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Service Learning and Civic Engagement as Preparation for a Life Committed to Working for the Common Good: The Michigan State University/Rust College Student Tutorial Education Project, 1965–1968
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107 Service Learning and Civic Engagement as Preparation for a Life Committed to Working for the Common Good: The Michigan State University/Rust College Student Tutorial Education Project, 1965–1968 John S. Duley and Nicole C. Springer During the summer months of 1965–68, 97 student volunteers and 10 faculty members from Michigan State University volunteered in a service-learning project at Rust College, a small African American liberal arts college in Holly Springs, Mississippi. The college was founded by the Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1866 and celebrated its 145th commencement ceremony in May 2011. Like many colleges, Rust adheres to the three pillars of education: teaching, research, and community service. This project, called the Student Tutorial Education Project, was the result of the mutual involvement of Professor Robert L. Green of the College of Education and the author, the Presbyterian campus minister, in their local efforts to secure the passage of an Open Occupancy Ordinance to make it possible for people of color to rent and purchase homes in East Lansing. The project involved participation in a voter registration rally in Canton, Mississippi, at the invitation of one of Dr. Green’s students who had participated in Freedom Summer and stayed on to work with the Council of Confederated Organizations in Canton. While participating in this event, feeling that Michigan State University should be making some educational contribution to the movement, we sought to ascertain what black colleges were in trouble with their boards of trustees or the state because of the involvement of their students and faculty in the civil rights movement. The name of Rust College kept being mentioned. On our return to Michigan State we recruited two students, Laura Lichlighter, a member of the All University Student government, and Frank Bianco, a graduate student in charge of the Student Education Corps, to accompany us on a visit to Rust College. As a result of that visit we were invited by President Smith and Academic Dean McMillan to develop and bring the STEP program to the college as a service-learning project. J O H N S . D U L E Y A N D N I C O L E C . S P R I N G E R 108 Timothy K. Stanton and coauthors wrote about the history of service learning and attribute one of the first definitions of service learning to the work of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) in the year 1969: “The accomplishment of tasks that meet genuine human needs in combination with conscious educational growth” (Stanton, Giles, & Cruz, 1999, p. 2). The proximity of the people with these needs is not a limitation for a project. In fact, much can be said for the learning and growth that occurs when students step outside both their physical and, perhaps, their emotional comfort zones. At Rust College the services requested were threefold: (1) to better prepare African American high school graduates for the college level; (2) to help Rust College retain its accreditation; and (3) to provide a community recreation and cultural program for 11- to 14-year-olds. The learning phase of the project for the volunteers involved the applying of knowledge and skills acquired in the classroom in a very different culture. It also involved the development of new skills needed to plan, develop, and offer a curriculum to improve writing, reading, comprehension, and mathematical and study habit skills and prepare freshman to take full advantage of the education offered at Rust College. It also involved the volunteers in clarifying their values, leadership development, and personal growth through journal writing and continual reflection during and after the project and as they planned for the next year. The purpose of studying the STEP project was to do some in-depth reflection on the subsequent professional and community activities of 12 participants. These reflections are part of a larger study of 77 participants in STEP conducted by Dr. Paul Herron, associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology, University of Tennessee, Memphis. Dr. Herron was a student in the 1966 STEP summer program and a student at Rust College for one year. He transferred to Michigan State University and became a tutor in STEP . His experiences from these two perspectives led to a study of the impact that the STEP program had on the MSU and Rust College participants. Dr. Herron’s study was funded in part by President Lou Anna K. Simon of Michigan State University on the...