Three West VirginiaUniversity faculty members can further facilitate their classroom service learning efforts this spring through”course integration grants”they recently received from the West Virginia Campus Compact.

These academically based volunteer experiences give students the opportunity to apply classroom concepts to community-based activities and allow them to reflect on how their contributions have made the community better.

Julie Cryser, public relations/alumni development coordinator and lecturer, and Joel Beeson, assistant professor, School of Journalism, earned a $4,000 grant to help conduct the Veterans History Project. The service learning course, titled Journalistic Oral Histories, is intended to teach students how to collect, produce and preserve the spoken histories of the state’s veterans through one-on-one interviews, veterans’diaries, letters, photos and other mementos of those who fought in the 20th century’s greatest conflicts.

Lori Arbogast, clinical instructor-aquatics and aquatics director, Lifetime Activities Program, School of Physical Education, was awarded a $3,800 grant for a course titled Lifeguard Training. The course teaches students how to become American Red Cross certified lifeguards, while helping them learn the significance of providing service to their community through a nonprofit organization. The students will instruct other swimmers in the water safety concepts they learned through this lifeguard training course.

The West Virginia Campus Compact, along with its Pennsylvania counterpart, received the funding for these projects through a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service. The funding allows the two organizations to award mini-grants to faculty members who want to integrate service learning into their courses. The compacts are statewide associations of colleges and universities that promote public and community service.