CENTER FOR

ACADEMIC
SERVICE
LEARNING
Whitney Wallerius & Julia Kent
What They Do
Academic service-learning is a teaching and
learning method that promotes student learning
through active participation in meaningful
community service experiences directly related
to course content.
The Office
Director, 2 Program Coordinators, 1
Graduate Intern, 7 Undergraduate
Student Workers
WHAT WE SAW
INCONSISTENCY

This office experiences a lot of change, which makes things a little difficult sometimes.
 LACK OF DIRECTION
FROM APU

EVIDENCE
unclear expectations lead to hard-to-
define goals
frequent change in execution
community partnerships to keep in mind

HIGH TURNOVER
slack falls to veteran staff
changing staff means lots of starting
over

SCHEDULING &
CLIMATE
weekly schedule changes
office dynamics
 SIGNIFICANCE

EVALUATE THE HIGH-STAKES

ADVOCATE THINK ACCOUNTABILITY
SUSTAINABIILITY
FOR CLARITY CREATIVELY
OF YOUR Seek accountability
Getting clear direction PROCESS Look for possibilities, practices with members
and vision from your Can you craft a process have eyes of discovery. of the organization with
greater organization is that does not exhaust What can we do better long-term investment and
essential. resources and with what we have? vision for the work being
responsibilities? done.
 Because the office is within a university,
a transient place by nature, it has to face
AN ORGANIZATION IS A
high turnover rates to some degree. And
PRODUCT OF ITS SYSTEM
because it’s part of a larger institution,
which also faces change, especially in the
last year, it’s going to face inconsistent
expectations.
Inconsistencies within
organizational life are
inevitable, but they
don’t have to be
destructive.