Service Learning: Engagement at Home and Abroad
Children from Denver’s public housing developments kept their academic momentum this summer, thanks to a free day camp run by DU’s Bridge Project.
Many DU professors incorporate service-learning projects into their courses. For students, the benefit is invaluable: the chance to think critically and constructively about how societies solve problems and the opportunity to make a difference.
In a class on entrepreneurship, students may offer assistance to would-be business owners seeking a loan from a micro-credit agency. English majors studying violence in literature may volunteer in a battered woman's shelter. Meanwhile, students learning the ins and outs of Web design may take on a cyber project for a nonprofit.
A Different Kind of Spring Break
Still other students participate in alternative breaks, service-learning projects during winter interterm and spring break.
- An urban immersion experience sends DU students into the heart of Denver to study the problems facing the city's underclass. By night, students sleep in a low-budget hostel. By day, they join activists on a round of rescue missions, day-labor centers, inner-city schools, free clinics and homeless shelters.
- On visits to Big Bend National Park in Texas and the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico, students take on conservation projects and learn about the distinct ecosystems at work.
- Expeditions outside the country to Nicaragua or Mexico, for example put students to work on community projects, perhaps building homes or setting up a computer lab for local use. Many participants lend their skills to nongovernmental organizations striving for social change.
Community Work Abroad
DU's international service learning program allows students to combine course work with a volunteer experience overseas. Current projects send students to Bosnia; Dharamsala, India; and South Africa.
Before leaving the country, students take a for-credit course that briefs them on their destination: everything from culture and history to economics and politics. Once they arrive overseas, they help out in countless ways. For example, students in Project Bosnia join the residents of a small town in running a summer school program, while students in Project Dharamsala tutor Tibetan exiles in English.