Service-Learning is a great way to learn while getting involved in your community. Many students feel it has made all the difference in making their experience here at SUU more meaningful!
Service Learning Center
This is should be your first stop in getting involved at SUU. You'll find helpful information about activities and events and how you can become a part of the great tradition of service learning on our campus.
Whether your service is at a local, national or global level is up to you. It’s curriculum based which means you learn skills valuable to you studies while providing service. These activities are designed in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.
Service-Learning experiences:
- relate to course subject matter.
- provide a needed service to individuals, organizations, schools or other entities in the community.
- provide a method or methods for students to reflect about what they learned through the service experience and how these learnings relate to the subject of the course. Credit is earned for the learning and its relation to the course, not for the service alone.
- recognize the needs of the service recipients and provide an opportunity for recipients to be involved in the evaluation of the service.
- aim at the development of the civic education of the participants, even though they may also be focused on career or graduate school preparation.
Frequently students and faculty ask about the differences between service learning and other types of experiential education such as practicums and internships. While there is overlap, the primary course objectives differ:
| Meets Community Need | Provides Civic Education | Reflection | Paid | Provides Career Preparation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service-Learning | yes, requisite | yes, requisite | yes, requisite | no | might, coincidental |
| Internship | might, not requisite | might, not requisite | might, not requisite | might be | yes |
| Practicum | might, not requisite | might, not requisite | might, not requisite | no | yes |