By Dr. Meta Mendel-Reyes, Director, Center for Excellence in Learning Through Service

"I think it’s symbolic that the first project of the new CELTS Center was voter registration. It tied service and citizenship together, linked the College to the community, and brought service into the classroom." Jason Fults, a junior Biology major and one of the leaders of Berea’s successful non-partisan voter registration drive, does not sound like the stereotypical apathetic college student. Under the sponsorship of Berea’s new Center for Excellence in Learning Through Service (CELTS), the students like Jason visited over 50 classrooms, registering over 300 new voters before the 2000 Presidential elections. Reflecting upon the experience made civics come alive, particularly as the outcome of the closest Presidential election ever underscored the importance of each new vote.

CELTS is one of the major initiatives undertaken as part of the strategic plan, Being and Becoming, to guide the College in the 21^st century. CELTS builds upon Berea’s long history of outreach and service programs to the mountain region; on the Great Commitments, three of which explicitly mention service to Appalachia; and on the new goal to "integrate service to the region into our curricular and co-curricula programs so that serving the region is interwoven with our educational mission," with the expectation of educating "service-oriented leaders for Appalachia and beyond."

At the national level, hundreds of colleges and universities have begun to recognize the close connection between service and citizenship. John Glenn, former astronaut and U.S. Senator, is the current chairman of the National Commission on Service-Learning. Pointing to his own career, Glenn states that "Service-learning helps students become engaged in the public issues of their community and fosters respect and tolerance for others." Campus Compact, the national coalition of college and university presidents committed to the civic purposes of higher education, estimates that over 13,000 faculty members taught over 12,000 service-learning courses in the 1998-1999 academic year.

CELTS assists faculty in developing courses with opportunities for learning through service, including "Service, Citizenship, and Community," taught by CELTS Director and Associate Professor of General Studies, Dr. Meta Mendel-Reyes. In order to explore the relationship between service and citizenship in a democracy, each student works with a local agency or organization, and participates in a class project designed and carried out with members of the community. Examples include conducting a neighborhood access to health care survey or helping residents to create a community garden.

In addition to working with faculty, CELTS coordinates the existing service programs, including the student-led programs (Bonner Scholars, Habitat for Humantity, People Who Care, Students for Appalachia), the TRIO programs (Upward Bound, Carter G. Woodson Math and Science Institute, Educational Talent Search), and Special Programs (Partners in Education, GEAR-UP, Elderhostel, Community Education). In the co-curricular as well as the curricular programs, the CELTS focus has led to greater emphasis on learning through service.

Shelby Reynolds, ‘77, is the Rockcastle County Board of Education Instructional Supervisor and a community representative on the CELTS Consortium. To Shelby, CELTS is the next step in a long partnership: "The Center for Excellence in Learning Through Service will maximize benefits for everyone involved and will provide opportunities for Berea College students to readily find great, worthwhile opportunities for service learning in Rockcastle County," he says. "Our partnership with Berea College continues to enhance our school district's effort to create a learning community that values and provides the best education possible for every child. It certainly is a win-win for everyone."

Box (Photo courtesy of Syreeta Pratt): Learning through service to Appalachia has had some of its greatest impact on students from outside the region. Syreeta Pratt, a junior Secondary English Education major from Atlanta, Georgia, and a Bonner Scholar, knew very little about the region before coming to Berea and serving with Adopt-A-Grandparent and Phone Buddies. The friendships formed through these programs, which match Berea students with elders confined to the hospital or to their homes, have taught Syreeta that service is a partnership. "They do so much more for us than we can ever do for them."

Box (Photo courtesy of Lois Groce Porter): "I wanted an education, but there wasn’t anybody at home who could help me." Lois Groce Porter, who graduated from Berea College in 1974 with a B.S. in Nursing, believes that her four years in Upward Bound allowed her to "see there’s a world outside of Clinton County. Most importantly, I learned that I could do anything I wanted to do, if I wanted it enough." By bringing Berea’s oldest service programs together with its newest, CELTS aims to reach out to as many Lois Groce Porters as possible. Her career choice, to return to her home to live and work, first as a nurse and now as a Family Home Health as their wound, ostomy and continence nurse became certified through Emory University. All over the state., exemplifies yet another aim of the Center, to educate tomorrow’s Appalachian leaders.

Box (Photo courtesy of Students for Appalachia): "Every day, 35,000 children die of hunger-related causes. That’s roughly equivalent to a Hiroshima-sized bomb being dropped on the world’s children every three to four days." This horrifying fact comes from the booklet put together by Professor Janice Blythe’s nutrition class this past Fall, which was distributed along with the collection bags for the annual Hunger Hurts Food Drive. Led by Students for Appalachia, the citizens of Berea contributed over 10,000 pounds of much needed food for the local pantry. The informational materials prepared by Dr. Blythe’s class illustrated learning through service in more than one way: the students educated themselves while also developing research skills, and the product of their investigation also helped to educate the community about the hunger in their midst.

Box (Photo courtesy of Berea College Special Programs): Over 30 families attended parent nights hosted by one of Berea’s newest service programs, Partners in Education, at the Housing Authority of Richmond’s Tutoring Program. Funded by a grant from the Steele-Reese Foundation, P.I.E. is an innovative response to the challenge of raising Appalachian and minority students’ educational aspirations and abilities. Recognizing that the child’s success depends on the involvement of all the key people in his or her life, P.I.E. creates a four-way partnership between Berea College, the community (including the public school system), the child, and the parents. Located in Rockcastle County as well as Richmond, P.I.E. also offers opportunities for student mentors to learn through service to children like XXX and XXX who hope to follow in their footsteps.