Students can enroll in regular term courses and Exploration Term projects that integrate community service.  These courses and projects are offered in various disciplines which incorporate community-based work. For example, as part of a sociology course, students might volunteer with local agencies and examine the work of those agencies in light of course concepts.  Or, alternatively, as part of a poverty studies course, students might work as a class to interview or survey agency clients or local residents and share the results with a community partner agency.  Service-learning integrated courses often fulfill general education requirements or requirements in the major, minor, or distinction programs.  

How do I enroll in a service-learning Integrated course or E-Term Project?

Service-Learning integrated courses are listed in the annual course catalog and will be rise ³ -designated in Self-Service as part of regular term and Exploration Term registration.  Options will also be promoted through ENGAGE and elsewhere. 

• Fall, Spring, Summer Term Courses. The following departments offer service-learning integrated courses during the fall, spring, and occasionally summer terms: business, chemistry, education, English, leadership studies, public health studies, poverty studies, religion, sociology, theatre, and urban environmental studies. Check with individual departments to verify listings in Self-Service for a specific term. The course will be designated rise ³ and the course description will include reference to service-learning. Once you enroll in the course, follow any instructions on the course syllabus to complete your community engagement requirements.
• Exploration Term Projects. Many departments and programs offer service-learning integrated courses during Exploration Term, including travel projects. Check the Exploration Term Bulletin for these and other opportunities; you can also talk with your advisor and other department representatives.
• Contracted Experiences. You can design your own individualized community engagement project to earn credit for work with a community partner agency.  Work with a faculty sponsor (and a community partner agency) to craft a proposal for a learning contract. Your contract serves as the way to formalize your learning insights from your community engagement and ensures you earn academic credit for your work. Details about completing an individualized learning contract can be found here.

Bonner Leader Program
The Bonner Leader Program is a leadership development program for students who are committed to community and civic engagement. This program will offer you a chance to work in a community-based organization and to experience a wide array of enrichment activities that will enhance your college experience and help you grow as a person. To learn more about commitments and benefits of the Bonner Leader Program visit this link. Apply for the Bonner Leader Program. 

Students can engage with community partners by establishing routine volunteer experiences or participating in special service experiences and projects.  Regular volunteer opportunities can be found at multiple agencies, including First Light Women’s Shelter, Oak Knoll Health and Rehabilitation Center, and Urban Ministry. Students typically volunteer one to three hours per week with agencies, committing to the same time each week. 

A list of community agencies we partner with can be found here. 

Additionally, students can participate in special service day experiences.  These experiences provide a chance to connect with others in a short-term experience, such as neighborhood cleanup, Habitat builds, or other one-time experiences.  

For Alternative Spring Break, students deepen their understanding of themselves and of another culture or place while engaged in service. Participants prepare as a team prior to travel. During recent spring breaks, teams have worked in San Francisco, Boston, Nashville, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Washington, DC, and Birmingham. 

How do I get involved in these experiences? 

Find the listing of all service opportunities, including service days and alternative spring break, on ENGAGE, in Monday Morning, and on the bulletin boards outside the Krulak Institute office. Identify any that might be of interest to you.     

If you do not see an opportunity that matches your interests, contact Krulak Institute staff to discuss how you might initiate a new community partnership.  In this role, you can take the initiative to develop the partnership and recruit other students to volunteer and participate with you.  

If you are a member of a student organization looking to engage your members in community service, reach out to the Krulak Institute staff to identify a service experience appropriate for your group.

Both the Krulak Institute and the Office of Student Development offer opportunities for students to converse with others about current issues and to engage in collective action, including letter-writing campaigns, fundraisers, and other forms of education and advocacy.  

How can I get involved or initiate a discussion action group?

To participate in these activities, monitor Monday Morning and review the service listings on ENGAGE. You might also encounter opportunities through your Greek or other student organizations.  If you have any questions, please reach out to the Krulak Institute staff. 

Thank you for your interest in collaborating with a faculty member or hosting Birmingham-Southern students with your agency!  Staff in the Krulak Institute can assist you in identifying the most effective ways to build a sustainable relationship between Birmingham-Southern and your agency. 

To see a list of partners we're currently collaborating with, click here.

How can my agency get started?

Reach out to Krulak Institute staff to explore the different ways your agency might partner with faculty and staff at Birmingham-Southern. Here are some things to consider:  

• Consider your goals. Think about what you most want to achieve from a partnership with students or faculty: Are you most interested in regular volunteers? Do you have a specific challenge or project with which you want assistance? What would an ideal partnership look like to you?
• Think about the time frame. Keep in mind that students are typically only available during BSC’s academic terms (fall term, Exploration Term, spring term, and summer term) and frequently return home during breaks. Faculty course planning may be similarly constrained; faculty research opportunities might follow a different timeline. How might these time constraints affect your goals or the timing for recruitment?

  Term	Begin Planning Conversation
  Fall term (13 weeks, starting late August)	February or March
  Exploration Term (4 weeks, January)	September or October
  Spring term (13 weeks, starting February)	September or October
  Summer term (8-12 weeks, starting late May)	November or December

• Consider the level of commitment, knowledge, and skills. All of our students are engaged undergraduates. What knowledge, skills, or time commitment might your partnership require? Does your partnership require background or familiarity with specific issues or areas of professional expertise? Are there particular skills that might be best suited to your partnership (e.g. quantitate analysis or interpersonal skills)? How much time do you anticipate will be expected of others or of you to maintain the work?
• Remember it’s a partnership. In the Krulak Institute, we value long-term, sustainable relationships. We want to partner with you. That means we will want to maintain an ongoing conversation about the work, bringing relevant stakeholders into the conversation as needed, including Krulak Institute staff, faculty members, student coordinators, and others. That also means that we will keep learning with you about how best to make our partnership work. In what ways can we foster mutual commitment between your agency and Birmingham-Southern?

Service-learning integrated courses and Exploration Term projects enable faculty to connect course learning outcomes to community and civic engagement work.  Service-learning integrated courses and projects typically take one of two forms: place-based or project-based courses.  Place-based courses invite students to work with or volunteer at a local agency as a way of enhancing course learning outcomes (e.g., tutoring students once-per-week for the term).  Project-based courses partner with local agencies to complete a capacity-building project in collaboration with the representatives at the agency (e.g., surveying local residents and sharing the results in a town hall, or creating promotional materials for an agency initiative). Faculty can develop and offer service-learning integrated courses in any discipline. If you are interested in developing a course, please contact the Director of Service-Learning. 

How do I develop a service-learning integrated course? 

• Identify a course. Think about a new or existing course that would benefit from work with the community. Build on your own expertise and consider how your work might overlap with existing community needs. If you are currently collaborating or working with a community agency, consider how your disciplinary and professional expertise might overlap with that agency’s interests.
• Apply for funding. The Krulak Institute offers course development summer stipends for the development of service-learning integrated courses and projects. If you would like support in identifying agencies or community partners, contact the Director of Service-Learning to explore possibilities in advance of your initial proposal. The Associate Provost sends requests for proposals each spring.
• Meet with the partner agency. Depending on your approach, plan to connect with the partner agency well in advance of the start of the course. Doing effective community-based work requires collaboration and intentionality, so plan to connect with your community partner to clarify expectations and shared goals.
• Design the course. Effective community-based courses integrate the community work with other aspects of the course, using regular reflection and discussion to assist students in learning from their experiences. You will want to remain flexible in your course design and be attentive to the issues that might emerge as a result of the community work.
• Tell students. Indicate on your syllabus and in the course catalog that the course is a service-learning integrated course. Doing so will help students anticipate the expectations and see the relationship between your course and community engagement.