Enhanced Funding Opportunities for Students and Faculty Through the Service Learning Initiative

Funds are available for students and faculty affiliated with the Service Learning Initiative at the U of A, provided all program requirements are met. 

STUDENTS 

Travel Grant 

Available funds may be awarded up to $1,500, an increase from prior years, to support student travel for domestic academic conferences, workshops or symposiums where students are presenting service learning-related work, participating in interactive sessions connected to their research or collecting data for service learning-based research projects. 

Recently, Jessica Rice, a Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program student, successfully completed the grant process. Rice traveled to Chicago to attend and present at the Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology conference. As a teaching assistant in Dr. Tim Cavell's Lunch Buddy Mentoring program, she shared research based on this initiative. 

"My thesis focuses on LB Mentoring and whether this model can be adopted by Big Brother Big Sisters America, which is the largest youth mentoring organization in the country," Rice says. 

Reflecting on the experience, she shared: "I received a lot of positive feedback from clinicians, researchers, graduate students and prospective graduate students...many individuals seemed really excited about my project and offered a lot of great suggestions for how I can expend this project into a dissertation. Additionally, I received some ideas on how we could improve the service-learning course and things we could try with our mentors in the future." 

FACULTY 

Faculty affiliated with Service Learning may apply for funding in several categories, including: 

Materials & Equpiment Grant 

Funds may be used to purchase course curriculum materials, equipment and educational technology (some restrictions apply). Awards may be granted up to $1,500. 

Travel Grant 

Faculty may apply for funding to support domestic travel for pre-program site visits or for presenting at academic conferences related to a service learning course. Awards may be granted up to $1,500. 

Publication Grant 

Funding is available to support publication efforts in a variety of scholarly or professional outlets. Awards may be granted up to $1,500. 

Course Design Grant 

These grants support the development of new Service Learning courses that offer co-curricular learning opportunities for sustained teaching. Full-time faculty/instructors who are selected to participate in the Service Learning Course Design will receive $4,000 extra compensation in accordance with extra compensation policy 440.2 (407.0).   

One recent recipient of a Materials Grant is Shaina Meyer, a Service Learning instructor in the Department of Communication Disorders and Occupational Therapy. With this funding, Meyer acquired a 3D printer for her course. 

"Initial integration in OCTH 56803 (Advanced Occupations, Adaptations & Innovations; Assistive Technology) will allow approximately 30 students per fall to use the 3D printer to prototype and produce AT (assistive technologies) devices tailored to specific client needs," Meyer says. "These will benefit three to four clients per semester through our community partnerships, with potential growth as students gain competency." 

The Service Learning Initiative supports credit-bearing, faculty-directed teaching and learning experiences that are tied to academic courses and rooted in community engagement. 

For more information, visit the Service Learning Initiative website or email the Service Learning Coordinator at svclrn01@uark.edu.  

Article written by Noelle Kingsbauer, service learning coordinator at the Service Learning Initiative.