Summer 2009

Center for Community Service and Learning
Dan Robinson, Center for Community Service and Learning Director

“Since coming to St. Norbert, I have seen some great leaders on campus give back to the community by serving others, and they have inspired me to do the same." - Ryan Hurst '11

"Service enables me to encounter the realities of our world … When I encounter real people with real stories, the abstract issues I read and learn about become tangible." - Rachelle Barina '09

Service has always been a part of the St. Norbert College story, drawing on our three traditions: Norbertine, Catholic, liberal arts. This heritage makes serving the “common good” an integral part of a St. Norbert education both inside and outside the classroom. The current college institutional priorities reflect this importance by emphasizing St. Norbert’s commitment to “improve outreach and service to the region and local community.”

As part of that emphasis, the college launched the Center for Community Service and Learning in June 2008. The center’s vision for the college is that we are a “full partner with the Brown County community in the work to promote the ‘common good’ … Through that experience, St. Norbert College students commit to lifelong service.”

In serving the “common good,” the center supports service-learning efforts that: involve St. Norbert students in the Brown County community; build up relationships between the college and community organizations serving this area; and help students learn from these experiences, particularly as they grow in their spirituality and faith.

This past year, the center connected various community agencies with St. Norbert students to provide service experiences. For example, Fr. Jim Neilson’s art students created works of art for the new offices of Family and Childcare Resources of Northeast Wisconsin (FCR NEW). Dr. Brandon Hofstedt’s Social Movements in the U.S. class wrote study aids for FCR NEW clients preparing to take the U.S. citizenship test. The center also supported the work of Dr. Wendy Scattergood’s policy analysis class as it looked at the financial cost of chronic homelessness in the Brown County area.

Outside the classroom, the center supported “Into the Streets,” an annual, half-day service event where hundreds of incoming first year students worked with children, cleaned parks, assisted a food pantry and helped out in many other ways. The center also hosted its own event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when members of the St. Norbert staff and faculty took part in the nation-wide day of service that included teaching elementary students about the holiday and the work to end discrimination.

The center ultimately wants to build a culture of service here at St. Norbert. Part of that work is promoting post-graduate service opportunities with groups like the new Norbertine Volunteer Community. Four St. Norbert graduates are taking part in this new effort, living together in community and serving a low-income neighborhood in Green Bay, and more than a dozen St. Norbert students are doing similar post-graduate service. These students are living the vision of the center, committing to “lifelong service.”

More is information available at the Center for Community Service and Learning web site.