Reflections Magazine Issue #69 - Spring 2009 | Page 12

Campus Feature

Creatively
Hanging Out
Siena Heights’ Community-Based Learning Program Works as a ‘Gift Exchange’

S

he calls it “creatively hanging out.”

than other areas of the city. Fifty-one percent
of Michener’s 374 students are either AfricanAmerican or Hispanic, and that diversity has
provided a cross-class, cross-cultural experience
for her students, Easley said.

For the past nine years, Siena Heights University
Professor of Anthropology Linda Easley has
embedded her sociology and anthropology
students into local elementary schools and
youth organizations to participate, observe,
learn and then report on their experiences. For
eight weeks, two hours per week, Siena Heights
students visit and document their experiences
with elementary students, teachers and staff.
Siena Heights students first worked with students at McKinley Elementary. Efforts shifted to
Michener Elementary when McKinley closed.
Nine years later, the program has expanded.
Siena Heights now has students from other programs such as sport management and psychology —six classes in all—participating with not
only Michener, but also with the local Boys &
Girls Club and The Daily Bread of Lenawee.
Easley said this is not an internship or a volunteer
program, but a required part of her classes. The
results have been informative—if not transformative. “A community organization defines
what they need,” said Easley, who prefers the
term “community-based learning” over the
more common “academic service learning,” to
describe the program. “Yes, students benefit,
but by and large this is a partnership between
the university and the community organization.
But it is defined by the community.”

Because of the hands-on philosophy of community-based learning, Easley has cut her reading
requirements for her classes in half.

“Students come in and observe behaviors and
conversations,” said Annie Howard, the art
teacher at Michener. “They basically are in my
room to interact with the kids and be positive
role models.”
“They work with students who may need a little
extra help mastering academics or just having
an older brother or sister (figure) to give them
some extra attention,” said Michener Elementary
Principal Deb Risner of SHU’s students. “The
kids just hang on the students; that’s how much
they’ve bonded with them. … The kids just love
spending that time with them. It’s really cool to
watch.”
Easley learned about this community-based
approach from the Michigan Campus Compact, an organization that promotes Michigan
college students to be more civically engaged
citizens. She decided to focus on the east side of
Adrian, Mich., typically more ethnically diverse

“I’ve always had an applied component to my
classes, which means students were always doing
something with their information and learning
from applying,” Easley said.
Students must also keep reflective journals of
their visit experiences, and then present summary reports of those journal entries both written and orally to the elementary teacher and
principal at end of the semester.
“That’s probably the key thing that makes this
such a different (program), is the reflective piece,”
Easley said. “You reflect on it and think about it
in light of your discipline.”
According to Risner, that reflection/feedback is
invaluable.
“It’s a great tool for me to look at,” Risner said of
the students’ reports. “Sometimes it’s made me
and the teachers sit back and reflect, ‘Is this how
we are perceived?’ ”
“We provide them with data that points them
in some new directions,” Easley said. “It’s unique.
We take. We give. It’s reciprocal.”
Easley said her students benefit from the learning “gift exchange” in many ways.

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Reflections Spring ’09