| Academic Service-Learning (AS-L) | AS-L happens in a credit-bearing educational experience, such as a college course or seminar. AS-L is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities for reflection designed to achieve desired learning outcomes (Jacoby, 1996). |
| Campus-based Service Partner | A campus department that addresses a social, cultural, or environmental need of MDC students and that has been onboarded by iCED. Examples include ACCESS and Single Stop. Student clubs are not campus-based service partners. |
| Changemaking Education | An approach to education which sparks a sense of agency in students and provides real life opportunities to understand problems and practice creating positive social and environmental change. |
| Civic Empowerment Gap | A barrier to gaining knowledge, skills, and confidence to be an active and influential participant in civic and political life, generally linked to an individual’s ethnoracial, citizenship, and economic classifications (Levinson, 2012, p. 31-32). |
| Civic Learning | Civic Learning is the process of obtaining competency in the skills and knowledge that citizens need for democratic, civic and social values. |
| Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement (CLDE) | Educational experiences that intentionally prepare students for informed, engaged participation in their communities’ civic and democratic life by providing opportunities to develop civic knowledge, skills, and mindsets through learning and practice. |
| Co-curricular Service | A service opportunity for on-campus clubs/organizations to participate in meaningful service based on that group’s mission and skills. Co-curricular Service-learning provides personal development and unity to the group while fulfilling a community need. The most common example is club volunteer service. |
| Critical Reflection | The process of analyzing, reconsidering, and questioning one's experiences within a broad context of issues and content knowledge (Jacoby, 2014, p. 26). |
| Individual Volunteerism | Individual students engaging in volunteer labor in service to their community, often through or in partnership with a community-based organization. |
| Reflection | Reflection is what distinguishes AS-L from volunteerism and is the key component that bridges the experience of service to the learning in “service-learning.” Whether written or oral, reflection is a student’s chance to demonstrate that they have been interpreting their experiencing in light of the content they are learning in class. |
| Service | Volunteer work that aims to improve the community through organizations such as a nonprofit, government agency, school, grassroots organization, or through iCED-approved projects. |
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Service Partner
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An organization with whom iCED has a collaborative and reciprocal relationship and whose mission explicitly addresses a social, cultural, or environmental need of the community it serves. Service partners may be community-based organizations (CBOs) like local nonprofits or may be national or international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). CBOs and NGOs working with MDC students and faculty in an AS-L capacity must be onboarded by iCED. |
| Service Transcript | An iCED-generated transcript outlining a student’s service record, including where they completed service and for how long. |
| S-L Contract | A one-page document that students co-sign with a supervisor at the service partner where they will be completing their service. |
| S-L Hour Log | A one-page document that includes a supervisor's initials and signature along with the student's completed hours of service. |
| Service-Learning Administrative Website (SLAW) | iCED's internal database housing service (hours, dates, service partner, course and professor it was completed for) data on students, faculty, service partners, and student clubs. |
| Standards for AS-L | An iCED document that outlines the definitions, key components, and expectations of AS-L courses. |
| Standards for Service | iCED guidelines for what does and does not constitute service. Applies to all types of service, such as AS-L, co-curricular service-learning, and individual volunteering. |