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Introduction Sherril B. Gelmon Chair of Public Administration Division Professor of Public Health Portland State University This chapter offers illustrations in service-learning in disciplines that can be referred to as business, industry and the health sciences. This introduction provides a brief overview of the articles, clustering them by profession/discipline and highlighting a key theme that may be unique to the profession , or in fact may be crosscutting for all professions or disciplines. Business Education Goetz and Palmer describe the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, describing servicelearning that addresses poverty in the context of taxation. College students provide tax-filing assistance to poor individuals in their local communities, learning through the experience about the economic circumstances of individuals and families, particularly low- and moderate-income households. Substantial benefits are realized by both the students and the community, but to be effective the experience requires planning and community partnerships. Similarly, Alexander discusses the VITA program, articulating how hundreds of tax students nationwide each spring prepare thousands of tax returns for low income and elderly taxpayers through VITA. In addition, tax professors have created tax centers and outreach programs for low income and English-as-asecond -language taxpayers. After national disasters, tax professors and their students have disseminated important tax information to the victims through brochures and workshops. Tax faculty recognize the value that experiential learning activities provides the community and to students’ educational experience. Service-learning courses include student preparation, action/engagement, dissemination, and reflection – activities that are found across all disciplines. Another example in business education is offered by Harris-Boundy, where students work on team projects that address social issues as consultants with real community-based organizations. Students gain valuable experiential learning while “client” organizations benefit from their fresh insights. What develops is a unique partnership between students, faculty and the community, where all become learning-focused problem solvers. These three examples offer insight into a common element of the business curriculum where almost any faculty member could introduce service-learning, combining practical knowledge and skill development with important institutional commitment to address an urgent community need. Business, Industry, and the Health Sciences 6 Nonprofit Management In contrast to business education, Sarcone illustrates service-learning in nonprofit management studies in a course entitled “The Fundamentals of Nonprofit Management.” The instructor identifies nonprofit organizations with existing relationships (internship sites, community service sites) with the college. Students are attracted not only from the major but also through promotion to colleagues in political science, policy studies, environmental science, and international studies. Health Professions Thehealthprofessionsareanothersetofdisciplineswherethereisalongrecordofservice-learningasaneffective pedagogical strategy. Young and Goodwin describe an integrated service-learning assignment for students to present a health fair in the local community, ideally with health/physical education students but also applicable to majors in elementary education, recreation, biology, business administration, or human resources. Peters describes a dental education service-learning experience, where the focus is a community college dental assisting program and the focus of work is a free dental sealant clinic for children. In this case, the project is a collaborative effort involving a local community church and its members, a school corporation, and a students and faculty. Students gain hands-on experience participating in the clinic, and develop teamwork skills. A third health professions experience is described by Cox, who illustrates a general studies experience that has helped undergraduate students change their thinking, feelings and attitudes toward people with HIV/ AIDS in order to better understand societal decisions that are made in this arena. Course evaluations reveal the extent to which students grow in knowledge and understanding, by virtue of their engagement in servicelearning . As Cox states, “Service-learning helps students, literally, “go outside of themselves” and relate to the suffering, joy, resilience, realities and complexities that people living with AIDS face almost daily.” Another relevant kind of experience in these disciplines is using service-learning to create opportunities for students to experience various careers that they might consider for the future. MacDowell et al. describe one example of a program to increase awareness of health career options among elementary-age students. Such programs are important to address concerns over the current and future shortages of workers in the health care sector, and are relevant in all of the professions covered here, not just the health professions. This is well-illustrated in the Wolvaardt et al. article that describes the experience of South African medical students in a service-learning course, where the intent is to “make things better” for the stakeholder groups...

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