinator on campus has been extremely important in terms of both faculty and student participation in the projects. The coordinator oversees all projects implemented within the school districts, assisting faculty and students who are planning projects.

Glendale Community College's service-learning collaborative with the Glendale Unified School District serves two important functions at the same time: It improves the quality of our academic offerings while also enhancing our ability to recruit and better prepare the college students of the future. Service-learning projects within the K-12 system create opportunities to improve articulation with the school district. While preparing service-learning components in their classes, several faculty members from the college have visited school sites and met teachers within the school district. Similarly, participating teachers from the Glendale Unified School District have come on the college campus to participate in various service projects. Such contacts lead to a growing awareness of the benefits of improved articulation within disciplines such as English as a Second Language and Mathematics. Faculty and staff at the college and within the Glendale Unified School District have begun work on several joint grant proposals aimed at improved articulation within the areas of English Literacy and Mathematics. Service-learning has brought the interested parties together.

Fred Wells earned his bachelor's degree from Columbia University and his master's in Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin. As an undergraduate at Columbia, Fred volunteered with the student operated Community Youth Program, which provided mentoring to underprivileged youth from low-income housing projects in New York City. He worked in the Research and Planning office and initiated a film/video series, Beyond Tolerance, which brings faculty, staff, and students together outside of the classroom in order to build understanding among a diverse student population.

Fred co-wrote the grant that partially funds Glendale Community College's Volunteer and Service-Learning Center through the Corporation for National Service's Learn and Serve America: Higher Education Program and currently serves as Program Director for the Center.

Sue Borquez is the School Programs Coordinator for the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center at Glendale Community College. She serves as the liaison between the Glendale Unified School District and the college's Volunteer Center. Recently, she has taken on additional responsibilities as the coordinator for college student volunteers who are placed in health care community organizations. She is a member of the Glendale Healthy Community and Glendale Healthy City organizations.

Sue, who worked as Administrative Assistant to Ventura County Supervisor James R. Dougherty for eight years, has always been committed to community service, serving at one point as President of the City of Moorpark's Friends of the Library.

		Service-Learning: A Synergistic Model
		Service-Learning and Community Collaboration: Connecting Faculty Values to Community Service
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