ADVISORY: Conference to Celebrate Four Years of Service-Learning

Published on under 2010 / News

BATON ROUGE – On Monday, August 9, over 150 faculty, staff, students, community members and university presidents will gather in Baton Rouge to celebrate four years of service-learning at the eight campuses in the University of Louisiana System.  The annual ULS Serves Service-Learning Conference and campus projects being celebrated were made possible by a $1.2 million grant from the Corporation for National Community Service’s Learn and Serve America division.

WHAT: ULS Serves Service-Learning Conference

WHEN: 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday, Aug. 9, 2010 (12:30 – 1 p.m., Special Awards Program/photo op)

WHERE: Claiborne Building Conference Center, 1201 N. Third Street, Baton Rouge, LA  70802

“Since our UL System acquired the grant in 2006, we have seen a phenomenal surge in service-learning at our eight universities.  Over the course of four years the work of our faculty, staff and students has changed attitudes, grown citizenship and formed lasting partnerships throughout Louisiana,” said UL System President Randy Moffett.

The 79 campus projects funded by the grant engaged a total of 15,377 college students; 1,049 faculty and staff and 405 community partners in a combined 143,886 hours of service.

Projects being highlighted at the conference include mentoring programs for grade school and high school students, creation of alternative energy vehicles, aviation partnerships with local airports and disaster preparedness.

The conference will also feature keynote speakers Nadinne Cruz and Mack McCarter as well as a panel of university presidents.

Cruz is a national consultant on civic engagement.  Her over 25 years in higher education includes serving as the former Director of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford and past executive director of the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs where she led 18 colleges and universities to develop community-based learning programs in the U.S. and abroad.  She has written extensively about service-learning such as co-authoring Where’s the Community in Service-Learning Research?

McCarter is the founder and creator of Community Renewal International (CRI), a non-profit organization which works to restore safe and caring communities.  Formed in Shreveport in 1994, CRI has received national and international recognition from the White House, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, Harvard University and the Pew Partnership for Civic Change.  McCarter also represented CRI in 2008 and 2009 at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.

Rounding out the conference will be a panel of four university presidents:

  • President Stephen Hulbert, Nicholls State University,
  • President Frank Pogue, Grambling State University,
  • President Randall Webb, Northwestern State University, and
  • President Philip Williams, McNeese State University.

The presidents will speak about the value of service-learning to their universities as well as field questions from the audience.

The program and agenda for the conference can be accessed online at www.ulsystem.edu/service or downloaded directly at http://www.ulsystem.net/assets/docs/searchable/grant/ULS%20Serves%20Conference%20Program%208-9-10.pdf.

Due to overwhelming interest in the conference and room size restraints, registration for the conference has been closed.

-ULS-

EIGHT UNIVERSITIES STRONG: The University of Louisiana System is the largest higher education system in the state enrolling almost 82,000 students at Grambling State University, Louisiana Tech University, McNeese State University, Nicholls State University, Northwestern State University, Southeastern Louisiana University, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Louisiana at Monroe.