Citizenship and Service-Learning

Missouri State professor and a student get science work done in a stream showing the interaction between faculty and students

Discover your potential. Decide your future.

Now Enrolling for Spring 2025

Take steps toward your career while earning college credit. 



 

Be more than a volunteer.

Students working in a garden.

Service-learning features career-focused experiences with real organizations. So you build your future, while doing something good for the community. Win-win.

 

The difference we make. Together.

300+

PARTNERS

We appreciate every one of our community partners. We list over 300 organizations throughout Southwest Missouri.

7,981

STUDENTS

Nearly 8,000 students at Missouri State University are enrolled in a service-learning course. Many work with a partner organization.

$2,890,589

VALUE

Contributed 92,766 hours of service. Value calculated by IndependentSector.org at $31.16 per hour of service.

 

Here for campus and community. Explore resources based on your personal needs.

A hub for pedagogy and resources focused on developing service-learning courses
A resource page for students who are already enrolled or interested in enrolling in service-learning
Supporting content for our partner organizations to successfully on-board service-learners 

 

Our efforts are driven by a focus on community engagement.

Citizen Scholar statue

As defined by the Carnegie Foundation, Community Engagement describes community engagement as a collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. 
 
The purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching, and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.
 
Additionally, Missouri State's public affairs mission further informs our understanding and practice of community engagement: "Community engagement is recognizing needs in the communities to which one belongs, then contributing knowledge and working with the community to meet those needs. Community engagement requires reaching beyond one's self for the betterment of the community – a process that fosters greater awareness and personal growth."

 

"Field-based" education designed by teachers. The definition of high-impact. 

The office of Citizenship and Service-Learning (CASL) supports the development, implementation, the evaluation of sustainable service-learning courses and encourages community-engaged learning across the curricula at Missouri State University as a high-impact practice (HIP) to enhance student learning, student success and retention, develop civic engagement, support the university’s mission in public affairs, and foster collaboration with communities – locally, nationally, and globally. Community-engaged learning is a form of experiential education characterized by student participation in an organized community-based activity that:

  • Connects to specific learning outcomes
  • Meets identified community needs
  • Provides structured time for student reflection and connection of the community-based experience to learning

As defined by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU), service-learning, as an “instructional strategy”, is a form of experiential “field-based” education that provides students “direct experience with issues they are studying in the curriculum. A key element in these programs is the opportunity students have to both apply what they are learning in real-world setting and reflect in a classroom setting on their service experiences…”. These programs model the idea that giving something back to the community is an important college outcome, and that working with community partners is good preparation for citizenship, work, and life.

https://www.aacu.org/trending-topics/high-impact

 

Contact us

Inquire about partnerships, arrange for service-learning students, share about upcoming projects/needs, ask questions, or provide feedback.

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