Office of Global and Community Engagement

Community Engagement

Community Engagement is your connection between community service and academic course credit.

Through Service-Learning you can:

• Develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills
• Clarify your personal values and dedication to your degree program
• Explore career options
• Develop socially and personally
• Create connections with civic and community partners
• And earn college credit for coursework that includes a service component!

Apply Your Experience

A community partner is a co-educator who works directly with our students to provide high-quality experiences at the community site. This entails providing training, orientation, and supervision for students who serve weekly per semester, or more.

Community Partners

Community partners are integral to the success of our students. They facilitate onsite learning students, resulting in an integrative teaching approach that provides a foundation for student learning.

James D. Bendel Service Award

Do you volunteer in your community? Food pantry?
Animal shelter? Boy Scouts? Tutoring?

Award: A $500 award

Award Criteria: The Freshman, Sophomore or Junior who has demonstrated a commitment to working with vulnerable and marginalized populations, human or animal.

Nomination Process: Self nominate and fill out the brief application form. Applications will automatically be sent to the Director of Service Learning and Community Outreach, Kelly King, 3^rd Floor Alfred Hall.

Timeline: Applications accepted until April 30, 2017.

The Awardee will be recognized at a luncheon in September 2017. A permanent display of the award will be in the hallway outside the Office of Service Learning and Community Outreach.

International Service Trips

International service trips provide opportunities for students to expand their learning beyond the classroom and involve a combination of direct service and cultural immersion in a host community. Each year we sponsor a trip to Haiti and to Guatemala. The programs foster a respect for the people, history, and cultures present in the countries or areas we visit and a willingness to be challenged personally by the stories, the experiences, and the relationships that are encounter.

Haiti - Window on our Worlds

This International Service-Learning Course combines academic learning and critical reflection with relevant service in a rural Haitian community to enable students to identify critical, global issues affecting Haiti and to deepen their understanding of cross-cultural issues and the connections between the US and countries like Haiti. Through these experience students also grow in their awareness and understanding of self and contribute to building a global "culture of solidarity" and engaged citizenship at Saint Vincent College. This one credit course and service trip occur during spring break each year.

Student Experiences

Interested in a dynamic, fun, demanding experience?
Contact Jody Marsh at jody.marsh@stvincent.edu or 724-805-2064.

Living Theology in Guatemala

The Guatemala Service Learning Course provides students with the opportunity to interact with the population living in and around the garbage dump in Guatemala City, especially those students served at the San Francisco Coll School. As teacher aides, through informal recreational periods, and by assisting with various community improvement projects, students will participate in the life of a community struggling with extreme poverty and governmental neglect. Opportunities for prayer and reflection help to ground the trip as a gospel-centered project as students are invited to consider their own roles in global poverty and its alleviation.

Contact one of us for more information on this great experience: Jody Marsh at jody.marsh@stvincent.edu or Dr. Christopher McMahon, Theology Department at christopher.mcmahon@stvincent.edu.