On February 16-17, 2006 Service-Learning practitioners gathered from around the state at the 10th annual Institute: The Places We Live: Student Engagement in Diverse Communities. The Institute was held at the University of Michigan- Flint.
2006 Institute Sponsors
Michigan Campus Compact
Michigan Community Service Commission
The University of Michigan – Flint Outreach
The University of Michigan-Flint Office of Graduate Programs
Consumers Energy
Flint Schools/Youth Projects/Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Flint
WJRT-ABC 12
The 2006 Institute welcomed several keynote speekers:
Opening Plenary Speaker~ James Conway
James Conway is a veteran trainer with over 15 years experience providing training and consultation to youth serving professionals and volunteers in educational and community-based organizations in the U.S. and abroad. He also served for 15 years in leadership roles of various programs for children and young adolescents. As a senior trainer, Conway represents the Search Institute as a public speaker and trainer for organizations and communities interested in building developmental assets for and with youth, starting a community-wide initiative, or creating organizational and community change on behalf of youth. He also provides leadership in the design and development of many of Search Institute’s core training offerings. In addition to extensive experience with the asset-building framework, Conway’s other areas of special expertise include: early adolescent development, parent education, and program planning and assessment. Before he began training and consulting for the Search Institute in 1995, Conway served for eight years as director of training at the Center for Early Adolescence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to his work with the Center, he spent over 15 years in youth work, primarily in New York City. Conway has delivered hundreds of presentations and written numerous publications such as, More Than Just a Place To Go: How Developmental Assets Can Strengthen Your Youth Program, Essentials of Asset Building: A Curriculum for Trainers, and Integrating Assets into Congregations: A Curriculum for Trainers.
Lunch Plenary Speaker~ Julie Bartsch
Julie Bartsch is an education consultant, providing training and technical assistance to a number of educational organizations. She is presently working with the Rural School and Community Trust, a national nonprofit educational organization dedicated to enlarging student learning and improving community life by strengthening the relationship between schools and communities, improving teacher quality, and advocating for policy issues that directly affect the quality of education in small communities. She is also a consultant/coach to the Great Maine Schools Project, a reform effort to redesign secondary education around the principles of equity, rigor, and personalization for all students. Bartsch has served in a number of roles in public education: teacher, K-12 administrator, college faculty/administrator, school board member, Tufts Fellow, and consultant. Her career in education has focused on her commitment to forging partnerships between K-12 schools, higher education institutions and community. At the Harvard School of Education, Bartsch worked on the development of a School Leadership Academy for pre- and in-service teachers and an annual institute on “Innovations in Literacy, Learning and Assessment.” Prior to her Tufts appointment, Bartsch directed a substantial grant-funded K-12 curricular initiative. Her work related to this initiative has been recognized nationally as a model for integrating project based-learning throughout the curriculum. Over the past few years, she has assisted a number of school districts throughout New England in various school improvement efforts including curriculum development, redesigning school schedules, aligning curricular work with state’s Learning Standards, and alternative assessment practices. She recently published Community Lessons, a collection of promising K-12 curricular practices. Bartsch holds advanced graduate degrees in management and education from Lesley College and the Harvard School of Education.
Student Track Keynote Speaker~ Josh White, Jr.
Josh White, Jr., vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, actor, adult and children's concert performer, teacher and social activist, has shared his own brand of music that matters for more than four decades. From 1963 through the 80s, White headlined more than 2,000 college concerts. At the peak of this folk boom, in the mid 60s through the late 70s, White was considered one of National Association of Campus Activities' most celebrated and honored performing artists. He has performed on the world's greatest stages across four continents, including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Odeon Hammersmith Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, and Madison Square Garden. In the 1980’s White recorded "The Strangest Dream" and "The King's Highway," the official theme songs of the Peace Corps and VISTA, earning him the title of the "Voice of The Peace Corps" and the "Voice of VISTA" by the U.S. Government. In recent years, White has added to his multi-dimensional talents and touring schedule doing children and family concerts, including school concerts for grades K-4. He provides an extraordinary, interactive experience for young people. He has appeared many times on the Nickelodeon Network and he, along with his good friend, Ron Coden, hosted their own PBS special, "Josh and Ron's Family Adventure." In 1991, White teamed up with Rändi Douglas on a program called “Living History” to teach history and social studies using kinesthetic, multiple intelligence activities. All this takes place in the classroom with music, imagination and role-playing.
Closing Plenary Speaker~ Donele Wilkins
Donele Wilkins has over two decades of experience in occupational and environmental health as an educator, consultant, trainer, administrator and advocate. In 1994, she co-founded and currently serves as the Executive Director of Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, a non-profit organization addressing urban environmental issues in the city of Detroit. Wilkins frequently speaks to local and national audiences on topics of community driven sustainable development, environmental justice, and occupational and environmental health advocacy. As a consultant, she has assisted several community organizations and put them on the correct path towards increasing their capacity to transform their communities. Wilkins is a mom of two - which motivates her to change conditions in her community so that children can have a brighter future. With her leadership, DWEJ was able to shut down the Henry Ford Hospital Medical Waste Incinerator. Wilkins sits on the Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, Southeast Michigan Council of Governments Transportation Advisory Committee; Founder and Co-Chair of the National Black Environmental Justice Network, Colin Powell Academy board of education and many other committees and forums. She is the recipient of several awards, fellowships and special recognition for her contribution on behalf of the community.
The Institute offered several featured clinics, among them were:
Dimensions of Assessment in K-12 Service-Learning: Assessing Student Outcomes and the Quality of the Service-Learning Experience
As research suggests, service-learning impacts are greatest when students engage in "high quality service-learning." Although a service-learning experience may possess all of the key elements of service-learning, it does not necessarily mean it is a high quality service-learning experience. This session explores dimensions of assessment in K-12 service-learning by first exploring a few easy and useful ways to assess the quality of a service-learning experience. The session will then focus on the assessment of student outcomes. Following a short presentation on the latest research on service-learning impacts for students, participants will explore several methods and instruments for assessing the various student learning and civic outcomes of service-learning.
Presenter: Andy Furco
Building the Engaged Campus: Using Campus Compact’s Indicators of Engagement to Document and Deepen Civic Engagement
This clinic will help attendees explore how to use Campus Compact's Indicators of Engagement to document and deepen their engaged practices. Participants will discuss the indicators, consider case studies of how various community colleges, minority-serving institutions, and comprehensive universities have approached engagement based on the Indicators, and explore how the Indicators can be used to document and assess engagement at their institutions.
Presenter: Jennifer Meeropol