Athens, GA (May 29, 2007) – Nine University of Georgia faculty members have been named 2007-2008 Service-Learning Fellows.

The Service-Learning Fellows program, now entering its third year, provides an opportunity for faculty members from a broad range of disciplines to develop, implement and integrate service-learning into their professional practice. Fellows, who meet regularly throughout the academic year, also receive an award of up to $2,500 for developing a proposed service-learning project.

The 2007-2008 Service-Learning Fellows and their proposed projects are:

Deborah Gonzalez, Fanning Institute
The Georgia Cultural Heritage Community Service Project — Students from UGA’s Historic Preservation Program will work with the Fanning Institute to explore and document cultural traditions, values, folkways and beliefs in Georgia communities.

Nik Heynen, Geography
The Athens Urban Food Collective (AUFC) — Through the AUFC resource center, students will gain hands-on experience and an opportunity to earn academic credit by working on issues of food insecurity and urban hunger among people living in poverty in Athens-Clarke County.

Jessica Legge Muilenburg , Health Promotions and Behavior
Through a partnership with UGA’s Archway Partnership Project, a service-learning course for the College of Public Health will focus on health concerns such as prenatal care, poverty, and insufficient access to health care raised by residents of south Georgia’s Colquitt County.

Robert B. Nielsen, Housing and Consumer Economics
To integrate service-learning into an undergraduate Housing and Consumer Economics Research Methods course, students will design a portion of a telephone survey that will be structured to meet the research and information needs of a Georgia non-profit organization.

Uttiyo Raychaudhuri, Natural Resources Recreation and Tourism
To gain a better understanding of traditional Fijian environmental practice, help replant corals to revitalize marine areas, and aid efforts to conserve and replant mangroves, students in the Studies Abroad in the South Pacific and Caribbean program will study community-based marine resource management in Votua village on the coral coast of Fiji.

Leara Rhodes, Journalism
As a service-learning project, undergraduate students in a magazine publishing course will produce a 32-page color magazine promoting eco-tourism along the Chattahoochee River from Fort Gaines, Georgia to the Florida state line.

Peter Smagorinsky, Language and Literacy Education
TAPPP (Teaching as a Principled Practice Project) Into the Community — English Education majors will tutor children after school in the Pinewood Estates community, which is made up largely of immigrants from two of Mexico’s most impoverished states, to encourage young people from immigrant and linguistic/racial minorities and to better prepare College of Education students for teaching in culturally responsive ways.

Kathy Thompson, Elementary and Social Studies Education
Students will conduct studies to determine what information, guidance, and resources education majors need to be able to implement service-learning projects in public school classrooms and into the Middle School Initial Certification Program, and will also create comprehensive resources about middle-school service-learning that can be used by future education students.

Jianfeng Wang, International Center for Democratic Governance
A China Internship project will allow four-to-six UGA students to travel to China to teach English to middle-school students and interact with Chinese government officials in the context of training programs offered by the Vinson Institute.

Academic service-learning is a course-based, credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organized activity that meets identified community needs. The Office of Service-Learning is jointly supported by the Offices of the Vice President for Instruction and the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach.

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This article was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Program News, News, Personnel.