More than 10 years ago, a barbed wire fence separated the University from the surrounding community.
A student of Jan Shoemaker, former director of Center for Community Engagement, Learning and Leadership, “made an issue” out of the fence, and it was taken down, joining the University with the outside community.
The University can only become a member of the community by serving it, according to Sharon Andrews, an English instructor who teaches the most service-learning classes at the University.
“Because LSU, through its mission and the flagship agenda, emphasizes the importance of civic engagement, it does seem ironic at least that practically all of the funding for the CCELL office has been cut going forward,” Andrews said.
Thus, Student Government has already tried to fund CCELL and failed at the Board of Supervisors level. Sens. Brandon Jones, College of Science, and Meredith Westbrook, Music and Dramatic Arts, pitched a bill at last night’s Senate Committee on Finance meeting to use $16,000 from the Senate Contingency Account to fund eight new service learning courses.
“This would initiate new classes in different departments,” Jones said. “For each course we’re trying to initiate, it’s $2,000, and we want 8 courses, so it’s $16,000.”
However, the committee voted to amend the bill and decrease the funding to $12,000 because the Senate Contingency Account currently contains about $28,000.
Sen. Amber Guillory, E.J. Ourso College of Business, said she feared that if the full $16,000 was used to fund CCELL, it would leave less than $10,000 in the account, making it difficult for SG to fund other organizations and events during the spring.
“It’s all about priority spending,” Guillory said.
Jones and Westbrook asked for the bill to not be further cut from $12,000.
“Cutting it any more would be a problem, but I think this will be OK,” Westbrook said.
The bill unanimously passed committee with the amendment to use $12,000 to fund six new service-learning courses. The amended version will be debated at Wednesday night’s Senate meeting.
SG President J Hudson will possibly fund the other two classes, according to Westbrook.
Andrews said she’s hoping SG will be able to fund more CCELL courses than in the past.
“As students who are interested in providing leadership for the student body, one of the ways they can offer leadership is to prioritize courses that offer civic engagement,” Andrews said.
Andrews recently received the Gulf-South Summit Award for outstanding faculty contributions to service-learning and is the former recipient of the TIAA-CREF Service-Learning Award.
 
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Contact Andrea Gallo at [email protected]