This Learn and Serve grant enabled the university to move forward in establishing community partnerships and to develop the service-learning program. Students in over forty courses are involved in course connected service projects. During the academic year 1999-2000, over 1600 Niagara University students, graduate and undergraduate, were involved in service projects. Most of these students were enrolled in courses which had a service-learning component. Service learning is a method through which citizenship, academic subjects, skills, and values are taught.
Service learning as pedagogy helps connect learning and social change.
It provides students with experiences to test theories acquired in the classroom and to concretize abstract thought. Students develop research, critical thinking and interpersonal skills. They come to appreciate the larger social, ethical and environmental implications of knowledge. Service-learning can enrich content areas by fostering social responsibility, intellectual and ethical reasoning. The service activity in order to be educative must be an integral part of the course, directly and specifically linked to the content area.