November 2015
Eastern Michigan University Office of Academic Service-Learning
“Twenty years young, this office still poses and
seeks to respond programmatically to the
question, “What is the role and responsibility
of a university with and in its community?”
- Jessica “Decky” Alexander, Director of the Office of AS-L
In this issue...

Letter from the Director … pg. 2

Welcome to AS-L: Imani and Jennifer…
pg. 3

Academic Service-Learning Faculty Fellows Fall 2015 … pg. 4

Community Work Study Initiative and The
B.Side and Digital Inclusion… pg. 5
Office of Academic Service-Learning
203 Boone Hall

College Coaching Corps… pg. 6

College Positive Volunteerism and Advise MI … pg. 7

New Work in Community Based Learning and Engagement … pg. 8

Upcoming Events … pg. 8
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
www.emich.edu/asl
1
A Note From the Director
The world can shift on a dime, let alone 20 years. The Office of AS-L under the
guidance and vision of Dale Rice was launched 20 years ago on EMU’s campus. It
was one of the first universities in the state to provide training and support to faculty
in academic service-learning, specifically in understanding and inventing how (and
why) to integrate service to community into courses. Under Dale Rice’s direction
the office grew and became a national leader in the AS-L methodology, which focused on intentional integration of service direct and indirect) into course curriculum. Course outcomes and
objectives can be met through an AS-L experience. Through this office and most importantly the faculty
that participate in the Faculty Fellow seminar the University make a more intentional community partner
and collaborator. Community centered and faculty driven initiatives such as SEMIS under Teacher Education faculty member Ethan Lowenstein’s direction, AMP under Arts management faculty member Susan
Badger Booth and Write Link, under English faculty member Melissa Motschall (who passed away in 2010)
were sparked through immersion in the AS-L seminar. Courses such as Social Work 350 and Communication Capstone (CTAC 495) with their hundreds of students of every semester are all encompassing AS-L
course, where the whole course is a integrated community collaboration.
The office under the direction of Kathy Stacey transformed and launched several community youth development initiatives such as: YYEA (Ypsilanti Youth Empowered to Act), Community Youth Mapping and the
B. Side of Youth. The office switched hands in 2008 and programs as the B.Side of Youth and its social
enterprises Digital Inclusion and Art Around Town thrived and continue to grow. The office of AS-L today is
similar in many ways to the Office of 20 years ago. It is still a meeting ground for community and faculty to
connect and collaborate through courses, curriculum and scholarly/creative activity, it’s still a place where
new university community programs such as the College Coaching Corps, CrossTown Theatre are
launched, and it still works to better tell EMU’s community and university story, however its purpose products (as many AS-L offices across the nation) have shifted. AS-L is working to be a virtual front community
door for EMU through its engage site, www.emich.edu/engage , is launching an advanced study for faculty
on the place of the Civic at EMU across curriculum, http://www.emich.edu/asl/fellows.php, and it has
launched a community works study initiative where EMU works study students can work in and for community organizations. Twenty years young, this office still poses and seeks to respond programmatically to the
question, “What is the role and responsibility of a university with and in its community?” There is not a singular response to this age-old question, with several answers bound to be complex and fluid. The Office of
AS-L will nonetheless attempt to clarify that relationship through its own humble and honest initiatives with
the community.
— Jessica “Decky” Alexander, Director of the Office of AS-L
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Welcome to Academic Service-Learning:
New Graduate Assistants, Imani and Jennifer
Imani’s work primarily revolves around tasks involving general business
with the Office of Academic Service-Learning. Some of these tasks have
included finding and establishing connections with local religious-based
non-profit organization for an introductory history course focusing on
comparative religions, serving as a contributing member during AS-L
Faculty Fellow seminars, and attending Community Engagement Collaborative (CEC) meetings. In addition, she has been gradually updating the
AS-L website and has created evaluation surveys for AS-L students and
faculty to be distribute at the beginning of next semester.
Imani is eager to continue to work and enhance the current tasks that
she has begun this semester. Along with continuous updates of the AS-L
website, its tandem website, Engage@EMU (http://www.emich.edu/
engage/), will also undergo renovations.
Imani Byrd
Academic Service-Learning Graduate Assistant
Clinical Behavioral Psychology MS
She is also assisting faculty of the Clinical Psychology doctoral program
to establish potential community partnerships between groups such as
MAGIC (Mentorship, Access, and Guidance in College) and the Corner
Health Center, as well as additional service-learning opportunities with
psychology students interested in social justice initiatives. In addition, it is
Imani’s hope to begin the process of a joint collaborative of creating a
support group for students who were previously incarcerated and/or have
a criminal record.
Jennifer’s work primarily supports the Community Work-Study Initiative for
EMU students. She manages students’ work-study applications and coordinates placements for them off-campus with our community partners. She
also helps facilitate transportation needs for students by providing guidance
on the public transportation systems available. Jennifer works with Financial
Aid to first determine students’ work-study eligibility, then moves on to assist
them with the distribution of their award as it relates to Human Resources
and payroll services.
In addition to providing our current community partners with additional student labor, Jennifer also works to establish new partnerships within the local
community. She has collaborated with the VISION department in order to
utilize EMU’s present outreach systems. VISION’s volunteer fair proved to
be an excellent recruitment tool for the Community Work-Study Initiative.
Jennifer is looking forward to adding even more students to the current cohort of 15 as she progresses in her efficiency over the course of this academic year. The AS-L office will be sponsoring a Celebratory Luncheon for
all established work-study students within our cohort on December 10th. Additionally, she is excited to establish an updated webpage on AS-L’s Engage
site that would serve as a helpful resource to both current members involved
in the initiative as well as people interested in learning more about it.
Jennifer Schmitz
Community Collaborative Graduate Assistant
Reading MA
3
Academic Service-Learning Faculty Fellows
AS-L Course Highlight: CTAC 307 — Teaching of Speech, as
taught by Amy Johnson
Drama Debate Team
WIMA and CTAC 307 students
Fall 2015 Faculty Fellows
The Office of Academic Service-Learning would
like to congratulate our newest cohort of Faculty
Fellows on completion of the Fall 2015 seminars.
Faculty Fellows are charged with the responsibility to create service-learning projects that
connect the academic rigor and theory students
learn, while benefiting the community in practice.
The Fall 2015 Faculty Fellows include:





Bonnie Miller, School of Social Work
Celeste Hawkins, School of Social Work
James Krolik, Department of Management
Kelly Victor-Burke, Department of Geography and Geology
Imandeep Grewal, Department of Teacher
Education
We will be accepting applications for Winter
2016 AS-L Faculty Fellows until Monday, December 3, 2015. To fill out an application, aa
well as learn more info about AS-L Faculty Fellows, please visit http://www.emich.edu/asl/
fellows.php
Debates have always been dramatic, so combining debate and
theatre is hardly an unlikely pair. This is a brief statement of the
project Amy Johnson, Lecturer II in CMTA, had her students coordinate and participate in her course, CTAC 307, Teaching of
Speech. The course’s purpose is to consider the construction and
analysis of all aspects of a course of study, including methods of
co-curricular directing and teaching speech activities. CTAC 307
is a required course for students majoring in Communication and
Theatre Arts in the junior or senior high school teaching curriculum.
Amy and five of her students from CTAC 307 worked with students to create a “debate club” from Washtenaw International
Middle Academy (WIMA) in Ypsilanti, MI. Adorned in vibrant accessories characterizing the role they wanted to enact, the children engaged in a directed debate under the supervision of Amy
and her students. According to Amy, as many as 12 students
were involved in the club.
When asked what was notable about her project, Amy expressed, “This is the perfect opportunity for secondary education
majors to interact with students. I feel like what their education is
missing is practical application of their education. BF offers the
unique opportunity of then to learn by doing and since BF is such
an open organization - they have the freedom to experiment and
learn by of trial and error. It also is wonderful because the students get to attend to what is important, the students - and not
simply teaching their lesson plan for a grade.”
This is not Amy’s first time establishing a club at the middle
school. Last semester, she and her CTAC 407 Teaching Methods
course, alongside Bright Futures and the EMU Forensics team
supervised a forensics club for interested students. Five members of the EMU Forensics team and a few students from her
course worked regularly with the students throughout the semester. Amy has been pleased with the project, having stated, “I
hope to run a forensics club in tandem with the 407 class every
Winter (that I teach it).” In addition, she hopes to work with Bright
Futures next semester for her pending events planning course.
— Imani Byrd, AS-L GA
WIMA students are watching...
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Community Work-Study Initiative
The Office of AS-L actively matches work-study eligible students with offcampus local non-profit organizations. We do this because EMU must use
at least 7% of its Federal Work Study award per year to pay the federal
share of wages to students employed in community service jobs. Additionally, in meeting the 7% community service requirement, one of more of
the school’s FWS students must be employed as a reading tutor for children in a reading tutoring project or preforming family literacy activities in
a family literacy project.
This fall, we currently have 5 students working regular weekly shifts for
the following community partner organizations:

Natural Area Preservation in Ann Arbor

Bright Futures

Ypsilanti Meals on Wheels

Digital Inclusion

Ozone House

Telling It

Vista Maria

Grizzly Community Support Centers
Students working at DI
Digital Inclusion (DI) has filed to be a 501c3 and is
waiting on approval from the federal government.
This coincides with the opening of a second Digital
Inclusion store on the Washtenaw Community College (WCC) campus. The new store is located in
the Business and Technology Building (BE 178)
and will operate a few days a week, until funding
can be secured to expand the operation. The store
will eventually be operated by WCC students and
will be a great collaborative partner for the current
DI student team here at EMU.
No Limits Conference 2015
In addition to regular working shifts, we have afforded students the opportunity to support “One-Time Events” in the local community. To date, students have assisted with the following:


WISD’s Diversity Forum at the College of Business on 11/6/15
Haiti Nursing Foundation: Milestones Celebration on 11/17/15
We are still working diligently to secure placements with future partners
from organizations such as:

Habitat for Humanity: ReStore

Washtenaw County Juvenile Court

St. Joseph Mercy Hospital
The B. Side continues to build relationships with
schools throughout Southeastern Michigan, with
recent visits to Ypsilanti Community High School
and the Cody High School Detroit Institute of
Technology. Both were planning meetings for developing program for students, with Cody DIT looking to provide on-site paid internships for its students. The B. Side is also moving forward with
listing its curriculum through on-line websites that
support K-12 educators by providing lesson plans,
exercises, and other tools for them to use. These
materials can be provided for free or at a minimal
cost to educators.
The No Limits College to Career Conference is on
for 2016. The conference for high school age students will be held on May 18th, 2016 at the EMU
Student Center. Students will experience college to
career pathways as presented by current EMU
students enrolled in degree programs, and have
breakout sessions with alumni who have been in
the career field for 3-5 years. No Limits provides
high school students a unique experience, which
provides them with real insight on specific career
pathways. For EMU departments interesting in participating as a degree program sponsor, please
contact Jack Bidlack at 734-487-6570 or email
jbidlac1@emich.edu.
— Jack Bidlack, Director the The B.Side & DI
For additional information regarding the community work-study initiative, as
well as community organizations (non-profits, schools, government entities,
etc.) interested in hosting EMU work study student(s), please visit http://
www.emich.edu/asl/workstudy.php or contact Jennifer Schmitz, Community Collaborative Graduate Assistant, at jschmit8@emich.edu.
— Jennifer Schmitz, Community Collaborative GA
5
College Coaching Corps
College Coaching Schools &
Coaches 2015-16
Milan High School
William Horton-Anderson & Amber
Hawkins
Ypsilanti New Tech
Evelyn Galvan
Ann Arbor Pathways
Alexandra Smith
Ypsilanti Middle School
College Coach Alexandra Smith working with students at Ann Arbor Pathways
The College Coaching Corps program seeks to help more Michigan middle school and high school students pursue postsecondary educational
opportunities. Particularly those students that are located in communities
with low socio-economic status and low adult educational attainment
rates. The college Coaches are Graduate Assistants that work in the
schools twenty hours a week and are employed through the AS-L office.
Schools that have College Coaches stationed in them currently are Milan
High School, who since Fall 2014, have had College Coaches Amber
Hawkins and William Horton-Anderson. Amber Hawkins will be graduating
from EMU in Fall 2015 with her Master’s in School Counseling. When
asked about her experience as a College Coach, here’s what she had to
say: “My role as a college coach at Milan High School has been a wonderful experience. This is my second year here at Milan, and I have
learned so much from working with the school, community, and other
stakeholders… The college going culture at Milan has truly been encouraged and promoted within the last two years with the help of parents,
teachers, and other staff members. I am super excited to see the growth
in the students as they continue to prep and plan for their future.”
New to the College Coaching Corps are Evelyn Galvan at Ypsilanti New
Tech and Alexandra Smith, who is working in Ann Arbor Pathways. When
asked about her experience so far as a College Coach, here is what Alexandra had to say: “I think the semester is going well, especially after College Application Week. Students are starting to take as much interest in
their future's as I am!”.
In the state of Michigan, the week of October 26-30 is known as College
Application Week (CAW). During this year’s CAW our five schools participated by continuing to encourage their seniors to apply, and finish up their
applications by the November 1st Early Action deadline if possible. The
students were rewarded for their submissions by being entered into a raffle where they could win prizes, and of course, by getting their applications in early!
College Coaching Corps
Fast Facts




25 applications were submitted during College Application
Week (CAW) at Ann Arbor
Pathways
58%
participated
during
CAW, 71% of the seniors applied for at least 1
Post-secondary option before
or during CAW (109 seniors
out of 188) 238 applications
were submitted either before
or during CAW at Milan High
School
84% of the 67 total seniors
applied to at least 1 college at
Ypsilanti New Tech
6
College Positive Volunteers (CPV)
Advise MI
MCAN in partnership with EMU and several
other colleges and universities in the state
launched Advise MI which seeks to assist
more Michigan students pursue post secondary education. Recent graduates
(undergraduate or graduate) from EMU
serve as advisers in high schools with low
college–going rates and low adulteducational attainment rates. Advise MI advisers work alongside high school counselors to support students as they work to
transition from high school to college.
Advise MI advisers work full time (40 hours
a week) and focus on mentoring students
(particularly from low income backgrounds)
through the complex steps of college or any
post secondary enrollment.
“One of the biggest events was our
EMU onsite admissions, but students
were also inspired by a college panel
discussion that included current college
students and recent graduates from both
EMU and U of M. After CAW, more students have been to my office ready to
take charge of their futures. I feel secure
in knowing that these seniors are headed in the right direction.”
The College Positive Volunteerism (CPV) program, funded by a grant
from Michigan Campus Compact, works to connect middle and high
school students with college student mentors whose main goal is to
advocate for the importance of and accessibility to post-secondary
education. This year, the ASL Office has brought on three new lead
CPVs to coordinate this programming: Britannie Hildreth, DuVarius
Vaughn, and Emily Kindred. Over the course of the semester, they
have trained a cohort of nine new CPVs, engaged Gear Up students
in a CPV mindset training, and worked with Gear Up staffers to assist
on Saturday Academy (SAT Prep) days. They hope to strengthen
their partnership with University of Michigan’s CPV program so that K
-12 students in Ypsilanti, Taylor, and Romulus are exposed to the
CPV curriculum from a diverse group of college mentors.
CPV: Active Students Conference
The College Positive Volunteerism (CPV) program, funded by a grant
from Michigan Campus Compact, works to connect middle and high
school students with college student mentors whose main goal is to
advocate for the importance of and accessibility to post-secondary
education. This year, the ASL Office has brought on three new lead
CPVs to coordinate this programming: Britannie Hildreth, DuVarius
Vaughn, and Emily Kindred. Over the course of the semester, they
have trained a cohort of nine new CPVs, engaged Gear Up students
in a CPV mindset training, and worked with Gear Up staffers to assist
on Saturday Academy (SAT Prep) days. They hope to strengthen
their partnership with University of Michigan’s CPV program so that K
-12 students in Ypsilanti, Taylor, and Romulus are exposed to the
CPV curriculum from a diverse group of college mentors.
— Emily Kindred, CPV
— Marcia Mollett, Advise MI Adviser, John
Glenn High School
Advise MI Partner Schools and
Advisers 2015
Belleville High School
Ellise Smith
John Glenn High School
Marcia Mollet
River Rouge High School
Courtney Morris
College Positive Volunteers Winter 2015
7
New Work in Community-Based
Learning and Engagement
We encourage you to read the Journal of Diversity and
Democracy, produced between AAC&U and the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (an initiative
of Tufts University's
Jonathan M. Tisch
College of Citizenship
and Public Service) for
articles that are focused on up-to-date
civics in curriculum,
scholarship, and/or
faculty development
pertaining to servicelearning or communitybased learning. The
current Fall 2015 issue is available here at this url:
https://aacu.org/diversitydemocracy.
Upcoming Events

Ypsilanti Farmer’s Market
Tuesdays 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Ann Arbor Microbrewery | 720 Norris St., Ypsilanti,
MI

Celebration Luncheon for Community Work
Study Initiative
December 10, 2015

Community and University Award Celebration
April 15, 2016
McKenny Ballroom, beginning at 11:00 am

No Limits College to Career Conference
New Opportunity for Current/Past AS-L
Faculty Fellows
We are featuring " The Civic: A Study & Action
Collaborative for Faculty," a pending collaborative group of up to 6 EMU faculty
(veteran AS-L Faculty Fellows) who will meet
over 6 to 7 sessions to survey, study, discuss,
develop or integrate the civic components into
curriculum, classes, pedagogy and/or scholarly
or creative activity. Faculty receive a stipend to
participate. The application can be accessed
here: https://form.jotform.com/53144281149958
More information, including the link to the application, can be found on our website,
www.emich.edu/asl.
Contact Us!
Office of Academic ServiceLearning (AS-L)
203 Boone Hall | (734)487-6570
Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
E-mail us at: aa_asl@emich.edu
Visit our website: www.emich.edu/
asl
Like our Facebook page @
EMU Office of Academic
Service-Learning
May 18, 2016
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