Community-Based Learning is an umbrella term capturing the wide range of learning activities connecting campus and community. The Center for Community-Based Learning and Civic Engagement focuses on two specific types of Community-Based Learning: Academic Service-Learning and volunteering. The Center also works to encourage engaged citizenship by highlighting and participating in civic engagement endeavors ranging from creating spaces for community dialogue to helping students participate in the political process. Definitions relevant to the Center's work are provided below.
The Center works to help faculty and community agencies form partnerships leading to meaningful Academic Service-Learning. Academic Service-Learning is defined as: "A credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of the course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility." (Bringle/Hatcher)
Working closely with Student Affairs and a variety of local agencies, the Center for Community-Based Learning and Civic Engagement highlights local and regional volunteer opportunities available to MSU students, faculty, and staff. Unlike Academic Service-Learning, which is clearly linked to a specific course and specific learning objectives, volunteering is "the engagement of students in activities where the primary emphasis is on the service being provided and the primary intended beneficiary is clearly the service recipient" (Furco). While significant in many ways, volunteer activities tend not to focus on specific academic objectives with the depth and structure found in Academic Service-Learning.
Both Academic service leaning and volunteering are forms of civic engagement. In addition to supporting these activities, the Center encourages engaged citizenship by publicizing and otherwise working to foster the wide range of individual and collective actions that constitute civic engagement. The Center accepts the following definition of civic engagement: Civic engagement involves the "...individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern. Civic engagement can take many forms, from individual volunteerism to organizational involvement to electoral participation. It can include efforts to directly address an issue, work with others in the community to solve a problem or interact with the institutions of representative democracy. Civic engagement encompasses a range of specific activities such as working in a soup kitchen, serving on a neighborhood association, writing a letter to an elected official or voting." (The Pew Charitable Trusts)
