Mars Hill College
The LifeWorks Learning Partnership
Civic Engagement Certificate
http://lifeworks.mhc.edu/

Unique:

LifeWorks facilitates is a six-semester civic leadership program, with each semester having particular desired outcomes related to a knowledge base, skill set, and core values commitment. The leadership program is for any student interested in strengthening leadership as he or she engages the campus, the local community, and the wider world. The program consists of weekly one-hour group meetings, accompanied by a commitment by each student to engage in at least 1 or 2 hours of service each week. Each semester, five weeks are devoted to the achieving the desired knowledge outcome, five weeks for the desired skills outcome, and five weeks for the disposition outcome.

Website Features:

Offers a detailed structure of student developmental and program structural models; offers student support and options to engage with the community

Program Objectives:

1. Seeks to help students connect the scholarship of engagement (liberating knowledge), tools of engagement (liberating skills), and dispositions of engagement (liberating values), with practices of engagement (liberating experiences) in and out of the classroom

2. To prepare each student, no matter what field or career path, for rewarding work and meaningful life that will contribute to:
A. greater respect across lines of diversity, diminishing discrimination,
B. economic well-being of the disadvantaged, diminishing poverty,
C. a more sustainable environment, diminishing abuse of natural resources,
D. the education of children and youth, diminishing underachievement,
E. creativity and cultural enrichment, diminishing cultural impoverishment,
F. a safer, more secure world, diminishing violence and destructive behavior,
G. health and wellness, diminishing disease in mind, body, and/or spiritStructure/Governance:
The LifeWorks Civic Engagement Certificate program was passed by the Academic Council in 2005. It is housed in the LifeWorks Learning Partnership, which began working with the faculty to revise the core general education program in 1999. The Civic Engagement program utilizes the academic core courses of the new general education program for the reflection themes connected to the students’ community based experiences. Stan Dotson, Dean of LifeWorks, directs the Civic Engagement program, and Kathy Meacham, a tenured faculty member in the Religion and Philosophy department, oversees the general education program. To complete the certificate, students will have completed 18 credit hours in the Commons (Challenges, Character, Civic Life, Critique, Creativity, and a Capstone), documented 280 hours of community based service (35 hours per semester), participated in the LifeWorks reflection activities each semester, and developed a portfolio demonstrating the connections between their community experiences, the leadership activities, and what they learned in the Commons.

Relationship of Program to Institution’s Mission:

The LifeWorks program emerged from the College’s strategic planning process in 1996, which also produced a new mission statement:
Mars Hill College, an academic community rooted in the Christian faith, challenges and equips students to pursue personal, intellectual, and spiritual growth through an education that is
 

• grounded in a rigorous study of the liberal arts
• connected to the world of work, and
• committed to character development, to service, and to responsible citizenship in the community, the region, and the world.  
  

The LifeWorks program was designed to fulfill this mission. The knowledge base is grounded in the content of the liberal arts, in what free people need to know to govern themselves. The skill sets are connected to what will be of use and value in the work world. And the disposition commitments are related to what it means to be a responsible citizen in service of the community, region, and world.

Foundational Pillars:

The coursework is integrated with experiential components that accompany each co-curricular course. While Bonner scholars are required to do 8-10 hours of work, the civic engagement certificate requires around 35 hours per semester. Many students do an internship during the school year. In addition, the program is intense in that it engages each week with one-hour weekly meetings that spend five weeks at a time on a specific topic; each semester focuses on a key component and students are grouped by year. The program, a multi-year model, accompanies six courses in the Commons (MHC’s general education core courses) which students take across all four years as they complete within their academic career. The program is developmental and sequential as it utilizes a co-curricular framework outlining key knowledge, skills, and values that build upon one another in a ‘staircase’ fashion. Interdisciplinary by nature, the program includes material from the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. There is global awareness throughout the curriculum incorporating international texts and global perspectives. While the courses do not deal directly with economic need, issues regarding poverty are connected to the course themes through the weekly co-curricular seminar. Similarly, while contemporary legislative issues are not directly dealt with in the courses, public policy analyses do happen in the weekly co-curricular seminar. This happens especially in the sophomore level when the students are taking a Commons course on Civic Life, and the LifeWorks program brings in local and state politicians in the seminar to discuss policy issues (such as the No Child Left Behind Act) connected to their service.

Program/Course Architecture:

A Lead In Course – All freshman (whether they participate in the certificate program or not) take an introductory course (LAA 111; Challenges) that introduces service learning. Students are recruited from this course for the civic engagement program.
Poverty Course – Certain majors focus on poverty more than others; general education classes do not contain a good analysis of poverty.
International Exposure – Recent summer service groups have traveled to Latin America and Africa, and individual students have traveled to Europe and Asia; in the classroom, common curriculum incorporates readings & texts (written, film, & musical) from international perspectives.
Full Time Internship – No required internship for the certificate, but several majors require internships and students can utilize these experiences for the service required by the certificate.
Capstone Seminar – All students have a capstone requirement where they develop presentations of their learning and create a portfolio

Specific Courses of Study:

1. First Year: LAA 111 Challenges & LAA 121 Character (70 hours community engagement) Curricular focus: exploration of human nature and what is a good person
Co-curricular foci: Knowledge Focus: The role of the individual in society, analysis of the tension between freedom and responsibility; Skills focus: time management and active listening; Disposition focus: imagination and courage;

2. Sophomore Year: LAA 221 Civic Life & LAA 211 Critique: Faith and Reason (70 hours community engagement) Curricular foci: What is a good society, analysis of the role of faith and reason in community deliberation around critical issues
Co-curricular foci: Knowledge Focus: The role of interest groups in society, analysis of the tension between equality and diversity; Skills focus: group facilitation and civil discourse; Dispositions focus: respect and integrity;

3. Junior Year: LAA 321 Creativity (70 hours community engagement) Curricular focus: analysis of the creative process across various fields
Co-curricular foci: Knowledge Focus: Vocation/career applications, analysis of the tension between doing well and doing good; Skills focus: resource development;

4. Senior Year: Capstone Curricular focus: varies from major to major. Co-curricular foci: Knowledge focus:
Synthesizing the knowledge gained from the Commons and the majors, Skills focus: portfolio development, interviewing, public presentation; Dispositions focus: appreciation

Learning Outcomes for Students:

To demonstrate the knowledge of:

A. Appreciative inquiry, the role of individuals and groups in social change, the potential for social change within ones profession or career

B. To demonstrate facility in the skills of: Time management, active listening, group facilitation, civil discourse, resource development, and portfolio development

C. To demonstrate commitments to the dispositions of: Imagination, courage, respect, integrity, enthusiasm, and appreciation

Strategies for Bonner Connection

Role of Service: Bonner Scholar students are planning to help build houses in Durban, South Africa, as part of the Habitat for Humanity project. During their four years at Mars Hill College, Bonner Scholars participate in 1400 hours of community-based service opportunities as well as over 300 hours of training, reflection, and leadership development activities. Program participants can earn up to $15,500, including scholarship support, loan reductions, and summer stipends and travel reimbursement for service work. Recent summer service groups have traveled to Yellowstone National Park, Latin America, and Europe.

Student Leadership: Focus on the self and the development of the imagination, creativity, a greater understanding of the world, of collaboration, and social change.

Community Partnerships: Through a series of daylong workshops, we have brought together faculty and community partners to strengthen the connections between community experiences and academic coursework, particular around the courses in the general education core courses called the Commons. Here we take texts the students are reading, and ask community partners to help the faculty make connections between these texts and the experiences students are likely to have in their organizations. For example, in a course on Character, the students read Plato’s Ring of Gyges, a story about what it would be like to have a ring that would make one invisible. One of our community partners who runs a shelter for victims of domestic abuse made a powerful connection to this text, describing the kind of cruelty inflicted by people who think no one is looking. And she also described the challenge of keeping these victims “invisible” and safe from the abusers.