Doing community service may soon translate to getting class credit for Boston University students.
As part of the long-term recommendations of the One BU Task Force Report, administrators are emphasizing a need to recognize work students do outside the classroom as part of a more holistic approach to education and pre-professional preparation.
The task force, headed by Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education Victor Coelho, outlines in its report the need for co-curricular clusters that would help students narrow down a selection of courses and other activities and options relating directly to their chosen course of study.
“We’re working on the realization that the classroom experience and the learning experience outside the classroom’s four walls are complementary,” Coelho said, comparing these non-classroom experiences to a doctor’s field work. “Extra really sounds not good. It really is co, co-curricular.”
Coelho said the administration hopes to offer students better guidance in how to fully explore everything necessary to succeed in their field.
“What are the larger dimensions that make it important to look in the larger corners of the university?” he asked.
Coelho, who referred to the approach as “multidisciplinary,” said the administration is looking to legitimize service work as a counterpart to academics through various means including certificates upon graduation, “diploma validation,” portfolios and other ways tied to transcripts, such as credits.
“We do need to be able to document it,” he said.
The vast array of options available for such an idea, BU President Robert Brown said, presents an administrative challenge for how exactly to frame any possible changes.
“You don’t want to inject massive amounts of program in, but what is the right level of program?” he said. “We’re just starting to explore that.”
Along with ideas including allowing service work to be tailored into major tracks and awarding certificates for significant civic work, a major recommendation of the report is to include the First-Year Student Outreach Project and similar programs in a package that would give students one to two credits for their service work.
School of Education senior and FYSOP coordinator Samantha Rabinowicz said this aspect of the One BU plan has pros and cons.
“I wonder if it would change the spirit, or people would do it for the wrong reasons,” she said. “FYSOP is all for the cause and enjoying it, and there’s really no alternative motive.”
However, Rabinowicz said she likes the idea of students doing more community service.
“It would be great to connect the stuff [FYSOP participants] are doing with a class that talks about the social issues,” she said. “I think it would also make more connections between professors and community service and they could combine forces and learn.”
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