This year, the Office of Service-Learning is celebrating its 20th cohort of the Service-Learning Fellows Program with 10 participating University of Georgia faculty members.
“Each year, we are excited by UGA faculty members’ passion and creativity in engaging their students with real-world needs,” said Paul Matthews, associate director of the Office of Service-Learning. “Our 2024-2025 participants are already beginning to connect with community partners and to weave service-learning into new and existing courses, and our office is looking forward to working together with these Fellows to grow service-learning opportunities across UGA.”
This program allows faculty members from a range of disciplines to integrate academic service-learning into their professional practice. Fellows meet regularly throughout the academic year and receive an award of up to $2,500 to develop or implement a proposed service-learning project.
More than 170 faculty from 16 of UGA’s schools and colleges, Public Service and Outreach units, and the UGA-AU Medical Partnership have participated in the program since it was established in 2006. Participants create diverse service-learning projects that pair students with partners locally, across the state, or throughout the world to address community issues such as health access, youth development, food insecurity, economic development, and literacy.
Academic service-learning — one way for students to fulfill UGA’s experiential learning graduation requirement — integrates organized service activities that meet community-identified needs into academic courses to enhance understanding of academic content, teach civic responsibility and benefit the community.
The 2024-25 Service-Learning Fellows and their proposals are:
Daniel Bolshoy, associate professor of guitar, Hugh Hodgson School of Music
Bolshoy plans to develop a service-learning course similar to “String Pedagogy” that will connect undergraduate guitar majors with schools around Georgia to gain real-world experience teaching guitar to young musicians. This service-learning course could also weave into non-guitar major courses, such as “Guitar for Beginners,” where aspiring guitar teachers can provide support as teaching assistants. Bolshoy also proposes to develop a graduate level course that would connect students with Lead Guitar, a nonprofit organization that provides free guitar classes and associated activities to underserved communities.
Ben Campbell, professor, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Campbell seeks to weave service-learning into his course, “Agribusiness Management,” to integrate real-world experiences into the classroom. Adding a service-learning component may enhance student motivation, and potentially collaborating in communities across Georgia through the Archway Partnership will give students an opportunity to learn how to operate in a business environment as they develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.
Julie Campbell, assistant professor, horticultural marketing and consumer behavior, Department of Horticulture, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Campbell plans to develop the service-learning project, “Transforming Trash into Treasure: Rescuing Spent Flowers for Hospice Patients to Enjoy,” as part of her course, “Floral Design and Management.” Through this project, students will collaborate with community partners to recover unsellable flowers and repurpose them to create floral arrangements for hospice patients and others in the community. This will better connect UGA students with civic engagement while developing their skills in flower arrangement in a meaningful way.
Staci Cannon, clinical assistant professor of shelter medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine
Cannon intends to develop a service-learning clinical rotation centered around animal shelter consultation with “Consultations in Shelter Medicine.” Through this course, senior veterinary students will perform an objective assessment of an animal shelter organization and communicate prioritized recommendations to key stakeholders. This course will benefit shelters in many communities throughout Georgia that often make requests for shelter management guidance and infectious disease response assistance.
Amanda Ferster, senior lecturer, Department of Educational Psychology, Mary Frances Early College of Education
Ferster has a vision for a quantitative methods course that will engage UGA students in solving data-based decision-making problems. This course, “Dawgs Dialogue with Data,” will connect students with a community partner in education, such as the Northeast Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency, to collaborate with professionals and solve real-world problems. Students, both in-person and online, will collaborate through virtual reality and build career skills while developing projects to benefit the partnering organization.
Jorge García-Granados, Spanish lecturer, Department of Romance Languages, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
García-Granados plans to integrate service-learning into “Spanish for Heritage Speakers I,” to build more connections between UGA students and Clarke County’s Hispanic/bilingual community. This course will help heritage speaking students improve their formal Spanish skills while collaborating with the local Hispanic community, assisting with translating during parent-teacher conferences throughout the local school district, participating as mentors in the Clarke County Mentor Program, or supporting U-Lead.
Austin Heil, academic professional associate and director of the Marine Science Instructional Laboratory, Department of Marine Sciences, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Heil is reimagining “Marine Science in the Community” to incorporate a service-learning component that will take students out of the classroom to communicate complex marine science topics to general, non-scientific audiences. Students will work together, utilizing the many resources in the Department of Marine Sciences, to plan and lead outreach events in the community.
Zoe Johnson, senior academic professional and director of curriculum innovation, School of Social Work
Johnson is exploring strengthening practicum education in the School of Social Work by incorporating service-learning pedagogy. Johnson hopes to develop more service-learning and experiential learning offerings to students with the pilot and launch of a Practice and Research Clinic (PARC), in partnership with new community medical clinics such as at Clarke Middle School. PARC will have a teaching hospital/clinic model, which will allow students to gain hands-on experience connecting research and practice while addressing community needs.
Crystal Robinson, lecturer, Department of Cellular Biology, Franklin College of Arts and Science
Robinson is planning to develop a service-learning anatomy and physiology course that will take UGA students out of the classroom to engage with elementary school audiences in the community. Robinson’s students will develop interactive workshops using anatomical models and collaborate with schools in the Clarke County School District to prepare materials and develop lessons to educate young learners. This will help UGA students develop their communication and civic engagement skills.
Qiong Wang, assistant professor, College of Environment and Design
Wang is planning the project “Integrating Service-Learning in Urban and Landscape Design Studios: Fostering Community Engagement to Enhance Climate Resilience through the Lens of Design” for both undergraduate and graduate students in landscape architecture and urban planning programs in the College of Environment and Design. Through the service-learning projects, students will connect with both coastal and inland communities in Georgia to solve design problems affected by climate-induced flooding.