19 U-M publishes Community Service Learning Journal

April 24, 2007
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ANN ARBOR—The Center for Learning through Community Service at the University of Michigan has released Volume Four of the “Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning”

This annual publication maintains a focus on community service learning in higher education, according to MJCSL
editor Jeffery Howard, director of the Office of Service Learning.

Two feature essays in the volume deal specifically with the impact of service learning on students, including the
research findings of Jerry Miller, faculty coordinator of Project Outreach at U-M.

Miller, also the director of the U-M Center for the Child and the Family, directed his research on “The Impact
of Service-Learning Experiences on Students’ Sense of Power”.

Using the U-M psychology department’s “Project Outreach,” Miller surveyed 370 Michigan students. His hope
was to find that students, overall, would report an increased sense of power of people to make a difference in
the world. He suggests that through his findings his subjects “may reflect the outcome of what was, in fact, a
positive and important maturational and educational experience, particularly at the undergraduate level, the
development of a more complex understanding of the world.”

The Journal also features an article from Purdue University, by those who created a program model for
Engineering Projects in Community Service, which matches community organizations with technical expertise provided by a team of Purdue engineering students.

An article in the forum section of the journal reviews the history of community service in the United States.
MJCSL Volume Four is available for $11 by sending check or money order to OCSL Press, 1024 Hill St, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-3310; or through the Web site http://www.umich.edu/~ocsl.