Learn and Serve at UMass Lowell

In Fall 2009, the Corporation for National and Community Service awarded a Learn and Serve America grant to the five UMass campuses. This supports a statewide effort to increase student involvement in our communities.

What is service learning? It is a powerful educational tool for incorporating experiential learning into the classroom experience. Students develop a deeper understanding of both content knowledge and ways that their new knowledge applies to the real world. Furthermore, they learn how their education can be used to benefit the community as a whole.

For UMass Lowell, this is a unique opportunity to increase partnerships between our campus and our Lowell community, complementing academic course work with experiential projects. Learn and Serve is eager to support new collaborations between UMass Lowell faculty and community-based organizations. Learn and Serve activities at the University include

• Student involvement in Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program from Februrary through April in 2010
• MLK Day Student Volunteer Fair
• Local Community Service during Lowell Immersion Spring Break
• Service Learning Summit for faculty and community partners
• State-wide summit with presentations from all five UMass campuses
• Collaboration with the Division of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences to provide seed money for faculty to collaborate with local community partners on new Service Learning projects.

---

Service-Learning Mini-Grants: **NEW deadline Dec. 9 at 5 p.m.**

Service-Learning Mini-Grants RFP

---

Publishing Guide 2011: A guide to help faculty advance their scholarship.  

Check out our most recent newsletters:

• Service Learning Newsletter Spring 2011 (pdf)
  
• Service Learning Newsletter Winter 2011 (pdf)
  
• Service Learning Newsletter Fall 2010  (pdf)
  

Please fill out the following form to have your Service Learning and/or Volunteer Opportunity posted on the Service Clearinghouse, which will be launching in 2011.  Currently, we are in the process of creating the Service Clearinghouse website, and in the future you will be able to fill out this form directly on the website.  In the meantime, we ask that you download the form, and send it to Clearinghouse@uml.edu.

• Clearinghouse Participant Form - Faculty (doc)
  
• Clearinghouse Participant Form - Community Organizations (doc)
  

For more information contact Elaine Donnelly.