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The Service-Learning Initiative awarded three grants to support development of service-learning courses. The criteria for selection of these projects were:

• A focus on community goals
• Project design created collaboratively by interdisciplinary university/community teams
• Development of partnership for sustained community-based activity

1. Group Studies: Corrections (an Inside-Out Prison Exchange Course)

Angela Harvey, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Ohio State Newark; Partner: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is a national initiative that brings college students and incarcerated individuals together in a classroom setting to counter predominant stereotypes and myths held about prisons and prisoners through personal engagement. The service-learning course (Sociology 294S: Group Studies) is based on the Inside-Out curriculum and will take place in the Southeastern Correctional Institution in Lancaster, Ohio (a minimum-medium security institution near the Ohio State Newark campus). Class participants will include 15 undergraduate university students and 10-15 incarcerated students. Course content will include a series of critical readings and discussions focused upon such topics as the origins and development of the American criminal justice system, the historical and contemporary use of punishment and rehabilitation, the re-emergence of restorative justice, and the broader relationship between criminal and social justice. Ohio State students will engage in critical discussions with inmates about U.S. corrections.

2. Honors Design as Service

Susan Melsop, Assistant Professor, Industrial, Interior, & Visual Communications Design, College of the Arts; Partner: Central Community House

This course aims to engage students in an interdisciplinary approach to design, incorporating the design methods inherent in each of the design units. One of the objectives is to integrate the classroom curriculum of the design process and problem solving with direct engagement with community members. The service activities include design proposals for the renovation of the former site of Central Community House. As interior and industrial design students learn about sustainable building technologies and practices through course work, the adaptive reuse of the building serves as a real site to demonstrate what they have learned regarding sustainability principles. Students will have the opportunity to propose building plans and design solutions for the renovation project. This includes preliminary studies of social sustainability, and the impact of the renovation in this underserved neighborhood of Columbus. For visual communications students, the course content includes working directly with CCH staff to research and identify appropriate forms of communication. This may include the creation of information graphics, promotional materials, or signage systems that support the services provided by Central Community House.

3. Shelter Medicine Rotation at the Scooby Animal Shelter in Medina del Campo, Spain

C. Guillermo Couto, Professor, Veterinary Clinical Services and Veterinary Teaching Hospital; Partner: Scooby Medina Shelter

Four veterinary students and 2 faculty members will participate in an elective shelter medicine rotation in a rural animal shelter in Medina del Campo, Spain; this is a joint rotation with the University of Zaragoza (UZ) Veterinary Faculty. During their stay, the students will be assigned to a medical or surgical service, rotating halfway through the stay. The medical team will take care of medical issues (respiratory diseases, GI problems), whereas the surgical team will be primarily performing spays and neuters. During the rotations, the students will perform spays/neuters under the direct supervision of faculty members from these universities; in addition, they will participate in a variety of clinical and educational activities, including medical care of sick patients, treatment of minor surgical problems (e.g., bite wounds), health management planning (e.g., vaccination protocols, deworming, microchipping), ultrasonography, and owner education (discussing health-related issues with the adopting families). Many veterinary students have never traveled outside of the United States and have not been exposed to a multicultural environment. At Medina del Campo they will interact with a group of Spanish veterinary students and gain insight on how to treat a patient when the standard of care is unavailable; improvisation and thinking outside the box are significantly honed during this rotation. The students’ involvement in the process that will allow for these dogs and cats to be adopted is invaluable; if they were not there to perform the surgeries, a high percentage of these animals would be euthanized.

See http://www.vet.ohio-state.edu/4452.htm.