Public Service Projects

Public Service Projects

The Public Service Project is usually the final work students undertake in becoming a Community Engaged Scholar.

The project must have the student work on a problem, issue or need in the community via an effort involving the student’s academic expertise. The project must be developed as collaboration between the student and community, with each side working as partners. Students should become experts on the problems on which they are working by the end of their projects. Students should strive to create projects having sustainable impacts that do not depend on their continued presence.

The project must follow either the:

1. Product model: Students create a product (e.g., work of art, video, ad campaign, documentary, software, database, handbook or manual) for a group or agency, with the goal of solving a problem or helping the organization with its mission. Community members can create the product with students (e.g., children and a college student paint a mural), but this is not required.
2. Community-Based Research model: Students conduct archival research (e.g., reviewing scientific literature or existing documents) and/or collect and analyze data for an agency, with the goal of understanding a problem or how well the organization is doing in its efforts to combat a problem. Typically, students write a final report on findings for the agency.

A project that does not fall into the above categories may be used if the student writes a brief proposal for his or her project. Such proposals, which should be written after consultation with the Key Center, must be approved in advance of the project by the Key Center Advisory Council.

Because the project must be both beneficial to the community and academically rigorous, the student must have a faculty and community agency advisor. The student must complete a brief form describing the project and obtain the signatures of both the faculty and community agency advisors. To avoid problems and promote good outcomes, it is desirable that both advisors come into contact with each other at regular intervals. The form must be on file with the Key Center before the project begins. The form must be completed whether or not the project is done in a course.

After the project is complete, students must write a report on their project that is a minimum of 10 double-spaced pages. The report, which begins with an abstract, should explain the project's origins, the methods and work undertaken, how the work ties to the student’s academic field(s), challenges faced and methods used to deal with them, the results, the likelihood of sustainability of the work, and a conclusion discussing implications of the project for the community partner and for the student’s field of study. The papers are published in a Key Center journal. If the project involves writing a report for the agency or class, parts of it may be adapted for the Key Center report, but such reports may not be copied or extensively quoted for the Key Center journal paper.

The community advisor, academic advisor and department chair must endorse the student’s completed product. The report and overall project also must be approved by a UNCA faculty member who was not the student’s advisor.

Finally, students must publicly present their project at an end-of-semester service-learning poster session on campus. Multiple presentations (e.g., for the agency or others in the community) are encouraged.

The project may be completed as part of a course, but the course cannot be one of the courses used to complete the first requirement of becoming a Community Engaged Scholar (i.e., two Service-Learning Designated Courses). The course in which a Public Service Project originates does not have to be a Service-Learning Designated Course. If the work is done for a course, the final grade on the project must be a B- or higher.

The project may be done with a partner or partners, if all partners are UNCA students. In the case of partnerships, each partner must write a separate report for the Key Center. Each partner also must do a separate presentation, or each must have a major role in a single presentation.

The project may not be used to complete other university requirements (e.g., a thesis or project required for the student’s major). Thus, it cannot be a duplicate or mostly unrevised work from a previous effort. It also cannot be duplicated or revised slightly for credit on a subsequent project. However, the project may grow out of the student’s previous academic work or service, and it may lead to subsequent academic projects or service efforts.