The Office of Service-Learning, a unit of the UGA Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach and the Office of the Vice President for Instruction, has selected nine faculty members to serve as 2014-15 Service-Learning Fellows. They will spend the academic year exploring ways to integrate experiential learning into their teaching and research.
The Fellows, from a broad range of disciplines, will meet regularly throughout the academic year and receive an award of up to $2,500 to develop a service-learning project. Academic service-learning integrates organized service activities that meet community-identified needs into academic courses as a way to enhance understanding of academic content, teach civic responsibility and provide mutual benefit to the community.
The 2014-15 Service-Learning Fellows are:
• Robert Christensen, an associate professor of public administration and policy in the School of Public and International Affairs, who plans to examine undergraduate students’ public service motivation and its relationship to participation in service-learning activities, with particular attention to the influences of student gender and ethnicity and longer term impacts on career choices that may be public service related.
• Caree Cotwright, an assistant professor of foods and nutrition in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, who will create service-learning experiences for students in a foods and nutrition education course through the development of a mobile food market at local childcare centers to increase availability and consumption of fresh produce.
• Jolie Daigle, an associate professor of counseling and human development services in the College of Education, who will prepare future school counselors to implement service-learning in their schools to enhance the academic curriculum, engage students meaningfully in the community and contribute to school improvement and success.
• April Galyardt, an assistant professor of educational psychology in the College of Education, who intends to involve graduate students in applying statistical analyses to projects that benefit university offices and departments.
• Natasha Ganem, a sociology lecturer in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, who will continue to develop the service-learning components of her course on juvenile delinquency, focusing on preparing UGA students to become more effective youth mentors.
• Mary Hondalus, an associate professor of infectious diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine, who plans to incorporate vaccination clinics and animal health education into a course partnering with underserved Athens communities.
• Peter Jutras, an associate professor of piano in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, who plans to establish additional undergraduate and graduate service-learning courses in music teaching, connected with the Community Music School, which offers music instruction to individuals and groups of all ages and income levels.
•Catherine Teare Ketter, an academic professional in marine sciences in the Franklin College, who plans to bring additional community partners into her marine science educational outreach course and to research the short- and long-term impacts of prior courses on student outcomes; and
•Tiffany Washington, an assistant professor in the School of Social Work, who plans to develop a Maymester gerontology course in which her students will interact with Alzheimer’s caregivers in the local community and provide respite care for their loved ones.
