USD President's Report and Honor Roll of Donors 1996

A pair of three-year grants - one from the Corporation for National Service and one from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - are helping USO provide numerous opportunities for students to participate in service-learning and research and, more important, apply research to real, world situations. Each grant funds an array of projects through which faculty and students work with communities in San Diego to recognize needs and move toward solutions. This combination of service and learning allows students to bring experiences into the classroom, gain valuable experience in their fields of study, and, at the same time, use their knowledge to build a better world.

"I wanted the class to have the full-bl own experience of conducting research in political science," says Pfau. "The stu- dents learned not just how to conduct research , but how to distribute the results and see the impact of their work." PUTTING T OGETHER SOLUTIONS The grant from HUD also will give students ample opportunity to see their research impact the community. As the Corporation for National Service grant ends, the HUD grant is entering its first year and will continue to expand the twin goals of research and community service. At the core of the grant is the creation of a Community Outreach Partnership Center, which will partner USO with the people and organizations of Linda Vista, the neighborhood shared by the university. "Linda Vista is not a lab site. The people don 't want research done on them, they want the university to work with them," says Hendershott, who notes the grant will be housed within USD's new urban studies major. "Our students will work with the community to identify needs, implement the solutions and evaluate the effectiveness of those solutions." The grant provides for a number of research activities that cover almost every division of the university. Students from the School of Education will evaluate an English as a Second Language program in the Linda Vista schools, help young people in the community des ign their own youth center and ass ist in creating a cooperative preschool. Economics pro- fessors and students from the School of Business Administra- tion will collaborate on a plan for economic deve lopment. School of Nursing classes will create a health management and referral center. Law school students will work on a housing mediation resource center. And Hendershott's own sociology students will help her analyze the data and issue regular reports to HUD. "Our goa ls are to help this neighborhood in transition, ge t these projects under way and develop community leader- ship," says Hendershott. "At the same time, our students will have opportunities to perform research and find out what it means to put together solutions."

MAKING STUDENT R ESEARCH A W AY OF LI FE Sociology professor Anne Hendershott sees no need to ponder the reasons behind USD's good fortune in garnering two pres- tigious grants - one from the Corporation for National Service and one from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - that are helping make research a way of life for USO students. "We rece ived these grants because we are very good at community involvement," says Hendershott, who was the pri- mary force in obtaining the three-year, $400,000 grant from HUD. "We're heavily invested in the community around us, and we've shown our comm itment to partnering with the community to solve problems." While promoting comm~nity service and solutions, both grants provide unprecedented opportunities for faculty and stu- dents to collaborate on research. G IVING STUDENTS THE " FULL-BLOWN EXPERIENCE" The first of these opportunities came three years ago, when USO was selected to receive a $93 ,500 grant from the Cor- poration for National Service. Now in its final year, the grant was developed through the Experiential Education Committee, which foste rs learning through community service, internships, field experience and research, and is managed by the Office for Community Service-Leaming. "The committee promotes opportunities for students to participate in activities outside the classroom and bring their experiences back to their courses," says David Sullivan, chair of the EEC. "We act as a starting point and a resource for pro- fessors who want to bring experiential education to their classes." The EEC recognizes and supports ex isting efforts such as the annual Undergraduate Research and Internship Conference, in which students present research results and internship expe- riences. The research experience is invaluable to the students' abili ty to further their education as they work toward their future careers. "Students talk about research methods in class but don't find out about all the variab les and problems to be solved unless they work outside the classroom," says psychology pro- fessor Sandra Sgoutas-Emch, a member of the EEC whose stu- dents act as researchers for a variety of psychological studies. "They add so much to their learning and get a taste of what research is all about. To get into the best graduate schools, they need this experience." In the spring, the committee presented the first Innova tion in Experiential Education Award to politica l sci- ence professor Michael Pfau, who led his research methods class through a public op inion survey about border issues.