URBS 230—Community Leadership and Service Learning

Course Intro

The ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, once wrote that “the price of choosing not to be involved in politics is that you are ruled by your inferiors.” Welcome to Community Leadership!

Before we do anything else in this course, I would like you to sit down and “free write” for 5 minutes. Free writing is a process that professional writers often use to get themselves started or to get over a writer’s block or… just because. The way it works is that you set a time limit (5 minutes is good; 10 minutes if you’re really stuck) and sit at the keyboard or with a pad of paper and write without stopping until the time is up. You put down whatever comes to mind; if nothing comes, just write over and over “I can’t think of a thing. I’m so bored. This is ridiculous. There has to be something I can say about this…” The idea is just to keep writing, to allow associations to arise freely, without worrying about structure, spelling & punctuation, or even if it makes sense. When the time is up, read through what you wrote. Most of it will be garbage. But there will be one (or, if you are really lucky, two) good idea, one morsel that is really worth pursuing—and perhaps even some other pieces that support the first. That one idea is what you were looking for—one really good idea that will be worth the time and effort that it will take to develop it into a worthwhile essay.

So, right now, for 5 minutes, free write about this question: “What is the difference between community leadership, volunteering, and public participation?” After you have done that, distill the one potentially useful idea. Post that to the discussion board, under the “Free Write” entry. I will assign points to this posting, and it will give you a chance to get used to the system without having to worry about formal issues of grammar and rhetoric.

I have a set of tips that I share with all my general education students. They include some tips for working together with your classmates or other groups, some tips for writing, and some tips for studying.

This class has three key elements: writing, service learning, and leadership concepts.

Service Learning: This course is also a service learning course. That means that you will volunteer a minimum of 30 hours over the course of the semester at a nonprofit organization of your choice. This is also an important part of the learning that will be going on. You will be seeking new experiences, you will reflect on those experiences, those experiences will provide first-hand data that you will use in the course. And you will be giving back to the community which is supporting you in your education.
Writing: This course meets the University’s requirements for a writing-intensive general education course. That means you will be writing, and re-writing, often. There are 5 writing assignments. You will work in writing groups to review and revise your first drafts, and I will grade the final draft (I will also review your first draft and your group’s comments). Writing is more than getting the grammar and the punctuation right (although that is important—the details are part of conveying your ideas accurately); it is a matter of thinking clearly and deeply, and capturing those thoughts in “passionate, accurate” language (as Carol Bly puts it). A good online source for writing help is the “Online Writing Lab” (OWL) at Purdue University. Since writing is a major focus of this class, there will not be any tests.
Leadership Concepts: The third leg of this course will be to read and discuss what others have thought about community leadership. Just as in life, to have experienced something and to be able to express what one has experienced is not enough. To really understand what you know, to really express to others what you have come to realize, you also have to know what others have experienced and thought. Their experiences will not necessarily have been the same as yours; their reflections might not have led them to the same conclusions as yours. But education (as opposed to the “school of hard knocks”) comes from engaging in the dialogue with “the best that have gone before.”

Finally, I began with the Greeks; let’s end with them also. Whatever the solution we come to in the next century, we will be continuing a tradition enunciated (but initiated long before) by the Athenians in 400 BC. This is the oath of citizenship that they gave to each other:

“We will ever strive for the ideals and sacred things of the city, both alone and with many.

“We will unceasingly seek to quicken the sense of public duty….

“We will leave this city not only not less, but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was given to us.”

MSU