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Three on MC faculty receive grants
for
service learning projects
Three Manchester
College faculty members will use $3,000 scholarships from Indiana Campus
Compact to promote service learning on college campuses. Dr. Ingrid N.
Rogers, Dr. Kim A. Duchane and Dr. Russell G. Coulter-Kern received the
Scholarship of Engagement faculty grants for spring semester programs.
The work of these
faculty members highlights Manchester College’s continued dedication to
its Mission Statement, which is based on Church of the Brethren roots in
faith, learning and service.
Professor
Rogers’ grant will support an “English as a Second Language” (ESL)
program at the North Manchester Learn More Center, where student
volunteers in her Spanish 102 course will help Mexican immigrants learn
English.
“The ESL class
provides a valuable service to all involved,” said Rogers, who also
teaches German. “For the larger community, the language training helps
integrate Mexican residents, allowing for greater cross-cultural
understanding and acceptance. For the college students, the volunteer
work will improve their language proficiency and be formative in their
development as future leaders and good citizens.”
Both Duchane and
Coulter-Kern will use their grants to create a system for evaluating the
effectiveness of service learning projects like Rogers’ ESL program.
Duchane, an associate professor of health and physical education, will
draw on evaluations from college and university educators, students and
community partners. He also will research barriers between community
partners and faculty trying to implement service-learning projects.
Coulter-Kern, an
associate professor of psychology, is working collaboratively with a
faculty member from Ball State University and students in his MC January
session course, Psychological Tests and Measurements. Together, they
will develop and partially validate a scale to measure service learning
on college campuses. His portion of the scale focuses on faculty and
administrators’ evaluations of issues related to implementing service
learning at Manchester College.
“After the scale has
been fully validated, it can be taken and administered on other college
campuses” Coulter-Kern said. “Because service learning is becoming an
important part of accreditation, other colleges and universities will
increasingly implement it into their courses.”
Indiana Campus Compact, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., is a consortium
of 31 universities and colleges united to promote service learning and
community involvement.
Manchester College faculty members have received a total of $24,000 in
grant funding from Indiana Campus Compact for the current academic year,
continuing an outstanding record of developing and promoting
service-learning programs. Manchester faculty members have received 26
fellowships or grants from ICC in the past five years.
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