Abstract
Community engagement in the classroom can take several forms such as engaged scholarship, service learning, and philanthropy. Each of these activities connects course material with the immediate community, creating a multi-directional discourse. In this article we explain and provide a program evaluation of the Student Philanthropy and Community Engagement Program (SPCEP) run in a wide variety of classes at Oakland University in Michigan. The results indicate that SPCEP is effectively increasing students’ philanthropic inclinations while also increasing their engagement with and knowledge of the local community. These findings have important implications for the classroom, university reputation, and the local community.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Pearson Family Foundation and the Oakland University Credit Union for their generous donations which made SPCEP possible. We would also like to thank the College of Arts and Sciences at Oakland University, specifically Dean Kevin Corcoran and Kelly Anne Conway, who made this program possible through their unwavering support and dedication. Finally, Joyce C. Havstad would like to thank Samuel Rickless and Nicholas Tebben for inspiring her initial efforts at philanthropic pedagogy.
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Benz, T.A., Piskulich, J.P., Kim, Se. et al. Student Philanthropy and Community Engagement: A Program Evaluation. Innov High Educ 45, 17–33 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-019-09484-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-019-09484-8