Preparing Students for Summer Service
Agape Center's Chad Frey to educate students on the fundamentals of service
Phil Wilmot
Issue date: 11/20/08 Section: News
The spring semester of 2009 will offer a class entitled, "Foundations of Service Mission and Social Change," providing Messiah College students with an opportunity to apply for grants for summer service opportunities. The class will be taught by Chad Frey, director of the Agape Center for Service and Learning, who has also been the course's professor for the past two years.
This 4-credit course consists of a 3-credit Monday night class during the spring semester, a 6-8 week summer experience, and a 1-credit reflection class over the fall semester. "Foundations of Service Mission and Social Change" is open to Messiah students of all majors, and in past years, students of vastly diverse studies have taken advantage of the benefits of the course. An application is required to be accepted into the class.
Students utilize the spring class to prepare a decision concerning their summer service endeavors. At the end of the semester, each student will have written a grant to be reviewed by Frey, who designates how much he or she will be financially rewarded for his or her service. This sum of money, used to cover costs such as plane tickets and living expenses, gets applied to the tuition of the following semester, also making up for lost summer income, had the student been employed for the time that he or she was gone.
Frey uniquely approaches his class curriculum, as the class meets weekly in off-campus settings such as local coffee shops, downtown Harrisburg, or at his home. In his own words, "The way I teach this intense class is to match what the class is about. Service-learning means not only learning from text, but learning from context." Conversing outside of a classroom setting is done to better prepare students for their impending service trips, which will also be done outside of the classroom and, in many cases, outside of the nation.
"The class is all about how to learn through service," said Frey. "The curriculum is dependent on the class members, and adjusted accordingly so that they are able to benefit as much as possible."
This 4-credit course consists of a 3-credit Monday night class during the spring semester, a 6-8 week summer experience, and a 1-credit reflection class over the fall semester. "Foundations of Service Mission and Social Change" is open to Messiah students of all majors, and in past years, students of vastly diverse studies have taken advantage of the benefits of the course. An application is required to be accepted into the class.
Students utilize the spring class to prepare a decision concerning their summer service endeavors. At the end of the semester, each student will have written a grant to be reviewed by Frey, who designates how much he or she will be financially rewarded for his or her service. This sum of money, used to cover costs such as plane tickets and living expenses, gets applied to the tuition of the following semester, also making up for lost summer income, had the student been employed for the time that he or she was gone.
Frey uniquely approaches his class curriculum, as the class meets weekly in off-campus settings such as local coffee shops, downtown Harrisburg, or at his home. In his own words, "The way I teach this intense class is to match what the class is about. Service-learning means not only learning from text, but learning from context." Conversing outside of a classroom setting is done to better prepare students for their impending service trips, which will also be done outside of the classroom and, in many cases, outside of the nation.
"The class is all about how to learn through service," said Frey. "The curriculum is dependent on the class members, and adjusted accordingly so that they are able to benefit as much as possible."
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