Working with Faculty
The faculty and community partner relationship
Collaborating with faculty can be both challenging and rewarding for community partners. It can be helpful to know a bit about the types and roles that faculty members play at SFSU.
Types of faculty members
- Tenured and tenure-track faculty have three roles in their job. Their primary is teaching, followed by scholarship and service. The tenure track is a professor's pathway to promotion and academic job security. An assistant professorship is an entry-level tenure-track position. An associate professor or professor has achieved tenure-track.
- Faculty Lecturers, also called instructors, adjuncts, part-time and temporary, are hired to teach particular courses. Lecturers and adjuncts are not on the tenure track and may or may not participate in the other two roles (scholarship and service).
Pathway to partnership
Service-learning offers different structural models for faculty and their students to pursue academic, vocational, social and civic learning outcomes. Academic service-learning experiences can be structured in several ways.
Service-learning courses are designed to help students apply course concepts to structured, community-based experiences. Service-learning courses provide structured critical reflection guided by faculty and opportunities for professional development. Students develop civic and social responsibility while addressing issues identified by community partners.
There are two types of service-learning experiences students can participate in service-learning placements or service-learning projects. Read about the differences below. Students typically devote a minimum of ~20-30 hours over a ~10-15 week period.
Placement-based service-learning courses require students to volunteer for a minimum of 20 hours with a community organization or project. Faculty members inform their students to refer to ICCE to assist them in finding a service site. Students may either find a non-profit partner organization with whom to volunteer or faculty can identify a smaller group of organizations where students can volunteer. Placement-based experiences enhance students' understanding of course content by asking them to volunteer directly in the community at an organization whose mission aligns with the course's academic outcomes.
In many service-learning courses, Individual students or groups of students fill volunteer roles at your organization, usually offering 3-5 hours per week throughout the semester for a total of 20-40 hours of service (depending on the course requirements and the needs of the service site) over a 10 -15 week time period. Through structured reflection activities, such as discussion, and written/reading assignments, faculty members guide students to understand how their community experiences link with the academic and civic learning objectives of the course. For example, students in an evironmental studies class may volunteer with an organization conducting eco-restoration, or students in a health care management class might volunteer with a community health clinic.
Project-based service-learning courses require students to work together in teams or as a whole class to produce and deliver a product for one or more community-based organizations. The project's deliverables are determined by the organization's client(s).
These projects may involve a research component. Students in a project-based service-learning course work together over the course of a semester, acting as consultants to the organization under the guidance of the professor. Some faculty members facilitate projects in collaboration with community partners.
Students may work together to generate a product over a 10-15 week period. Examples of past collaborations had design students generate graphics and a website for a community partner and students in urban poverty and policy course partnered with the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco to conduct field surveys and qualitative interviews with people experiencing homelessness on where and why people without stable housing find shelter and access the things they need to survive and feel safe.
Students apply their academic knowledge to real-world problems and organizations get a concrete product that advances the mission of the organization.
Education/Advocacy service-learning courses require students to work together to illuminate a social or political issue for the broader community in order to inspire them to action for personal or social change. Students might create a health fair or a public health symposium to disseminate information about critical issues facing the community. Community members would use the information for personal or collective action. Students might also create and publish materials (such as newspaper articles, magazines, websites or electronic portfolios, videos, etc.) designed to make information more accessible to the general public.
Note: Some projects require some lead time and preparation, so please contact ICCE early - at least three months before the start of the project. Some faculty announce a call for proposals in an effort to recruit community partners to collaborate with their students. ICCE will then forward this information to our community partners via email.
The most sustainable way to work with a university is through the faculty. Having an excellent relationship with a faculty member will make your experience deeper and more flexible. Some tips for working with faculty:
- Whenever possible, be involved at every step of the course or project and its development.
- To develop real partnerships (and avoid logistical nightmares), work with as few faculty members as possible. Perhaps there’s one you’re already involved with.
- Aim to assist faculty in working only with you or one or two other organizations. At the same time, connect your faculty members with other community partners, as appropriate.
- Get the faculty member involved with your organization in other ways.
- When you leave your organization, help the faculty member with the transition to the new staff person.
- Thank the students for their involvement.
- Learn about the service-learning class’ learning goals and where the experience with your organization fits in.
- Offer to the service-learning class as part of the pre-service analysis, preparation, and orientation.
See the Organization Orientation Checklist tab below for more ideas.
ICCE can help you meet and develop relationships with faculty to build collaborations.