Would you like to serve meals at community dinners, teach poetry with at-risk youth and the elderly, or harvest food in organic gardens? All of these activities are examples of service learning, an innovative approach to learning that encourages students to make connections between college and community and between self and others.

Service learning at Lane combines classroom instruction with community service to encourage student success and civic awareness. Classes provide structured time for students to reflect on their service and learning experiences through a mix of writing, reading, speaking, listening, and creating in small and large groups. Based on a reciprocal relationship in which the service reinforces the learning and the learning strengthens the service, service-learning provides students with opportunities to use newly acquired skills and knowledge in real-life situations. Faculty members across disciplines incorporate service-learning activities as part of their course requirements. For more information, contact Beverly Farfan at farfanb@lanecc.edu

"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."
--Mother Teresa

Student Profiles

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."
--Mother Teresa

Service Learning poetry student Lara Coley found her voice at Lane with the encouragement of instructors Jennifer von Ammon and Lance Sparks. Of von Ammon, Lara says, "She consistently makes me think I can do anything and that even what I am doing is special and amazing. " Of Sparks, she says, "he makes me do the things I say I want to do." Lara has published in Denali magazine, and for the second year in a row won first-place in Lane's local League for Innovation poetry competition. Lara has completed two terms in WR 245: The Poet in the City, a service learning course that links the college with the Eugene community through outreach poetry workshops.