Twenty-five community partners will be present to seduce students into creating change in their community during the Civic Engagement Fair.
The fair will take place alongside the Get On Board event Tuesday, Sept. 2 at Harborwalk from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Many USF St. Petersburg courses –exactly 100 last semester– include a civic engagement component. Students in these classes will work in the community for a passing grade. Even students without a service learning requirement can tour the fair and find an organization to be excited about.
“Civil engagement” is when people take responsibility for the place they live in. Engaged citizens don’t just complain about their community, they work to make it better.
Dr. Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan teaches political science at USFSP and is the founding director of the university’s Center for Civic Engagement, which was established in 2006.
McLauchlan notes that while the Center for Civic Engagement’s mission is to make USFSP distinctive in its commitment to civic engagement, her goal with the organization is also to get students “out of the classroom and in the community.” She stresses the importance of merging curriculum and community, which encourages students to put what they learn to use.
One example McLauchlan gives is when accounting students from the Kate Tiedemann College of Business help low-income individuals prepare their taxes. This allows students to practice and help the community at the same time.
For some students, experience in service learning is a necessity. Working with community partners can open doors for job opportunities.
Civic engagement is important beyond the grade, both for students who are starting out in the world, and also for the community in which they serve. They are creating the future they will be a part of.
“Students need to be educated, not just in the content for their discipline, but in wanting to make the world a better place,” McLauchlan said. “I think that’s a part of the overall mission of the university and certainly in my classes.”
McLauchlan said that when students identify a problem in their community, they need to know who to talk to and how to solve that problem.
“That’s the best thing that comes out of these classes,” she said, “that students will leave feeling like they can make an impact.”
