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The real world: service, learning and missions.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Locating optimal community sites to implement community service and learning projects often proves challenging. Because nurse managed health centers partner with communities in which they serve, they are an excellent venue to implement community service and learning activities. This paper explores how several collaborative disease prevention and health promotion projects, conducted by undergraduate nursing students in an academic urban managed health center, meet the missions of the school of nursing, the academic nurse-managed health center, and the university. Student reflections are also emphasized.

Introduction

"When I see what looks to be a homeless person on the street, I now realize that he has a story to tell about how his life got to be this way"

Community Service and Learning (CSL) is defined as a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service, instruction, and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities (National Service Learning Clearinghouse, n.d.). The Corporation for National and Community Service cite Eyler and Giles (1999) who suggest several characteristics of CSL: supporting learning through active participation in service experiences; promotion of cooperation rather than competition and thus providing teamwork, providing an opportunity for students to use skills and knowledge in real-life situations; extending the learning beyond the classroom and into the community; and provision of structured time for students to reflect by thinking, discussing and validating their experiences. The "service" and the "learning" components are equal; no one part holds greater weight. Each component enhances the other (Sigmon 1994).

University Overview

La Salle University, located in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, has as its primary goal to graduate students who understand, value, and accept their responsibility to become active citizens in their communities and assume leadership roles. Evidence of this commitment can be seen in University's statement of Lasallian values: "La Salle prepares students for progressive leadership in their communities and strives to develop in them...