All undergraduate students at Saint Mary's College of California, a small, private institution, are required to complete an engaged learning (EL) course or experience for graduation. This graduation requirement was established to provide students with the opportunity to learn in and from the community; an important value from the principles of the…

Purpose: While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as "Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools" and "Serving the Community through Teaching English," this paper aims to argue that teaching students to teach language(s) is yet to be the…

Schools seeking to develop students' social, emotional, and academic skills should consider service learning as one way to help students apply those skills. As of the 2017-18 school year, 37 states and the District of Columbia required or encouraged school districts to offer community service education and service-learning programs. This NASBE…

Canadian schools introduced community service program in 1999 to engage youth in diverse communities of Canada. Many studies have identified the gap in understanding immigrant youths' experience on mandatory community service but has yet to study immigrant youth's experience. Therefore, this paper explores the experiences of young Nepalese…

University students who were required to engage in academic public service during college were surveyed just before completion of their undergraduate studies. Views of the graduation requirement remained positive, as they had been at college entry and after two years of study. Civic attitudes, knowledge, and skills were quite stable over four…

As school districts and communities struggle to increase civic engagement for their students, a medium-sized suburban school district implemented required community service hours as part of their high school graduation requirements. The purpose of this qualitative program evaluation was to investigate how the community service program was meeting…

A statewide survey of coordinators of inclusive high school service-learning programs was conducted to validate elements, methods, and barriers to including students with and without disabilities in service-learning. Surveys were mailed to 655 service-learning coordinators; 190 (29%) returned a completed survey. Findings support the validity of…

Student Service Learning (SSL) provides students the opportunity to actively participate in the community and build the skills they need to be successful students and citizens. This booklet provides information about the Maryland State Department of Education SSL graduation mandate. Completing 75 SSL hours is a requirement for high school…

Students entering Tulane University in 2006, 2007, and 2008, the years following Hurricane Katrina, were surveyed soon after arriving on campus and again after they had been at the university for two years. Attitudes toward a new public service graduation requirement, established after the storm, remained positive after students had completed two…

The emphasis on engaging students in high-impact educational practices is increasing in higher education. Since its release in 2008, "High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter" has been the go-to report for campuses seeking guidance to help their students "reap the full…

These are tough times for the law profession. Employment prospects are the weakest they have been in decades. Wages have stagnated. Many blue chip law firms have laid off lawyers or are hiring fewer lawyers. Lately, law schools have been accused of luring students with false promises of cushy, high-paying jobs. There have been accusations of law…

This fact sheet summarizes state requirements related to civic education, which means learning about citizenship, government, law, current events, and related topics. Civic education is most directly addressed in courses labeled "civics," "government," or "U.S. government." Social studies is a broader category that…

Volunteering implies free choice, but people in some situations can feel compelled to volunteer. Hypotheses about students' volunteer work focused on self-determination and sufficiency of justification for their behavior. We examined required versus nonrequired volunteerism, internal and external motivation for volunteering, and attitudes of…

Based on the assumption that all young people and their communities would benefit from students' active participation in community endeavours, some Canadian provinces and US states have included community involvement activities graduation requirement. Debates continue over whether students should be "forced" to volunteer. Ontario's…

As New Orleans began to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University also began its recovery process. A new initiative in the recovery was the establishment of a public service graduation requirement for undergraduate students. Attitudes toward the requirement were assessed for 290 first-year and 257 advanced students in fall 2006. The…