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FACS Guide to Service-Learning
The purpose of this guide is to familiarize faculty in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences with the basics of service-learning (S-L), and to provide faculty with resources for developing courses with service-learning components. This is a beginning guide, not an exhaustive resource. The guide includes an annotated list of other resources on service-learning, as well as a listing of FACS faculty with experience in service-learning who would be willing to share their ideas. For more information on service-learning, contact the UGA Office of Service-Learning.
FACS working definition of service-learning:
"Service-learning in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences is a philosophy and methodology involving the application of academic skills to address or solve real-life needs or problems in the community, in collaboration with community partners."
The FACS Service-Learning Task Force
In spring 2006, a service-learning task force was charged by Jorge Atiles and Jan Hathcote, Associate Deans, to provide guidance to faculty within the College of Family and Consumer Sciences regarding service-learning activities within the College. The information contained in this website represents the FACS service-learning task force's initial effort to further the College's understanding of the practice and promise of service-learning.
Standards of practice and fields of knowledge develop over time only through the thoughtful examination and reflection of both practitioners and scholars. In this spirit, it is the task force's expectation that our College's knowledge with respect to service-learning will develop over time. This guide, then, is intended to serve not as a set of rules, operating procedures, and defined practices. Rather, it is offered as a resource for faculty who are interested in incorporating an experiential component into their courses in a way that will benefit the broader community.
As is the case with any emerging field of knowledge, there is no consensus on how one might effectively implement a service-learning component into a course. In the same way scientists contribute to a field of knowledge by thoughtfully testing, replicating, and reporting the results of their work, it is common for faculty interested in advancing university involvement in the broader community to develop an understanding of "best practices" over time. This is exactly how service-learning has evolved across the nation. Consistent with this practice, the FACS service-learning task force has compiled this guide which includes descriptions of practices that have been widely adopted by other universities and national service-learning organizations. It is our hope that faculty interested in incorporating service-learning will not only learn from the best practices and examples contained herein, but contribute to our understanding of service-learning by providing feedback about their implementation of service-learning in a way that advances our common understanding.
Task force members included Diane Bales (CHFD), Task Force Chair; Brooke Cadle (CHFD student); Sharon Gibson (FACS Extension); Silvia Giraudo (FDNS); Michelle Gooden (FDNS student); Barbara Grossman (FDNS); Patti Hunt-Hurst (TMI); Denise Lewis (CHFD); Soyoung Kim (TMI); Jenny Manders (IHDD); Robert Nielsen (HACE); and Gwen O'Looney (IHDD). FACS Associate Deans Jorge Atiles and Jan Hathcote served as ex officio members of the task force.
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