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Office of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement (OSLCE)
Thompson Building, Room 101E
(775) 784-4846
The Office of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement (OSLCE) is an initiative under the Office of the Provost. Our mission is to facilitate meaningful community-based learning experiences that engage students and faculty with the community through service-learning courses, civic engagement experiences, or community research to enhance and foster learning and discovery. We connect and integrate the campus, classroom and community by facilitating partnerships, assessing learning and tracking impact.
Service-Learning is a specially designed model of experiential-learning in which students engage in meaningful activities that address community needs together with structured opportunities for reflection in order to achieve learning outcomes and teach civic responsibility. Equal emphasis is placed on both the service and the learning (service-learning). Reflection and reciprocity with the community are essential components of service-learning (Jacoby 1996).
Students gain skills and knowledge through hands-on service, while developing their academic skills, sense of civic responsibility, and commitment to the community.
Civic Engagement is about working to make a difference in our communities, it involves actions individuals take to influence public matters. This means working to enhance and promote the quality of life in our local and global community.
“Civic engagement means working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivations to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes.” (Ehrlich 2000). |