Passionate about serving your community? Willamette University offers a variety of courses that incorporate opportunities to engage! The following courses have been Service-Learning designated, meaning they meet Willamette's quality standards for effectiveness in incorporating service into the curriculum. Please check with the faculty member listed in the course catalog to ensure the service-learning component is being included this semester.
CCM 260W (EV, IT) Media and the Environment (1)
Course Description: Journalists, government officials, corporate and environmental advocacy group representatives, small business owners, and concerned community members, among others, create and respond to different media about "the environment." However, what this term signifies and the stakes for engaging in sustainable practices often are ambiguous and contested. This course requires students to engage this challenge in class discussions, readings, essay writing, community activities, and multi-media presentations that will directly impact the Willamette Valley community. Studying environmental issues requires thinking about place and the humans and non-humans who call these places home. Thus, the course expects students to partner with community groups to practice applying course concepts and the university's commitment to advancing social change and justice. This engagement relies on project-based service learning. Students will partner with KMUZ community radio, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, and other groups to examine questions, challenges, and interventions that shape and are shaped by "media and the environment.
IDS 214 Food Justice Practicum (1)
Course Description: Introduction to issues of food justice and food sovereignty globally and locally with a practicum component to include farm work and service learning on campus and community settings and partnership with Marion Polk Foodshare’s local food systems project.
SPAN 331: Spanish Composition/Discussion (1)
Course Description: Oral and written compositions based on readings of texts emphasizing Spanish culture and literary vocabulary needed in more advanced letters courses. Exercises in syntax and introductory phonetics. Conducted in Spanish.
Service Description: Students will serve as tutors to Latin@ youth in the Salem Keizer School District for approximately two hours a week. Through these tutoring sessions, students will apply the linguistic and cultural knowledge gained in class while at the same time contributing to the needs of the community and the development of students’ abilities related to critical thinking, cultural knowledge, and civic engagement.
IDS 240 Science Communication and Outreach (0.5)
Course Description: An innovative, experiential interdisciplinary course in science communication. This is a service learning course focused on communicating science to a broad audience with an emphasis on elementary and middle school-aged children. Students will develop hands-on science teaching activities. They will also explore what it means to be a mentor and will develop cultural literacy as they work with and present to underserved groups.