Service-Learning and Civic

Education in Chicago

Universities

DOCUMENTATIONA documentation project of the Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Consortium. Seven universities collaborate to generate, foster, and promote high impact civic engagement practices in metropolitan Chicago.

Service-Learning and Civic Education in Chicago’s Universities

I. IntroductionChicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago area universities have been actively engaging faculty and students in service-learning and civic-engagement for more than a decade. The Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Collaborative was created (SLCEC) in 2011 in order to bring universities together with the Chicago Public Schools to share practices and strategies and generate opportunities for collaboration among universities and between CPS and universities. SLCEC serves as a forum for local universities and Chicago Public Schools to discuss service-learning and civic engagement strategies and generate opportunities for shared learning and collaborative practice. During its first four years, SLCEC has worked on student teacher policy, hosted numerous professional development events for university faculty, generated civic learning opportunities between universities and CPS schools, and served as a critical friends’ forum for practitioners.

In generating this report on current service-learning and civic engagement practices of seven local universities in the Chicago area and their intersection with Chicago Public Schools, we hope to accomplish three things:

Encourage universities to generate increased opportunities for their students to experience civic life and develop civic identities among their students;

Strengthen efforts by universities to prepare pre-service teachers to learn, experience, and use service-learning and civic engagement pedagogies as they enter CPS and other classrooms; and

Encourage increased collaboration between universities and K-12 public schools in service-learning and civic engagement pedagogies and practices.

II. The Case for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement

Defining Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Service-learning is an instructional strategy that connects classroom learning to service projects often in the community. Students engaging in service-learning build social, civic and academic skills outlined in the research below. According to Eyler and Giles (1999), “service-learning should include a balance between service to the community and academic learning”.

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Civic Engagement is an instructional strategy that engages students is their local, national and global community as a learner as well as social agents. Barbara Jacoby (2009) and the Coalition for Civic Engagement and Leadership at the University of Maryland (2005) define civic engagement as embracive of a wide range of activities, including “developing civic sensitivity, participation in building civil society, and benefitting the common good” (Coalition for Civic Engagement and Leadership, 2005).

ResearchIncorporating service-learning and other civic engagement strategies has tremendous impact on students. The following research highlights recent studies that demonstrate service-learning leads to more democratically engaged students, increases student learning outcomes, fosters positive youth identity construction, and reduces student drop-out rates.

Civically and Democratically Engaged StudentsAccording to Battistoni (1997), Einfeld and Collins (2008) engaging in service-learning leads to the development of more civic-minded, democratic student participants. They argue that by engaging student-participants in real-world concerns, challenges and events, students are more apt to take ownership of their learning and of their world. Westheimer and Kahne (2004) build on this understanding and contend in their frequently-cited article, “What Type of Citizen,” that not only does service-learning contribute to civically engaged students, but the type of service a student participant engages in, can contribute to the type of citizen they will become.

Increase in Academic LearningA direct correlation of higher academic learning with service-learning exists according to Astin, Vogelsegang, Ikeda and Yee (2000) in their comprehensive study and Novak (2007) and Warrren’s (2012) meta-analyses several years later.

Positive Youth Identity ConstructionIn their research on service and social responsibility, Youniss and Yates (1997) demonstrate that “youth’s participation in solving social problems has the potential to promote the development of personal and collective identity.” Jones and Abes’ 2004 study had similar findings, and concludes that students experience a more “integrated identity evidenced by complexity in thinking about self and relationships with others, an openness to new ideas and experiences,

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and shifts in future commitments” as a consequence to engaged service-learning.

Drop Out ReductionBringle, Hatcher and Muthiah (2010) and Gallini and Moely (2003) found that college students were more likely to reenroll if they had taken a service-learning course compared to those who did not. Their respective conclusions reveal that student engagement and a connection to the university community has a direct correlation to their reenrollment.

III. Areas of Inquiry

Service-Learning and Civic Engagement in Chicago’s Universities explores the following questions:

How does service-learning/civic engagement practice align with the university’s missional statements?

How does the university integrate service-learning/civic engagement into academic coursework?

How does the university’s college of education prepare pre-service teachers to use service-learning as a pedagogical practice?

How do universities collaborate with CPS schools, teachers, and students in developing and implementing civic and service-learning experiences?

Through this document, we are interested in highlighting the depth and diversity of high impact practice in Chicago and promoting strategies that build civic competencies and commitments while strengthening academic performance.

IV. University Profiles

Each university included in this document has participated in the SLCEC over the course of the past four years. In the following pages, this document will highlight the following components:

Structure of civic engagement and alignment with university mission Exemplary projects Service-learning in teacher education University collaboration with Chicago Public Schools

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Loyola University Chicago

The mission of Loyola University Chicago reads: We are Chicago's Jesuit Catholic University-- a diverse community seeking God in all things and working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice and faith. One important way that the university lives out this mission is through the Center for Experiential Learning, which collaborates with campus, faculty, and community to promote, develop, and implement academic experiential learning through teaching, research, and service.

Loyola University coordinates academic-based civic learning opportunities through the Center for Experiential Learning (CEL). CEL engaged learning programs include service-learning, academic internships, and undergraduate research. Each academic year, more than 25% of Loyola undergraduate students participate in engaged learning through classes and experiences facilitated by Loyola faculty. The university’s experiential learning strategy is successful because of strong administrative support and the university’s requirement that all undergraduate students complete one 3-credit course in “engaged learning” in order to graduate.

The CEL works with more than 600 community partners in order to enable students to meet the engaged learning requirement and support faculty as they generate service-learning opportunities. LIFT Chicago is one of Loyola’s key partner organizations and creates opportunities for students to connect their academic coursework to work in the community through service-learning. Social Work, Psychology, Education, and

Theology students receive training to work with Uptown residents through LIFT-Chicago as they seek housing, employment, job training, and other resources to lift them out of poverty. Students connect their service experience to the classroom in multiple ways by examining poverty, strategic responses, community development, psychology impacts of poverty, etc.

As a faith-based university, Loyola requires all students to complete two Theology courses. In an Introduction to Christian Theology course, students experience worship in a neighborhood congregation and participate in the service and minsitry of the congregation as a way to explore the question of how individuals and congregations connect faith and service. As students read and discuss

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narrative texts about Christians who have wrestled with this question, they encounter lay and clergy in the community who are living into these questions providing an opportunity for students to consider and construct their own faith identity.

Exemplary Project

The Quinlan Business School offers a Microenterprise course each year to MBA and upper level undergraduate students. Teams of five students are matched with an emerging entrepreneur from Chicago’s south or west sides. These entrepreneurs are working to open small businesses in neighborhoods that have long been neglected. The economic empowerment that comes from local business development is critical to the development of communities. Business students work closely with the entrepreneurs over the course of the semester while learning essential business development practices. The final product is a business plan done in consultation with the clients. Many of the emerging entrepreneurs have subsequently gone on to own successful businesses that are profitable while providing a crucial function and purpose in the community.

Teacher Education

In 2013 Loyola’s School of Education re-launched its teacher preparation program to merge classroom experience with clinical experience. Working with more than 15 CPS elementary and high schools across the city, almost every teacher preparation course is taught inside elementary and secondary schools rather than at the university.

Professor Charles Tocci, Clinical Assistant Professor and Senn High School Faculty Coordinator, suggests that “holding education courses within elementary and secondary schools really makes for some exciting work. In my Social Studies Methods course, we studied how to integrate primary sources in the first half of the class and in the second half of the class, pre-service teachers met with Senn faculty members to plan and then implement primary sources into the high school classroom.” Additionally, Tocci’s class received an introductory lesson on service-learning, observed and taught a class on colonialism and social Darwinism, then returned to their own classroom session to discuss how service-learning could be integrated into the lesson.

Tocci concludes that restructuring the School of Education’s instructional strategy better prepares education students to enter the field as they leave with robust pre-service experiences that begin freshman year and continue through the student teacher assignment. Other teacher education classes, such as Teaching and Learning in Urban Communities and Math for Elementary Teachers, place students directly in schools and community organizations for in-depth service-learning experiences.

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Loyola and Chicago Public SchoolsSenn High School recently launched its IB Global Environmental Studies program. The program is designed to prepare students to help create a more environmentally sustainable school, community, and world. An example of this work is reflected in an environmental service-learning experience with freshmen. Working with Loyola’s undergraduate science students, Senn 9th graders provide stewardship at nearby Osterman Beach learning about the harmful effects of pollution, the disturbance of natural ecosystems and the impact of global warming. Senn and Loyola students work together throughout the semester in ways that impact their own learning and the quality of life in the community for all.

Loyola University also hosted Election 2014! - an electoral simulation for high school students. Students from five high school civics classes spent the day at Loyola simulating a presidential campaign. Students played the roles of state delegates (red, blue and purple states), political parties, community organizations, media and election officials and participated in campaign activities, voter registration, candidate debates, media strategies and finally electronic voting. The robust campaigning led to a close election among three political parties.

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Illinois State University

Illinois State University (ISU) incorporates high academic standards with civic engagement to move students to serve as citizens locally, nationally and globally. The mission of ISU reads:  We at Illinois State University work as a diverse community of scholars with a commitment to fostering a small-college atmosphere with large-university opportunities. We promote the highest academic standards in our teaching, scholarship, public service and the connections we build among them. We devote all of our resources and energies to creating the most supportive and productive community possible to serve the citizens of Illinois and beyond.

The Office of the Provost at ISU helps to promote active learning experiences and civic engagement by partnering with local, national and international business, government, and educational institutions and organizations for the purposes of expanding service outreach and enhancing financial support for instructional, scholarly, and service activities.  The American Democracy Project at ISU promotes constructive civic engagement on the part of undergraduates while they are on campus, and after they graduate. Building on a wide variety of such activity already occurring at ISU, the American Democracy Project is designed to serve as a catalyst for programmatic changes that will ensure all Illinois State students are fully prepared to assume a responsible role as contributors to civic society. Through this work, ISU incorporates service-learning and civic engagement in academic coursework by holding classroom/community workshops and facilitating professional learning communities that help integrate civic engagement into course syllabi as well as provide ongoing support for faculty members.

Teacher Education

ISU has a Civic Engagement and Responsibility Minor which requires students to complete courses in civic responsibility, service-learning, and government to prepare for future participation in social change and build commitment to social responsibility. Courses in urban education and social justice offer students the opportunity to explore civic engagement in depth. Within this minor, the Urban Teacher Preparation strand offers pre-service teachers nearly 70 courses that have been redesigned with urban content and context.

Exemplary Project

STEP-UP (Summer Teacher Education Partnership for Urban Preparation) is a selective program through which Illinois State’s teacher education students are placed with Chicago host families located in the neighborhood students are assigned to serve. Over four weeks, STEP-UP Fellows co-teach in CPS alongside veteran teachers, engage in service-learning projects with 42 different community-based organizations, and complete seminars in cutting edge educational

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initiatives. STEP-UP Fellows work side-by-side with community organization staff to develop meaningful projects that contribute in sustained and positive ways to the organization’s service to the neighborhood. Many Fellows develop curriculum plans to enhance particular aspects within their service area.

Illinois State and Chicago Public Schools

ISU trains teacher candidates in service-learning and civic engagement through practical experience and through its College of Education and the Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline (CTEP).  Established in 2004, CTEP connects ISU in Normal, Illinois to the city of Chicago and its public schools.  CTEP’s mission is grounded in social justice and works to cultivate and sustain innovative, resilient, and effective educators for urban schools and their communities. ISU secures private and public funding to sustain CTEP, which effectively links ISU, Chicago Public Schools and Chicago’s many community-based organizations. According to Dr. Robert Lee, Illinois State University’s executive director of its Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline, “It is through a social justice lens that we need to prepare teachers to work in urban communities and stay there.  We do this by exposing students to long-term service programs that flatten hierarchies, are sensitive to communities and their respective school needs and beneficial to all parties.”

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National Louis University

National Louis University (NLU) provides access to quality higher education that nurtures opportunity for students through innovative teaching, scholarship, community engagement and service excellence. NLU supports civic engagement and service-learning through the Civic Engagement Center (CEC) by engaging faculty and students in service-learning, community-based research and other community engagement endeavors. Aligned with National Louis University’s mission the CEC seeks to advance the education of students to become civic-minded, actively engaged, life-long scholars and leaders on campus, locally, throughout the nation and globally.

NLU’s CEC advisory team meets monthly to discuss community-based research projects and encourage each other’s research. Members of the CEC assist faculty members desiring to embed service-learning into coursework by presenting at faculty meetings, annual forums, brown bag lunches, department and program meetings and various special events. The CEC has been instrumental with rewriting NLU’s Student Learning Outcomes to include one specific to Civic Engagement. The CEC is also instrumental in rewriting new university course outlines to include areas for service-learning. The CEC supports students with volunteer opportunities and other community engagement activities.

The CEC began the process of writing for the 2015 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification application in 2013 and was instrumental in seeing that application through to submission. NLU is proud to have received that designation through 2025.

Exemplary Projects

Service-Learning is embedded in the foundations courses in the School of Teacher Preparation in the National College of Education (NCE) at NLU. As such, teacher candidates volunteer at many local organizations. CARE Plus, in the Bensenville Elementary School District in Illinois is one of them. It was founded in 1996 to provide elementary students with one-on-one and small group learning opportunities to augment their classroom reading experiences. CARE stands for Citizens Active in Reading Education. Plus was added when the program expanded to include math, science, social studies, and writing assistance. Students are paired with volunteer mentors who can be high school students, business people, community members, or college students. Discussions with our teacher candidates participating in the program indicate that each mentor has a different experience since teachers utilize their volunteers differently. Volunteers work with individual students or with a small group of students on specific skills and provide feedback to the teachers so that the teacher can monitor progress and create individualized plans for the students.

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Since 2008, NLU students have been consistently involved with the CARE Plus program. Without exception and exaggeration, all of them have been testifying to tremendous benefits gained from their service in the program. Teacher candidates provide mentoring services to elementary students in reading and math at least once a week. Typical activities include one-on-one sessions or small group in-class activities: “One week we made rainbows and another we made turkeys out of craft paper. The hardest part of those projects was getting the students to write their names on the front of the turkeys which were to be on display during conferences. The students were well-trained in writing their names on the back of art projects. Other days I have helped students draw pictures and write sentences based on the particular letter of the day. The most fun were the two days Mrs. W handed the classroom off to me while she did individual assessment work. I ran the guided reading group center and directed the students at the other centers when it was time to wrap up and rotate to the next area.”

Most of the candidates who provide services for CARE Plus are elementary and special education MAT students with limited or no prior teaching experience. Gaining access to schools and children becomes invaluable experience in itself: “The entire experience has been a joy. The students are engaging and never cease to surprise. My favorite quote came from a boy named F my second time in the classroom. He said, ‘Mr. S, you came back.’ I told him, ‘Of course I did. What else would I do?’ I have found it to be rewarding and worthwhile and I may continue through the winter” “I think the most important thing that I have learned from my service learning project is that I still really want to be a teacher. I love working with the students. I love to see their faces when they finally remember the sound that goes with the letter Y. I love it when they ask if they can work with me, even if they don’t need to because they already get it.”

Another agency many of our students choose is PADS—Public Action to Deliver Shelter. It is a not-for-profit organization committed to ending homelessness. PADS provides various levels of housing for homeless: interim (overnight); transitional (clients are transitioning from homelessness to housing thru positive life changes); permanent supportive housing (provides affordable housing for individuals and families with a disability); and the Howlett Initiative (targets families for housing).

PADS is on the list of choices for those teacher candidates who take the Social Justice Perspectives course as part of the requirement for their degree. Many of them gravitate to PADS due to a limited knowledge of homeless people and homelessness as a phenomenon. As this student admits, “I had a very stereotypical picture of a homeless man or woman, a picture not involving any children. Working as a family monitor [at PADS] changed that stereotype. Now all these questions came flooding into my mind regarding these children: How will they perform in school when they are sleeping on a mat with twenty other people in the room? Where will they get their school supplies? Will they have to start a new school this year because of their transient lifestyle? They have no home, so no play dates at their home.”

Many find their time at PADS transformational. “Each time I went to Pads I had an ‘ah-ha’ moment, a moment that stopped me right in my tracks and made me think

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about these homeless children and how their lives are so different than my family and just how difficult things must be for them.” This engagement can take forms of setting up the beds and chairs in the shelter, offering assistance in the kitchen, cleaning-up, or becoming a homeless family monitor. Resulting in an “eye-opening experience,” this project “has kindled a sense of compassion in me that I didn’t know that I had. This service learning has connected me to a segment of youth that I hadn’t dealt with before but will empower me in my classroom interactions in the future. It was very fascinating to hear two accounts where children were being asked to be understood and not treated with pity, they did want to work hard and learn.” Having experienced the lives of homeless children first-hand, this teacher candidate will add significantly to her portfolio’s teaching philosophy statement: “Every child deserves the right for a good education. This statement cannot be truer than it is for children who live in shelters. I am a very caring and feeling person but after doing this project I feel so much for these children. They really like going to school because it is the one thing in their [lives] that remains constant.”

Teacher Education

Several education courses within the NCE of NLU educate teacher candidates about effective service-learning practices that focus on not only the fundamentals of service-learning pedagogy (i.e., preparation, action, reflection and demonstration), but also how to assess successful service-learning programs in schools.

NCE also prepares teacher candidates in service-learning and community engagement practices via the Urban Scholars Teacher Education Partnership (USTEP) and Suburban Scholars Teacher Education Partnership (SSTEP) programs. The USTEP and SSTEP programs place graduate students in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and suburban high schools for seven to twelve hours a week from September to February, after which the candidates spend March through June full-time teaching in their assigned school. The USTEP and SSTEP residency programs require teacher candidates to implement a service-learning project

National Louis and Chicago Public Schools

NLU is the Academy for Urban School Leadership’s (AUSL) exclusive teacher preparation partner. NLU has worked with AUSL since 2001 and the NCE faculty created the curriculum for this teacher residency program that has put AUSL at the forefront of urban school turnaround success. The NLU/AUSL Chicago Teacher Residency is an intensive 12-month, full-time program that provides teacher preparation, licensure and a graduate degree. Career-changers and new college graduates with bachelor’s degrees in fields other than education can earn their teaching license and a master's degree. Licensed teachers with a desire to receive further training for urban settings are eligible to earn a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Urban Teaching. Following the training year, graduates commit to teach in CPS for at least four years. Teacher candidates and graduates of the program are teaching in across Chicago in many of its public schools.

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In foundational courses during the summer, teacher candidates asset map the community in which they will be placed for the upcoming academic year. Candidates are encouraged to civically engage with the school community throughout the year. Within those and other courses in the program, candidates learn the pedagogy of service-learning to use with their PreK-12 students. This pedagogical content knowledge allows the candidates to proliferate service-learning pedagogy as they graduate and become teachers of record across CPS.

The USTEP program brings education, civic engagement and experiential learning together. Partnering with Howard University’s Law School, NLU teacher candidates plan classes on legal topics of interest to CPS students. While law students provide the content knowledge, USTEP students turned these concepts into highly interactive lessons about citizen rights, the death penalty, online bullying and how to obtain academic success, scholarships and complete college applications. Following the planning period, law students and USTEP candidates collaboratively taught workshops at three different CPS High Schools.

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University of Illinois at Chicago

A major research university in the heart of one of the world's greatest cities, UIC provides a world-class education for its students. We are committed to creating and disseminating new knowledge as a university of growing national and international stature. UIC's mission is:

To create knowledge that transforms our views of the world and, through sharing and application, transforms the world.

To provide a wide range of students with the EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY only a leading research university can offer.

To address the challenges and opportunities facing not only Chicago but all Great Cities of the 21st century, as expressed by our Great Cities Commitment.

To foster SCHOLARSHIP and practices that reflect and respond to the increasing diversity of the U.S. in a rapidly globalizing world.

To train professionals in a wide range of public service disciplines, serving Illinois as the principal educator of health science professionals and as a major healthcare provider to underserved communities.

The focal point of civic engagement at UIC is the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE), part of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA). IPCE conducts, encourages, and supports research, with an emphasis on how technology enhances the engagement of citizens and on how government agencies make decisions and deliver services. IPCE helps develop civic engagement among young people by offering paid internships through the Urban Public Policy Fellows program as well as sponsoring Civic Engagement Days for high school youth. IPCE provides online resources, including information on government services, events in the community, public forums on government policy, and training programs to help people become effective advocates for their communities.

In addition, the UIC Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs sponsors a program called Student Leadership Development and Volunteer Services (SLDVS), which supports the development of leadership, civic engagement in both one’s personal and professional life, as well as a greater understanding of social justice issues and opportunities for advocacy. Grounded in the tradition of Jane Addams and Hull House, the SLDVS program sponsors multiple opportunities for students to get involved on campus and in the community, including an

annual UIC Day of Service. SLDVS also promotes civic engagement by helping

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students develop skills in leadership, public speaking, and student organization development

Exemplary Project

The School of Social Work Practice Course is offered to all graduate students completing their Masters Degrees at UIC’s Jane Addams College of Social World. Integral to the course is the final project, where students are required to develop and implement a service-learning project in a Chicago-area public school. Projects for the course typically range from high schools youths presenting to elementary school youths a lesson bullying, to high school youth raising funds for a community-based youth organization (McKay & Johnson, 2010). According to Cassandra McKay, creator and professor of the courses, “The reason it works so well is that students are able to put theory into practice.”

Teacher Education

Teacher education programs at UIC are taking steps to embed service-learning into methods courses. For example, the social studies methods course taught by Professor Julie Peters recently included the development of a service-learning project. Students were introduced to the concept of service-learning and asked to propose ways in which they could wed service-learning to a social studies unit. The proposal was designed so that teacher candidates could freely explore their ideas about service-learning. They chose a location near a high school of their choosing, created an asset map of the area, suggested several possible projects, and then focused on one project that they imagined their students choosing. They then outlined the project, showed how it was tied to the curriculum and to the Common Core, and explained how students would demonstrate their learning. Finally, they created a list of questions they would like to ask a Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Service-Learning Coach as well as questions they would like to ask students who had done service-learning in the past. In the next phase of this project, students will meet with a Service-Learning Coach and work directly with an existing project. The plan is to take this assignment out of the imagined world and into the real world. Peters plans to explore ways to make this an integral part of the methods course in coming semesters. In addition, she plans to engage her colleagues in other teacher education programs in a dialogue about how they might embed service-learning into their courses. Plans are also underway to explore how teacher candidates might participate in real service-learning projects, particularly in literacy, in order to give them hands-on experience working with students and with service-learning itself.

UIC and Chicago Public SchoolsCivic Engagement Days is a two-day workshop hosted by the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) that addresses how the legislative policy-making process affects high school youth.  Partnering with the Chicago Public Schools and CPS Global Citizenship's Initiative Program and its 25 schools, UIC invites high school students to campus every spring for the purposes of learning about civic engagement and the role citizens play by featuring videos, guest speakers, mock

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policymaking, debates and group presentations.  Because Civic Engagement Days not only helps to educate the learners as much as the presenters, this project works to enhance civic learning for everyone.  

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DePaul University

DePaul University honors its Catholic, Vincentian, urban education mission by empowering students to serve others with a deep respect for their personal needs. The Steans Center promotes the incorporation of service-learning in academic coursework by training and supporting faculty via professional development workshops, syllabus review and facilitation with community partners. According to Executive Director, Howard Rosing, “High quality programs are embedded in academic affairs. When staff work directly with faculty to integrate service-learning into their curriculum, they have good capacity to develop effective relationships in the community, as well as good support for students who are placed in projects in the community.”

All DePaul undergraduate students completing the Liberal Studies Common Core must complete one course of experiential learning. Options to satisfy the JYEL requirement consist of a study abroad, domestic study, community-based service-learning course or internship or individual / group research project.

The Community Service Studies minor is a multidisciplinary degree offered by the Steans Center and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that provides a framework for understanding and engaging in critical social issues. Students that receive a minor in CSS, take courses across the disciplines as context for critical reflection on service and volunteerism.

Exemplary Project

Teacher Education

DePaul University’s College of Education mission statement is to support the urban educator. According to Dr. Roxanne Owens, Department Chair of Teacher Education, “students complete at least half their clinicals in public schools so that they can gain an understanding of the challenges and rewards. In methods classes they learn about best methods to address kids from different backgrounds, different needs and different talents.” Additionally, the College supports several courses that work with Chicago Public Schools and their students on initiatives that foster community voice, collaboration and action.

DePaul and Chicago Public Schools

In Professor Joseph Gardner’s Designing and Interpreting Curriculum course, DePaul College of Education students partner with McCutcheon Elementary School students to provide a “training” on Project Soapbox, Mikva’s public speaking

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competition that asks students to answer the question: “What is the biggest problem facing youth in your community?”

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Northeastern Illinois UniversityNortheastern Illinois University has a rich tradition of civic engagement and service dating to its founding as a teacher training institution in 1867. As the first public four year institution designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution in the Midwest and one of the most diverse institutions in the country NEIU has built on this tradition of engagement and service through a wide range of curricular and co-curricular offerings on its main campus on the north side of Chicago. These offerings are further complimented by the work done through the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies located in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, the El Centro campus in the Avondale neighborhood and the Center for College Access & Success (formerly known as the Chicago Teachers Center) in the Wicker Park neighborhood.

The university’s strategic plan which was developed in 2008 includes a vision statement which highlights NEIU’s urban mission; it also focuses in its strategic goals on Urban Leadership and the importance of building upon the university’s rich tradition of community involvement. Each year the campus develops a work plan which includes specific objectives that focus on this goal of urban leadership and its action steps.

Northeastern is actively involved in the American Democracy Project, a multi-campus initiative focused on public higher education’s role in preparing the next generation of informed, engaged citizens for our democracy. The project began in 2003 as an initiative of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), in partnership with The New York Times. An example of this involvement may be found in their acceptance into ADP’s new Economic Inequality Initiative Co-hort.

Northeastern was also selected in the spring of 2012 to be a part of National Association of Student Personnel Administrators’ (NASPA) Lead Initiative on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement. This network of 92 NASPA member colleges and universities committed to encouraging and highlighting the work of student affairs in making civic learning and democratic engagement a part of every student’s college education.

In support of its mission, the University has established partnerships with business and community groups, social service and government agencies, and other educational institutions. These partnerships work to promote academic excellence among traditionally under-served populations.

Service Learning and Civic Engagement Embedded in Academic Programs

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Northeastern has joined with Chicago City Colleges and Roosevelt University to become members of the SENCER Center for Innovation Midwest. SENCER is a project of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement and stands for Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibility. The mission of SENCER is to “…apply the science of learning to the learning of science, all to expand civic capacity. SENCER courses and programs connect science, technology, engineering, and mathematics content to critical local, national, and global challenges.” A recent example is the work of NEIU students and faculty in Earth Science and Biology in partnership with the Friends of the Chicago River on sustainability and strategies to deal with the impact of invasive species on the water and environment in Chicago.

The Math, Science and Technology Concepts Minor (MSTQE), an interdisciplinary pedagogical content knowledge STEM minor for pre-service teachers, enhanced by a grant from the Searle Funds of the Chicago Community Trust, collaborates with the College of Arts and Sciences by embedding SENCER and service learning experiences across the math, science, health, and sociology content and cognate courses.

The Department of Social Work trains a diverse student body to engage with their own strengths and the strengths of diverse communities. It emphasizes the intersections among this diversity across local and global contexts to promote social justice and human rights. One important learning experience to further this goal is for candidates to participate in service learning and civic engagement projects in Chicago area schools with school social workers, counselors, teachers, parents and students. This work not only benefits the student social workers but also increases the awareness in those school communities of life and social-emotional issues that impact student resiliency, persistence and academic achievement.

Exemplary Project

A partnership between Northeastern’s College of Education and Amundsen High School in Chicago is focused on increasing teaching effectiveness for student achievement. This partnership, now in its third year, places a “teacher in residence” and a faculty consultant at Amundsen to assist the administrative team in its focus on teaching and learning. One goal of this partnership is to graduate “college ready” Amundsen students (i.e., students who do not need developmental courses upon entry into college). Additionally, it is hoped that the program will foster a subset of students prepared to enter teaching. As part of this partnership, Amundsen faculty members bring students to the Northeastern campus to conduct science experiments. Amundsen students then participate in Northeastern’s Undergraduate Research Symposium.

In-service teacher professional development, pre-service teacher collaboration, deep College of Education faculty involvement in the school, and a process of joint decision-making related to all aspects of the partnership guide this improvement strategy. Progress in this area includes ongoing partnerships between Northeastern faculty and Amundsen faculty so that high school students are

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exposed to the college campus for projects early in their high school career and a new policy at Northeastern for accepting International Baccalaureate credit from CPS high schools.

Teacher Education

Northeastern has long been a national leader in graduating teachers of color. We are consistently in the top 20 national rankings by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education for graduating Latino and Asian American students with education degrees. The College of Education has consistently placed in the top 30 national rankings for graduating “minority” candidates with education degrees.

The College of Education has received a number of prestigious awards and ratings directly related to its work with diversity issues in the last few years. The awards are evidence of the work COE has done to develop robust partnerships with schools and community organizations. The partnerships show a framework for supports tied to the structure of P-12 and university levels. These awards include:

The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education selected Northeastern’s College of Education in 2014 as one of ten members in its first Networked Improvement Community (NIC). Over fifty colleges and universities nation-wide applied for membership. The goal of this group is to increase teacher diversity by focusing on the recruitment of male African American and Latino teacher preparation candidates.

The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) awarded Northeastern the 2012 Best Practice Award in Support of Global Diversity. This award recognized institution’s that “foster diversity, equity and global awareness as core elements of its teacher education program(s).” The AACTE cited Northeastern for its integrated curriculum and “aggressive recruitment of underrepresented students, strong community ties and evident impact on the profession.” They added that, “equity, diversity and global awareness are embedded within the curriculum and community based-field experiences designed to serve high-need schools.”

The National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) selected the program for the 2012 Rose Duhon-Sells Program Award for Multicultural Education. The award was granted to Northeastern because of its “community-centered” teacher education program, Grow Your Own Teachers (GYO). They noted that the effort is improving teacher quality and retention, and thus, student learning in some of the most challenged schools in Chicago.

Northeastern Illinois University and Chicago Public Schools

Northeastern Illinois University has four Grow Your Own Teachers (GYO) Programs. GYO is a state funded grant that facilitates collaboration among Northeastern, six local community-based agencies, and the Chicago Public Schools. These partnerships have included grants and contracts so that teacher

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education candidates have the support and tuition-assistance that they need to complete their degrees. Community-based partners recruit potential teacher education candidates and collaborate with College of Education faculty on the selection of those candidates. Candidates are involved in their communities through their work with P-12 settings and are non-traditional students. They are individuals who are older, have families, and work while attending Northeastern. The education faculty and community partners join to provide personal and academic support.

Beginning in 2008, faculty members have participated in community study days in partner communities. Community partners and teacher candidates who live in the focus community lead these community study days. In this way, faculty members become the students as they learn about the issues (e.g., the foreclosure crisis, violence and safety, students whose parents are incarcerated, tax-increment financing decisions) that are facing the various communities in which they work and how those issues interface with the schools. Northeastern has held study days in two partner communities located in predominately Latino neighborhoods (Chicago Lawn/Gage Park, Humboldt Park), two in predominately African-American neighborhoods (Bronzeville, North Lawndale), and one is in the most ethnically mixed area in Chicago (Uptown).

The Center for College Access and Success (formerly the Chicago Teacher’s Center) has generated grants to serve CPS schools and provide resources and support to in-service teachers as well as direct service to students, parents and communities since 1978. The Center for College Access and Success develops collaborative partnerships that engage entire communities to help students succeed both academically and socially.

The Chicago Teacher Partnership Project (CTPP) is a federally funded Teacher Quality Partnership grant that is in its 6th and final year. This project is a partnership between the Colleges of Education and Arts and Sciences at Northeastern, Loyola Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, National Louis University, and the Chicago Public Schools. The goals of this project are 1) recruitment, retention and graduation of diverse traditional undergraduates who plan on majoring in elementary education (or elementary education with a bilingual endorsement), and 2) revamping undergraduate general education curriculum to increase the rigor and to align with the Common Core.

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Roosevelt University

Reflecting the ideals of its founders in 1945, Roosevelt University is a private, nonsectarian community of educators, scholars, and learners committed to academic, creative, and service excellence who value differences in personal experiences and perspectives; ask the difficult questions; and promote mutual understanding, inclusion, social consciousness, and action toward social justice. Recognizing that difference broadens perspectives, Roosevelt University seeks and serves a diverse, promising student body from metropolitan Chicago and around the world. The hallmarks of the Roosevelt University experience are strong student-faculty interaction and engagement with metropolitan Chicago as both a laboratory for learning and as an expression of its commitment to social justice. The experience is created through the efforts of a strong faculty dedicated to excellence in teaching, research, and creative activity and a staff equally focused on helping students grow and achieve their educational and life goals.

Roosevelt is a metropolitan university that is an active partner in the social, economic and cultural development of the communities it serves. It offers a broad array of academic programs, from the baccalaureate through doctoral levels, in a highly interactive environment where students can explore, discover, and develop their unique abilities and interests.

The Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation is charged with community and civic engagement as well as transformational service-learning.  Given the Roosevelt University mission, this work is a natural fit at Mansfield Institute.   The Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation’s (MISJT) broad mission is to raise awareness of social injustice while engaging in action-oriented projects that lead to progressive social change

Exemplary Project

The Transformational Learning Community-Based Class allows students to learn to critically analyze type-written knowledge with the wisdom we can only gain through life experience in addition to becoming aware of the power of 'one'.  ONE advocate of change as well as ONE united group with a shared desire to make a just community.  The collaboration was a result of conversations between Professor Sisco, the Mansfield Institute, Roosevelt students and faculty, youth and concerned community members, and community agencies.  The course is held at the children's secured housing facility of Uhlich Children's Advantage Network (UCAN) where each student is paired with a youth based on shared interests.  The youth have been severely abused and have developed aggressive coping strategies. Each week, the students discuss a peer-reviewed, academic journal articles regarding youth violence, they learn a related skill to circumvent the issue discussed, and then meet and engage the youth in a game-structured life lesson

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and mentorship hour structured through the Bringing Out Unity Through Interactive Transformation (BoutIt) program.  

Per the academic goals of the class, students have an opportunity to critically discern the difference between efficacy and efficiency based on the challenges of a community agency.  The mentors learn self-acceptance and the urban perspectives of violence in marginalized communities and how little it takes to create a monumental impact. The youth we work with are not accustomed to consistent one-on-one time nor pleasant goodbyes which they experience with our students. Simply being present does more than many of the students will ever know. Further, these youth wish to attend Roosevelt and because they are wards of the state, they have a full scholarship to any college which makes this connection valuable.  

The program has become so popular that former students wish to volunteer or take the class again.  The youth often participate in the program for several semesters and talk about it with their friends at UCAN. Even the staff acknowledges the value of the program and the improved behavior of the youth while we are present; a UCAN staff member stated "Before you guys, blue Mondays marked the beginning of a work week away from my family, but now, they are red Mondays because of the heart you guys bring." The experience is becoming the topic of dissertations; UCAN is in support of research that may aid in a better understanding of the success in our collaboration.

Teacher Education

Transformational learning is a pedagogical approach and an innovative model of service-learning that presents opportunities for personal and social transformation as students become engaged citizens. The Mansfield Institute is committed to working with faculty who incorporate transformational learning into their teaching by partnering with communities that are central to creating social transformation and a more socially just society.

Transformational learning anchors the university's social justice mission in coursework by, connecting students with the community.  Through Transformational Learning courses students develop their critical thinking skills, academic engagement, sense social responsibility and gain skills to become engaged citizens who promote social change. 

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Our vision for engagement is to enhance and cultivate the academic and social justice experience at Roosevelt through coordinated community engagement; one where the community sees Roosevelt University as a unique resource with mutual social justice goals.  Our vision of community engagement requires a collaborative approach to academic-community relationship that benefits all. For Roosevelt students and faculty, partnerships result in research, Transformational learning placements, scholar activism, and possibilities for lifelong investment in civic engagement and agency. For our community partners, Roosevelt University works with them to help them reach their goals of social change at the policy and community level.  The Mansfield Institute strives for a deeper level of connectedness in the community that cannot achieve this from a distance.

Roosevelt and Chicago Public Schools

The Embrace Restorative Justice (RJ) in Schools Collaborative, created at the Mansfield Institute, is a unique collaboration of 25 organizations that have joined together to stem violence in schools and communities by advocating for the use of RJ in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Roosevelt is partnering with CPS to integrate RJ into the schools in a systematic and effective manner and have taken a key role in revising the CPS Student Code of Conduct to replace its overly punitive measures with key components of RJ.

The Embrace collaborative seeks to expand the use and understanding of RJ in Chicago Public Schools and communities by implementing a two tiered Restorative Justice Illumination Campaign: Micro-grassroots and Macro-multimedia. A major element of the campaign is to promote awareness of the power of RJ and to increase knowledge of the updated Student Code of Conduct (SCC).  The micro-grassroots campaign will hold community events and share information across schools and communities to ensure parents, teachers, and staff are aware of the changes in the SCC and how the use of RJ differs from the punitive measures CPS has previously relied on.  The macro-multimedia campaign will engage the media with the goal to have a broad reach and utilize expert messaging through multiple channels including print, broadcast and social media.

As Roosevelt seeks to promote broader awareness of restorative justice practices and opportunities in Chicago Public Schools, it models the work by partnering directly with two CPS elementary schools (Morrill and Namaste) to implement RJ practices.  Students and faculty work with CPS teachers and administrators at these schools to introduce and sustain peace circles, peer mediation and other restorative justice practices.

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References

Bringle, R. G., Hatcher, J. A., & Muthiah, R. N. (2010). The Role of Service-Learning on the Retention of First-Year Students to Second Year. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 16(2), 38-49.

Astin, A. W. (2000). How Service-Learning Affects Students. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, University of California.

Battistoni, R. M. (1997). Service learning and democratic citizenship. Theory into Practice, 36(3), 150-156.

Einfeld, A., & Collins, D. (2008). The Relationships Between Service-Learning, Social Justice, Multicultural Competence, and Civic Engagement. Journal of College Student Development, 49(2), 95-109.

Jones, S. R., & Abes, E. S. (2004). Enduring Influences of Service-Learning on College Students' Identity Development. Journal of College Student Development, 45(2), 149-166.

McKay, C., & Johnson, A. (2010). Service learning: An example of multilevel school social work practice. Social Work Journal, 35(1), 21-36.

Warren, J.L. (2012). Does Service-Learning Increase Student Learning? A Meta-Analysis. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 18(2), 56-61.

Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237-269.

Youniss, J., & Yates, M. (1997). Community Service and Social Responsibility in Youth. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press

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