This article describes the development of a community writing and publishing program, the DiverseCity Writing Series, from 1998 to 2005. Starting as a one-time workshop between a community college English service-learning course and a local women’s advocacy organization, the DiverseCity Writing Series has grown into a year-round partnership between the SLCC Community Writing Center and… Continue reading When the Community Writes: Re-envisioning the SLCC DiverseCity Writing Series by Tiffany Rousculp

Two problems catapulted Wendy Rihner into service learning: Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of Louisiana’s coast and the lack of context plaguing so many college composition courses. Rihner undertook a service-learning project with an English Composition II course in the spring of 2007 that radically changed her pedagogical philosophy. “Providing Context” discusses Rihner’s desire to provide her… Continue reading Providing Context: Service Learning in a Community College Composition Class by Wendy Rihner

In recent decades, higher education has increasingly relied on contingent faculty to teach multiple sections of composition courses with low pay and few benefits. Administrators have argued that institutions need these faculty to protect tenure-track faculty in times of financial difficulty and to manage fluctuating enrollments. When Hurricane Katrina forced universities and community colleges to… Continue reading Flushing Out the Basements: The Status of Contingent Composition Faculty in Post-Katrina New Orleans-and What We Can Learn from It by Nicole Pepinster Greene

The article describes two service learning projects that engaged our Delgado Community College students in a sense of community that transcended their personal trials. A regional accrediting agency afforded local conference registrants the opportunity to participate in a Habitat for Humanity construction project; more than a hundred volunteered. What had been a diaspora of historical proportions… Continue reading What Then Must We Do by Nancy Richard

Is service-learning of value for community college students who have very limited time and who do not need to “be exposed” to the neighborhoods in which they live? Yes. Service-learning can be a vital bridge connecting community and college for students who frequently are the first of their family or friends to go to college,… Continue reading Keep it Real A Maxim for Service-Learning in Community Colleges by Michelle Navarre Cleary