S-Designation Courses
On May 30, 2007, the Council on Academic Affairs approved the proposal for policies and procedures for listing service-learning/community-engaged courses with an “S” suffix. This addition makes it easier for students to locate these courses and provides standards for course design across the university. Due to several administrative changes to the course systems over the past few years, there are still many service-learning courses that do not carry the S-suffix. To help students identify and faculty to promote service-learning/community-engaged courses, we are currently working with administration and faculty to ensure that all reliable community-engaged courses get the S-designation.
Why should I apply for the S-designation?
If you plan to develop or already have an existing course that will be taught as a Service-Learning/Community-Engaged course, you should consider applying for the S-Designation. The S-Designation has many advantages for a course, including:
- Making your classes more visible to students who are interested in service and community-based work and search for S in the course catalog;
- Allowing us to promote your classes along with the other S-courses on our website and through other channels;
- Having the opportunity for the course to be approved as a General Education Themes course with a High Impact Practice/Integrative Practice Service-Learning component;
- Including your course in data collection and reporting on high impact practices across the university.
There are two versions of the S-Designation available to approved courses
S — This simply adds an "S" as a suffix to a new or existing course that meets the requirements outlined in the Checklist for Developing Service-Learning Courses. These requests are reviewed and approved by the Office of Service-Learning and our committee of experienced service-learning faculty.
S+GE Themes — In addition to the S-designation, a Service-Learning course can be proposed as a GEN Themes course with a High Impact Practice/Integrative Practice Service-Learning component. Integrative Practice status can be requested when the course is submitted to the Theme. This is done by submitting a completed Integrative Practices Inventory. The inventory documents the expectations of each high-impact pedagogy and will be reviewed during course approval. These will be evaluated by the Themes Panel of the ASCC as a part of the overall course review, rather than the Office of Service-Learning. More information on course submission processes for the GE can be found here.
Process for Requesting the S-Designation
To request the s-designation for a non-GEN Themes course, please fill out the form below.
Once you have completed the form, please ensure that your department's curriculum lead has your form and requests the S-designation through the process on http://curriculum.osu.edu, uploading the completed form to the portal along with your syllabus and other documentation. As your course works through the approval process, it will be sent to the Office of Service-Learning for review by our faculty committee; the rubric below will guide that review process.