Getting students to clean cemeteries and record the historical stories of Baton Rouge’s oldest black citizens are just a few ways the Center for Community Engagement, Learning and Leadership arranges partnerships between the University and non-profit Baton Rouge organizations.
 
Service-learning, a method of teaching and learning in which students learn the goals of their academic courses while serving the community, has grown on campus over the years.
 
Building playgrounds, planting gardens, performing demonstrations and tutoring at local public schools are some of the service-learning projects students have participated in as a part of their courses, said Assistant Director of CCELL Christy Arrazattee.
 
“Students in [a service-learning] class do service related to the learning goals of their course,” Arrazattee said.
 
What began in the early ’90s as a simple idea between two instructors in the English Department has “really taken off,” Arrazattee said.
 
“Last year, there were over 3,000 students who participated in service-learning,” Arrazattee said.
 
Approximately 90 sections were taught, and the number grows every year, Arrazattee said.
 
“Certain faculty were interested in trying out a new pedagogy that would motivate their students to work a little bit harder and to really get out of the classroom,” she said.
 
English instructor Sharon Andrews, who said all of her classes involve a service-learning aspect, claims service-learning was “birthed out of the English Department.”
 
“[Service-learning] started as an opportunity for students to use their writing to serve the community,” Andrews said.
 
In 1991, the first two sections of service-learning classes were taught by two English instructors, Wade and Susann Dorman.
 
“They were wonderful, innovative teachers, who shared an office and who were married to each other,” former CCELL director Jan Shoemaker wrote in an e-mail to The Daily Reveille. “Others on campus were doing some experiential community projects [at the time], but the Dormans were the first to call it service-learning.”
 
When Shoemaker began working at the University in ’94, the Dormans became her mentors, she said.
 
Shoemaker worked with the budding program to coordinate classes starting in 1995 and taught English service-learning classes for six years.
 
When service-learning was established through a grant from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation in 1994, Shoemaker became its first director.
 
It was modeled after a similar program at Boston College.
 
“Service-learning by that time was well established in other parts of the country,” Shoemaker said.
 
Boston College’s program served as a guide for the University’s program.
As the program’s first director, Shoemaker “worked to guarantee that all of the stakeholders [involved] got what they needed from the experience.”
 
“Each course is different, so personal involvement is usually required to ensure that course academic goals are reinforced, that students have a rigorous and enjoyable learning experience, and that community partners have their service needs met,” Shoemaker said.
 
Shoemaker matched community partners with appropriate classes, facilitated training for partners, students, and faculty, and helped facilitate course development and evaluation until she retired, striving to publicize the University’s community work.
 
“The first service-learning office was established in the Center for Academic Success, where it received great support from its director, Saundra McGuire, and her staff,” Shoemaker said.   
 
Service-learning became the Center for Community Engagement, Learning and Leadership in 2003.
 
As of last school year, there were 173 service-learning sections, 3,080 students and 93 instructors involved.
 
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Contact Julian Tate at
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