Ten Courses Teach With Community

With three fresh courses on the course menu for this spring mandating a community service component, students are increasingly seeing syllabi in which homework entails more than required reading.

In a new collaboration, the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), and the Harvard Public Service Network held an information session yesterday to introduce students to 10 “activity-based learning” classes, three of which haven’t been offered before.

Each of the courses includes community service to prompt students to draw from a volunteer experience for a deeper understanding of the subject matter being studied, according to Lisa M. Boes, a research officer for the Bok Center.

Boes said these classes shouldn’t be seen as a watering down of the curriculum, since the service component is only a part of the syllabus.

“The goal is to bring courses to life by relating them to the real world. It is NOT credit for service, but rather taking advantage of the dedication of students to activities such as public service to bring these courses to life,” PBHA Executive Director Gene A. Corbin wrote in an e-mail.

Romance Languages and Literatures will offer Italian 60, “Italian and the Community,” in addition to Spanish 60 and Portuguese 60, which were both offered last year. In the three classes students will gain language skills while working with community organizations.

Four Sociology courses; History of Science 96, “Academic Internship in History and Health Policy”; an Extension School course; and a Kennedy School of Government course will also participate in this combination of academic learning and community involvement.

In shaping the courses, the Bok Center is focusing on the pedagogic aspect of the process. Boes said the center will be “helping faculty develop teaching methods” to target the intersection of academic and service oriented learning.

Aside from the Bok Center’s new “activity-based” courses, students can also participate in a not-for-credit course called “Education for Social Action,” sponsored by PBHA. The course will allow students to hear a variety of lecturers speak on this year’s theme, “Who has a voice in Boston and what form does it take?” Students will also create and run their own Boston-based service projects.

“Education for Social Action” was created in 2002 by students in PBHA and continues to be planned and implemented by the organization’s Student Development Officer for the year.

According to Corbin, incoming PBHA officers participated in an intense two-and-a-half-day training retreat, sponsored by PBHA and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations of the Kennedy School, to prepare them to manage the 72 programs and 1,800 volunteers within PBHA.

Those teaching the new courses emphasized the potential benefit of the program to Harvard students.

“Individuals are embedded in communities and larger social structures, whether or not we are aware of that basic fact,” Van C. Tran, resident tutor in sociology and social policy for Lowell House and teaching fellow for the new course Sociology 19, “Reinventing Boston: The Changing American City,” wrote in an e-mail. “As a result, students would definitely be better off with a deeper appreciation of their surroundings and of these issues.”

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu.