With funds provided by a grant from the Corporation for National Service, GateWay's Michele Bush and Yvonne Zeka traveled to Philadelphia last March to participate in the National Service-Learning Conference. The five-day conference, sponsored by the National Youth Leadership Council and hosted by the Pennsylvania Institute for Service-Learning, was attended by more than 1200' instructors, students, and state commissioners, and by staff members of the Corporation for National Service. Participants were immersed in activities and workshops built around service learningÑsharing service-learning projects, strategizing, and networking.
The overarching goal of the conference was to create national awareness of the value of service-learning for students, educators, schools, and communities. The administration's commitment to this goal was echoed by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's address to the group, which was delivered via satellite downlink. The conference was also intended to serve as a springboard for preparing participants to implement effective service-learning programs in their own communities and for establishing a usable service-learning research base.
Participants were able to select from more than 150 workshops, ranging from issues of cultural diversity and youth leadership to school restructuring, community partnerships, and curriculum integration. The general sessions included moving presentations of several service-learning projects, including one involving at-risk high school students and their elementary education partners and another conducted by students from Pennsylvania's School for the Deaf. In addition to the many workshops, participants had the unique opportunity to engage in one of several actual service-learning projects which were being conducted in the Philadelphia area. Utilizing both training and reflection, this exercise provided participants with the hands-on experience that will help them to better comprehend the mechanics of establishing service-learning programs and to better appreciate the value of service-learning projects for faculty, students, and the community.
Bush and Zeka returned to Phoenix with multiple resources and a renewed zeal that would help them support GateWay's service-learning clearinghouse and projects. Multiple reflection strategies gleaned from the conference have already been implemented by several GateWay faculty.
Would you like to learn more about service-learning and/or investigate new and better ways to promote and support service-learning at your campus? If so, you should consider attending next year's conference, which will be held in March, 1996 in Detroit. For further information, contact the National Youth Leadership Council at 1-800-808-SERV.
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