Service Learning

Service learning is a community engagement pedagogy that brings together faculty, students, and community organizations in order to link learning goals with civic responsibility and community empowerment. For more information on service learning, visit the Center for Civic Engagement & Leadership (CCEL) at Marist.

Being a part of Marist's Social Work Department allows students to become involved with service learning in the following ways:

The Curriculum

• In Research Methods (SOC 480), students and faculty work with a community organization to conduct an agency-based research project. In the past, students have worked with Friends of Seniors, the Domestic Abuse Awareness Council (DAAC), and the Children's Home of Poughkeepsie.
• In Social Change (SOC 341), students are engaged in either a consciousness-raising project on campus or work with a community organization to address a social need. Students have worked to stomp out stigma against mental health illness, increase equity for the LGBTQ+ community, raise awareness about sexual assault and harassment on campus, and push for fossil fuel divestment on campus.

Summer Internships

Students can participate in the Tarver Internship. Organized through the CCEL, with the guidance of faculty, students work full-time during the summer (eight weeks) in a local nonprofit organization on specific capacity-building projects for the organization. Three social work students have received this scholarship in the past:

• Daley Turner '15 was the first ever Tarver recipient and worked with Marist Liberty Partnerships Program, where she helped to create a curriculum to develop self-esteem and confidence for educationally at-risk adolescents.
• Marissa Zuleta '17 worked with Family Services, Inc., where she developed several programs aimed at increasing the awareness of local social service programs among Poughkeepsie's Spanish-speaking community.
• Rosa Genetti '17 worked with the Marist Liberty Partnerships Program, where she developed and led a series of art-based workshops aimed at building emotional self-awareness and coping skills through storytelling.

Students can participate in the Albany Internship Experience (AIE). Organized through the School of Liberal Arts, students spend a semester in the state capital interning and taking a college course on state politics and policy. One social work student has participated in this experience:

• Kylie Balogh '17 interned with Families Together in New York State, where she engaged in grant writing and data collection, created fact sheets and policy memos, attended press conferences, and lobbied for the Raise the Age initiative, which would end the current practice of trying juveniles as adults.