When he signed up for Rob Rosenthal’s Community Research Seminar, all Craig Thomas ’06 expected was a greater involvement with the Middletown community. Talking to ex-convicts about crime deterrents, however, came as a surprise.
“[One] woman had taken drugs at an early age, got involved with serious drugs,” said Thomas, who spent last spring interviewing ex-convicts in an attempt to pinpoint the factors that discourage further criminal behavior. “When I interviewed her she had been clean and out of trouble for a long time. To be sitting across the table from her as she struggled to describe how good her life had become and how [her criminal record] was tearing apart her new-found family was heartbreaking.”
Each semester, the 16 students in Rosenthal’s sociology seminar conduct research for local organizations. The class, which began as an experiment in applied learning, inspired a theme in Wesleyan’s curriculum. This year, there will be 13 service-learning classes offered in six departments, including Earth and Environmental Science, Dance, and Less Commonly Taught Languages.
At its core, service learning holds that students learn more when they apply the theories they’ve studied in the classroom.
“Service learning is a type of teaching in which service outside the classroom serves as a teaching tool for course content,” Rosenthal said. “It’s different from community service and volunteerism because it’s used as a pedagogical tool.”
To ensure that they are applying their skills in a meaningful way, students in Rosenthal’s class work on proposals submitted by community partners.
“I know many people are frightened by the idea that we are just exploiting the community for our own gain,” Thomas said. “The process, in its ideal form, is a true collaboration that takes both the guise of academic work and gives the reward to all parties of community service.”
Past projects undertaken by Rosenthal’s students include a needs assessment for United Way and, most recently, a study of hunger in Middletown households sponsored by the Middlesex Coalition for Children.
According to Betsy Morgan, who supervised the hunger survey, pre-school programs in Middletown had been reporting that families using the programs were having trouble affording food. Although the federal government administers an annual hunger survey, information on the local level is hard to come by. The students’ survey, complete with data for 300 local families, was pioneering in the picture it painted of a single town’s poverty.
“This information about hungry children is not available by state, so we don’t know the number for Connecticut, and no information is available from the national survey by town,” said Morgan. “At the state and especially the local levels, it has all been guesswork.”
The students, who used the national survey, concluded that 20 percent of Middletown youths up to 18 years old live in households that do not always have enough food available for a healthy diet. 5.4 percent, a figure higher than the national average, live in households experiencing actual hunger. According to reports by the federal government, actual hunger means a chronic shortage of food.
Amelia Long ’06, one of the four students who conducted the survey, saw the experience as a vital step in assessing hunger among local children.
“We gave a press conference to present our final report, and it was covered by three local papers, including the Hartford Courant,” said Long. “It was rewarding to get that kind of exposure, and to be able to have a dialogue with community members about our work.”
Students in Regina Langhout’s Community Psychology class, who work with her at a local elementary school, have achieved similar results. According to Langhout, students are working on a peer mediation program with the social worker, a healthy food and fitness program with the school nurse, a plan to increase PTA membership, assessing a new school-wide behavior program, or on a project that will teach kids to map out safe and unsafe places in and around their school.
Unlike Rosenthal’s class, however, whose research projects culminate in bound reports, Langhout’s year-long course emphasizes long-term partnerships.
“We work with one school only, so the relationship is much more long-term,” Langhout said. “Also, the class is a year long, so there is an opportunity to build some strong relationships with kids, parents, and staff.”
In other classes, the primary expectation is that students enhance their knowledge of a subject through hands-on experience.
“The emphasis is not on ‘service’ but on learning about education,” said Dance Professor Katja Kolcio, who worked with Rosenthal to develop a service learning class in dance. “Students in my class have designed and taught a variety of courses of their choice, ranging from hip-hop, dance making, to classes like ‘creative writing through movement.’ My students are asked first, ‘What is education?’ and ‘What is dance?’ They then design a course based on their own philosophical positions, find a site, and collaborate with the site partners to implement their course. It is in the discrepancy between theory and practice that the real learning happens.”
For professors, the challenges of teaching a service learning course can be enormous. Although the professor teaches students proper methodology, it is community leaders who often supervise students’ work in the field.
“The faculty member loses control over part of the education,” Rosenthal said. “It needs to be clear between the advisor and community partner about what’s going to happen.”
With only a semester for students to work in the field, community partners and faculty alike are under pressure to resolve these issues quickly.
“Time is always a major challenge,” said Lydia Brewster of the North End Action Team (NEAT), an urban-renewal organization based in Middletown. “In the beginning, it is important for students and agency staff to reach consensus on the goals of the research, how it will be conducted, how the agency will assist, how much staff will be involved. Students don’t always agree that the agency’s goals are as noble as they should be.”
Professor Timothy Ku, whose Earth and Environmental students are assessing whether a local landfill, the proposed site for a Middletown recreation center, can be used for renewable energy, wonders if his students will feel frustrated by the time and monetary constraints on their work.
“We’re working on everything we can in this set of time and with a limited budget,” Ku said. “We need tens, if not thousands, of dollars. And, of course, it takes more than a semester to do this.”
Rosenthal’s class, for which any junior or senior may be eligible, has become more competitive over the years. Students must complete a two-page application as well as interview with the professor.
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