Berea College Service-Learning Program

Dr. Laura Seroka’s Organizational Communication (COM 302) class worked with the American Association for University Women this semester. Students worked in teams to design a website, build a social media page, and create unique visual media for the organization. It was a venture for the students into digital communication, which is a valuable professional experience. Heidi Stetzer, a student in the class, said “The experiences I’ve had with communicating with our community partner would be hard to replicate in a classroom, and they’ve definitely taught me a lot about what it is to communicate with an entity that’s outside of academia.”

Service-learning classes can provide students with the space to grow and learn professional skills within the safety of a classroom. Heidi continued, “It’s great to see different aspects of professional communication at that level, especially in school where a lot of the work you do is faded by rubrics that let you know exactly what you need to do. But when you’re working with a group outside an academic setting, it's a lot more fluid.” See the page created by the class here! https://www.facebook.com/BEREA-American-Association-of-University-Women-100606075750505

BEREA American Association of University Women The American Association of University Women, officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organizatio

Service-Learning classes offer unique opportunities to expand learning beyond the textbook. They allow students to experience learning outside of what can be taught in the classroom and serve their greater community at the same time. This principle has been evident in the TAD 140 class Design Prod. in Woods, taught by Dr. Gary Mahoney this fall. As one student in the class put it, “It’s different from other design classes because in those you’re not really working with anyone in practice. But in this class, we can apply what we’re learning. We’re serving a purpose, so it’s really different. Usually, we’re doing projects for ourselves or for a grade, but now it’s for someone.”


This semester these TAD students have been working with the community organization Grow Appalachia to design beehives that can be used in the region. Dr. Mahoney emphasized how working with a community partner can provide flexible and new experiences for the students. He explained, “we research and try to figure out the best we can and figure how that fits into design, and then we meet with those experts who can say ‘Oh you’re totally off on this one, or have you thought about this? And then we try to design to that.'” Check out some of the students’ designs here!