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by LAURA TABOR
Lifestyles Reporter
This semester, 47 business management students will get to see their field in a different light as they go into the community and participate in service learning.
“Regardless of what role you play in business, your business depends on that community,” Robin T. Byerly, an associate professor of business management and faculty fellow of the service-learning program, said. “I’ve always believed that you can enhance any educational experience by getting the students out of the classroom and doing hands-on learning.”
In her service learning classes, Byerly discusses about the “New Business Model” with her students, showing them how influencing the community positively is sound business practice.
“The whole premise
[of service-learning] seems to dovetail with this course,” Byerly said,
in reference to her Social Responsibilities of Management course. “My
business students are responding very positively.”
The
service component of her classes involves a 10-hour project with a
community service organization, along with reflection papers and final
products.
Not all of the students help with the business side of things, like fundraising or budgeting.
“I have
students who love working hands-on at the Humane Society or Special
Olympics,” Byerly said. “They want to really meet the people they are
helping, and see the good they are doing.”
Byerly
recently received the Faculty Star award from the Service-Learning
Taskforce, a part of Appalachian and the Community Together.
“We want
to honor faculty who participate in our programs and take time to work
with students,” Lindsey C. Smith, graduate assistant for the ACT office
and graduate student in the community counseling program, said.
The ACT office administers the Faculty Fellows program, in which Byerly participated.
“In the
Fall semester, a group of faculty meet with us every other week to have
workshops and learn more about implementing service learning in their
classrooms and communities,” Smith said.
This
program has a graduation at the end of the fall semester and then sends
its graduates off to create their own service-learning courses.
Recently,
the taskforce has been influential in both the implementation of a
graduation pledge that allows students to commit themselves to civic
responsibility beyond their college experience, as well as ASU Citizen
Scholars, a program for students who take multiple service learning
classes.
“The
task force is looking to make service learning more accessible to both
students and faculty,” Smith said. “We are assessing the best practices
we can use, and how we can grow ASU’s program.”
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