Box 9, Folder 7, Document 23

Box 9, Folder 7, Document 23

THE ATLANTA SERVICE-LEARNING CONFERENCE

June - December, 1969

Atlanta, Georgia

This paper was developed from materials pre-
pared by William R. Ramsay of the Southern
Regional Education Board, by Dean Edward
Holmes of Emory University, by Sam Williams

of the Atlanta Urban Corps, by J. D. Kimmins
of the Peace Corps, by Donald J. Eberly of the
National Service Secretariat, and others.




The Service-Learning Concept



To serve and to learn; these fundamental goals of our society are
ingrained in the American rhetoric.

But how to serve? and how to learn? An institutionalized, bureau-
cratized 20th Century America has effectively limited the answers to these
questions. For "service to country" America legislatively requires mili-
tary duty only, which many of today's young people find morally question-
able. For “learning” we have complex university systems with limited
ability to respond to the individual and with oftimes conservative views
of what is education and what is not.

However, considerable attention is currently being given to the role
of universities in service to society. At one extreme, arguments are
heard that community involvement by an academic institution threatens its
integrity and drains its resources. At the other end of the spectrum of
opinion is the view of the university as a shaper of society with special
social responsibilities because of its objectivity, standards, and resources
of knowledge.

These arguments about campus-in-community may obscure fundamental
questions of the role of the community as an educational resource. Can the
university perform its primary functions of education and the discovery of
new knowledge without an involvement in society? Can educational institu-
tions develop the type of manpower needed by a rapidly changing society,
both as professionals and as citizens in a democracy, without including
the resources of societal experience in the educational process? How might
community service, sought by many students, best be designed as a learning
experience and integrated with other aspects of a total educational program?

Alternatives to traditional "service" and "learning" do indeed exist,
because America is vast and strives for freedom of individual expression.
Some universities and colleges, for example, bending to strong and some=
times violent winds of change, support the creation of "free universities"
on their campuses. But, heavy course loads and the "success" syndrome of
a hurry-up materialistic society, do not do much to encourage the average
college student to pursue extra-curricular education that is unnecessary
for a degree award.

Existing service programs like Teacher Corps, VISTA, and Peace Corps
attract only a tiny percentage of college graduates, partly because the
time spent with these agencies is often construed as altruistic "sacrifice."

The fact is that our society's definition of what is "practical," mows
down idealist by the hundreds of thousands. The System persuades many that
"volunteer" service and educational experimentation is to be undertaken at
personal expense and risk, and only rarely at the expense or risk of estab-
lished institutions.


- . + School administrators {must) wale up to the
healthy new needs of stucent participation and
incorporate that activity into the learning process.

President Richard M. Nixon
Radio address of October 17, 1968

lami



A new approach is both necessary and possible. It requires new mean-
ing for "practicality," new openness to change, new commitment to experi-
mentation, new acceptance of the ability of youth, and indeed new social
institutions and attitudes. . . to say nothing of competent human beings
who are prepared to function in the new society.

It is to search for these new attitudes and processes that the
Atlanta Service-Learning Comference is convened.

The Atlanta Service-Learning Conference

On April 30, 1969, at Atlanta University, students, faculty members
and agency officials met to discuss the feasibility of a proposal to con-
vene a conference of six-months’ duration, whose goal would be a thorough
study of the concept of service-learning in local application.

The participants voted to declare themselves the Atlanta Service-
Leaming Conference (ASLC), and to extend participant status to any agency,
organization, or individual whose interests or activities have a bearing
on the components of service-learning programs, or who have interests in
the successful outcome of a local experiment in service-learning.

To date, students, teachers, administrators, educational institutions,
federal, regional, and local government agencies, and diverse other private
and public agencies and institutions have indicated an active, working in-
terest in the ASLC.

The voice of youth has served notice that satisfaction
can't be measured alone in dollars; that there is a need
for service and contribution beyond the attainment of

material success. If these goals require an investment
in patience, then let us invest; if they require money,

| then let us spend.

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Daniel Evans '
Governor of Washington i
Keynote Address to 1968 Republican
Convention t



Formally stated, the Conference is convened to combine the resources
of institutions and agencies concerned with the relationship between ser-
vice experience and education, to explore and develop a conceptual frame-
work and practical model for service-learning programs for universities


and communities, and to provide a structure for reflection and exchange
emong various local community and education programs during a six-month
period (June-December, 1969.) Careful study combined with actual involve-
ment in service-learning programs should result in a comprehensive picture
and plans for service-learning in communities and on campuses. To assist
the participants in their study, several methods will be employed:

I. Work Groups

The Conference will function primarily through work groups, each
undertaking to explore in depth and to produce a report on one assigned
function of the concept of service-learning. Work groups will meet in
individual sessions, subject to the Chairman's call. The several compcnents
of a service-learning program, as identified by the Conference and assigned
as work-group topics, with some questions for their consideration, are;

1. <A Service Work Group

What should be the size of the service rendered, in comparison
with societal needs?

What criteria defines relevant service?

What service do students perform and wish to perform?

What service can agencies accept?

How long should service last? (summer, one term, full year or
longer?)

What kinds of agencies can accept youth in service? (Hospitals,
Social Welfare, Educational, Religious, Governmental)

Should service be full-time or part-time?

2. A Learning Work Group

Can learning take place in roles which students consider socially
irrelevant?

How can students be helped to grasp the broader implications of
what they learn by serving?

What relationship exists between individual student goals and the
chose of alternative service opportunities?

How can students be helped to raise the important, relevant
questions about their service experiences?

How can interested, knowledgeable, and accessible faculty be
identified and enlisted in the service-learning experience?

What implications of experience-based learning are pertinent to
higher education in general?

How, in fact, do students learn from experience? How can it be.
measured?

How can community needs, student interests, and university pro-
grams interact to yield significant learning on the part of
everyone involved?

What methods and techniques are most effective in preparing
students for their job and community roles?
36

h,

pr

A Curriculum and Inter-Institutional Work Group

What courses now exist which are relevant to service-learning
programs as training for other forms of service?

What inter-institutional relations now exist which could be
utilized and developed for internships and program development?

What effects will the service-learning experience have on student
expectations in the curriculum area?

What effect on independent study or directed research?

What will be accredited and how much credit will be given and
asked?

Will this require cross-crediting among institutions?

A Research Work Group

What is the total need for student manpower in Atlanta?

What is the total student manpower potential in Atlanta?

Under what conditions could this manpower resource be tapped
for the benefit of everyone concerned?

What changes in student attitudes occur during a service-

learning experience?

A Financial Work Group

In funding service-learning programs, what share should be borne
by the agency being served? by the student of educational
institution? by the government?

How should the Atlanta Urban Corps be financed in the future?

What proportion of Work-Study funds should be spent on off-campus
service activities?

A Methods and Programs Work Group

What methods are used by other intern agencies in the nation?

What are the relevant programs, proposed and developed, within
and without the Atlanta area, that the Conference should know
about?

In what ways should the Conference relate to other such programs?

Work groups will marshall available resources, implement ideas and con-

cepts, guide the progress of the Conference, coordinate its operations,
study its conponent concerns, and make recommendations based upon their
study and observations toward the creation of a comprehensive model for a
continuing service-learning operation in Atlanta.

Monthly Meetings of the Conference

Monthly sessions of the entire Conference will be convened, at each

of which one or more of the component concerns will be the topic of study.
Each work group will have an opportunity to chair a session of the Con-
ference, and guide the discussion as it sees fit to focus the attention of

b
the entire Conference on its particular component of service-learning.
Each work group will organize its assigned session, calling in whatever
additional resource people are needed to explore completely the topic
of its concern. The schedule for subsequent sessions of the Conference
is as follows:

Early August Service Work Group
Late August Learning Work Group
September Curriculum Work Group
October Finance Work Group
November Research, Methods and
Programs Work Groups
December Steering Committee

All persons attending the June 30 meeting are invited to select a
work group in which to participate. Sign-up sheets are to be available
in the June 30 afternoon seminars. The first work group meetings will
be held at 11:00 AM on July l.

III. A Practical Laboratory

Coincident with the launching of the Conference is the creation of the
Atlanta Urban Corps, a group of 215 students serving full-time throughout
the summer with 16 city and 32 private non-profit organizations in Atlanta.
Most Urban Corps members are funded on the basis of 80% from the federal
College Work-Study Program and 20% from the employing agency. The Southern
Regional Education Board under grants from the Economic Development Adminis-
tration, Office of Economic Opportunity and Department of Labor is providing
support along with Atlanta businessmen and foundations to cover administra-
tive costs and stipends for interns not eligible for the Work-Study Prosram.
VISTA has assigned 25 associate positions to operate under Urban Corps
auspices.

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— eas es. —_ ee ee

"The Urban Corps is the best example I've seen for young
intelligent minds to grapple with the problems of the
city."

Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr.

2 renter mentor tit tame
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~enmes od

Sam Williams, director of the Atlanta Urban Corps, points to the reles-
vance of the educational aspect of the program as he describes the educa-
tional evaluation team which is a part of his twenty-member staff. Wine
staff members make up the evaluation team which is responsible for develop-
ing and assuring educational dimension of each intern's summer assignment.
Five professors serve as counselors to lend technical and educational
assistance to individual interns and groups of interns, and with one pro-
fessional and three student staff members in the office plan seminars and
coordinate other means of helping the interns make their summer work ex-
periences educationally relevant. Each student will be required to present
to the Urban Corps a report on his internship at the completion of his
service period.




Thus, the Urban Corps, in addition to accomplishing needed tasks in
the community and offering both a summer job and a relevant educational
experience to its members, provides a practical service-learning labora-
tory for the Conference. Through observation of the Urban Corps and parti-
cipation of its members, the Conference is assured the necessary dialocue
between theory and practice.

A steering committee, composed of work group chairmen and other
conveners of the Conference, has been formed to provide direction for
Conference activities and to maintain a balance among the componentsof
the service-learning concept. ‘The motivation for convening the Conferencs
combines an enlightened self-interest with an appreciation of the broader
potential of the service-learning idea.

For examples, agencies are interested in competent manpower to do
their tasks. They are also searching for potential career employees.
Students are seeking experience and financial aid. Educational institu-
tions are seeking to improve the education offered to students, to make
it more relevant, and to identify useful career possibilities for students.
By means of a service-learning program, it is hoped that these and other
objectives can be more fully met than if each were pursued in isolation.

Sponsors of the Conference include the following organizations:

The City of Atlanta
The Atlanta Urban Corps
Economie Opportunity Atlanta

The Colleges and Universities of Atlanta
Department of Health, Education and Welfare

The Southern Regional Education Board

Volunteers in Service to America
The Peace Corps

Further information on the Conference may be obtained fr-m the spon-
soring agency officials identified in the program and from wois group
chairmen. The mailing address of the Conference is:

Atlanta Service-Learning Conference
Peace Corps, Southern Region, Ste. B-70

275 Peachtree Street, N. E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30303