Inner City Planning and Community Development Service Learning Program
Students may enroll in The Inner City Planning and Community Development Service Leaning Program for academic credit or on a non-credit basis, to participate in service learning activities that will augment their educational experience. Students enrolling in this program on a non-credit basis must sign a contract, pledging to participate in all aspects of the program. Upon completion of the course, these students will receive a certificate, confirming that they have completed course requirements. Each year, a select number of graduate students participating in the Service Learning Program will be granted fellowships, which will be awarded on a competitive basis. Students applying for a fellowship are required to submit a two page essay indicating why work on an inner city service project is important to them.
PD 545 Internship 3 credit Hours (Minimum of 120 total work hours or 12 hours per week, including required attendance at a monthly seminar)
Program Coordinator: Professor Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. and Mr. Jeffery Kujawa
The Inner-City Planning and Community Development Service Learning Program is a problem-based academic program that involves students in reflective civic engagement activities that focus on “real world” problems with residents and stakeholders in distressed inner city communities. Students enrolled in the program work on a range of planning and community development projects, or work with neighborhood community organizations and institutions. Through the process of reflecting on their experiences, the students are able to draw lessons and acquire greater insights into planning and community development issues. To develop this critical connection between reflection and community work, students are given writing and reading assignments and engage in discussion with other students during monthly reflection seminars on their work experiences.
The program is open to any undergraduate or graduate student, regardless of academic discipline. The Program is composed of the following components.
- The Service Learning Journal. Each student will keep a journal which includes weekly entries about the experience, the connection between classroom work, service learning selected readings, and the field notes taken from the service work program.
- The Orientation Seminar. Students learn about the service learning model and discuss the importance of reflective thinking as a mode of gaining insight and drawing lessons from their work experiences. The Orientation Seminar also contains small group discussions of individual projects, along with dialogue about student’s specific placement.
- The Reflection Seminars. These seminars will feature a lecture and discussion on some aspect of planning and community development and dialogue with the students about their work experiences.
- The Service Work Program. Each student will be assigned to work on a particular inner city planning or community development project or will be assigned to work in a community organizations or institution on an average 12 hours per week. Two hours weekly will be set aside for taking reflective field notes and completing reading assignments.
Please be advised that participation in all required program activities, and submission of all necessary documents, is mandatory and a condition of the continuation of the fellowship each semester. The Center for Urban Studies reserves the right to terminate participation in the program if all of the program requirements are not met.
Service Learning Readings
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