Institute for Serving Learning at SSU: $111,000 funding from Corporation for National Service

SALISBURY, MD--The Institute for Service Learning at Salisbury State University recently received a $111,926 in renewal funding for the coming year from the Corporation for National Service--Learn and Serve America.

Learn and Serve America provides support to programs that significantly promote service learning as an approach to teaching; to efforts to build capacity and strengthen the infrastructure for service learning within and/or across institutions of higher learning; and to high quality service learning programs that engage students in meeting community needs with demonstrable results while enhancing students academic and civic learning.

The Institute, in cooperation with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Wor-Wic Community College and the Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester county boards of education, provides workshops and training for faculty members from secondary and higher education; coordinates the America Reads program; operates the Shore CAN Volunteer Center at Salisbury State University; and offers two courses in service learning to students at Salisbury State. In addition the institution serves a resource center for educators in the region. In the coming year, mini-grants will be offered to higher education faculty who want to infuse service learning into their curriculum.

Dr. George Whitehead, project director of the Institute, believes that renewal funding attests to the good work we have accomplished this year and provides for the bright future for service learning in the region.

The renewal continues a productive relationship SSU has developed with the Corporation for National Service. Since October 1995, the Corporation began funding the Universitys AmeriCorps program, the Partnership for Adolescents on the Lower Shore (PALS). Between the Learn and Serve and the AmeriCorps grants, the Corporation has provided funding in excess of $1.5 million to Salisbury State University.