Many Loyola students receive a Federal Work Study (FWS) award as part of their financial aid package.  This program allows students to work part-time while earning money for school.  Now FWS-eligible students can work at local nonprofit organizations at a higher rate of pay ($10/hour)! These are called Community Based Federal Work Study (CBFWS) jobs.  Interested students should apply here. Continue reading »

Last summer I received an announcement about the Impact Grant Program offered by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana Foundation.  I asked myself what would truly impact service learning at Loyola.  Three things came to mind: supporting our faculty, supporting our community partners, and supporting our students.  Now that we’ve received a generous grant from the Foundation, all three forms of support are materializing.

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Service learning assignment: dress up as a pig.

Jimmy Tran, student in ACCTB493, dresses up as "Benjamin Bankes" at a volunteer event at the Louisiana Children's Museum.

Jimmy Tran, a student in Professor Jean Meyer’s accounting class, completed this assignment with panache.  He wasn’t just any pig, he was “Benjamin Bankes,” a piggy bank who helps kids understand the importance of saving.  Tran was among several of Meyer’s students who volunteered at the Louisiana Children’s Museum’s FETCH! Financial Literacy Saturday on January 21st.  Students facilitated hands-on activities to help kids  learn the value of money, including painting their own piggy banks and shopping for groceries on a budget.

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A few years ago, I accompanied a group of college students on a service trip to Uganda.  I had never been to Africa before.  I was full of good intentions. I was ready to be helpful, open, sincere and culturally sensitive.  But I thought I was a step ahead because I was also ready to be appropriately critical of the “helper” mentality.  I was ready peel back the smiles and good vibes and inspect deeper dynamics of oppression, systemic injustice, power and privilege.  I wasn’t just there to feel good and go home.

That’s why I was taken aback when, a few weeks before I left for Kampala, a well-meaning friend asked me, without menace and very straightforwardly, “Why are all the children in Africa always so dirty?”

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Recently I was invited to write a review of Loyola’s service learning program for Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society.  I was asked to reflect on the distinctiveness of Loyola’s service learning efforts.  Given that so many universities in New Orleans have developed incredible community engagement programs, especially post-Katrina, what makes ours unique?

The answer came quite naturally: Loyola’s Jesuit mission, which is focused on cura personalis, the formation (and transformation) of whole persons.

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On Thursday, March 18th, at 5:30 pm in the St. Charles Room of the Danna Student Center, please join us for ¡Juntos! A Forum on Latino New Orleans.

¡Juntos! will feature a panel of experts from agencies serving the growing Latino population in New Orleans.  Agencies represented on the panel include: Puentes, the Hispanic Apostolate of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Common Ground Health Clinic, Reach NOLA, Language Access Coalition, the Loyola Immigration Law Clinic, the Louisiana Office of Public Health/Latino Outreach Project, and the Latino Apostolate of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana.

Panelists will discuss the needs and assets of New Orleans’ Latino community and explore how Loyola can connect with this community and build meaningful partnerships.  The panel will be followed by audience Q&A and a reception.  The event is free and open to the public.  Simultaneous Spanish interpretation is available via headset.

The Office of Service Learning is thrilled to be one of seven co-sponsors of Juntos, along with the Office of the Provost, the Office of Mission & Ministry, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Center for the Study of New Orleans, the Academic Resource Center, and the Center for International Education.

Come learn more about the amazing work of these agencies!

Last semester, students in Professor Erin Dupuis’ psychology first year seminar “Brain & Behavior” learned about the various regions of the human brain and how they affect our behaviors, attitudes and predispositions.  Students also completed 15 hours of service learning for the class.  Some students volunteered at the Harry Tompson Center serving homeless individuals, while others tutored 2nd graders in reading through STAIR (Start the Adventure in Reading).  Professor Dupuis’ students also cared for neglected animals at ARNO (Animal Rescue New Orleans), talked with cancer patients at Hope Lodge, read poetry to mentally disabled adults at the ARC of Greater New Orleans, played games with local seniors at the Uptown Shepherd’s Center, and worked alongside individuals recovering from addiction at Bridge House.

What does all of this have to do with neuroscience and the psychological study of the human brain?  Ask the students!

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What if you had the chance to take a step back from your day-to-day life and see it from an entirely new, fresh perspective? What if you had the chance to redesign your life?

This semester, one lucky class of Loyola students has been granted this opportunity. Daniela Marx’s graphics design freshman seminar, Designing Your Life, focuses on the intersection of design with our daily lives. Continue reading »