Service Learning Requirement

Service Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities. Service Learning basically links the learning in the classroom to the activity in the community and vice versa. The mission of AIIAS is to develop leaders who are of service to their workplace, the Adventist Church and to the community at large. Because purely academic work does not always integrate leadership or
community service opportunities the Graduate School has included a Service Learning component as a graduation requirement for all students.

The Service Learning component does not require registration or tuition fees, however, it must be completed, as any other course, before graduation requirements are considered met. The Service Learning requirement consists of 100 hours (40 hours for graduate certificate programs in Business, Education, and Public Health departments) spent in service to community bodies, church related organizations, schools, health related institutions, business firms, governmental or nongovernmental entities, and the general public at large. The 100 (40) hours may be made up of several activities, or a single activity that is continued over a long period of time. As the Service Learning requirement is student initiated and coordinated, each student may select or design activities that will contribute toward their professional/personal development in consultation with their academic advisor.

Service Learning activities should begin early in a student’s AIIAS career, and need to be documented at/near the time of occurrence, including the signature/date of a professor or another individual (not another student) and a short comment from them about the student’s presence and participation in the said activity. The documentation required includes the running list of activities, comments/signatures and time spent, and an electronic portfolio. The e-portfolio includes pictures, activities, and personal comments/reflections. The comments show why the student chose these activities, what was learned from them, how classroom learning was linked to the service activity, and how they have grown professionally through those experiences. The portfolio ends with a 1-page reflective essay about the student’s professional and personal learning and growth through the Service Learning activities. Students should be prepared to
share their experiences with others in periodic seminars which may be held for such purposes.

When the Service Learning activity is completed, the portfolio and signature page are sent to the academic advisor, who will present it to the department and department chair to record the completion of the activity. Once it is approved, the academic advisor may enter the completion into the academic record system.