Social service agencies, nonprofit groups, and schools who would like to participate please contact Professor Clark, Professor Wheeler, or the Internship Coordinator (see homepage) about their specific needs for student interns and their interests in course participation as students, fellows, or guest speakers. We have ongoing relationships built already with a number of sites. The English Department/Center faculty, in turn, reach out to inform the community about the program and to solicit participation, with help from the City of Eugene and interested others--Rotary clubs, for example.
During the past two years of pilot programs, students have demonstrated that their ability to take initiative and provide leadership can make them valuable partners in community literacy efforts, and responses from the sites where they have worked have been very strongly positive. They have not only tutored individual adults and children or worked together with them to improve skills, but also set up a program and resources for future tutors (at Skipworth, for example), led small groups, read to children, showed youths how to compose and do research on computers, developed after-school literacy experiences for troubled youth, helped with newsletters, increased understanding between American and international K- 12 students, worked in schools with 'individuals and groups on tutoring, lesson planning, and presentations, directed acting and improvisations, assisted with video productions, and helped with writing projects. In the past two years, more than a hundred students have taken the associated courses and participated in the service learning experiences of this pilot program.
In addition, community members and teachers have participated in Literacy and Youth Literature courses as speakers, panel members, and students. Seminar discussions provide a unique site for the interaction of people with very different backgrounds. Participants (students, presenters) have come from a wide variety of sources, including Skipworth, Lane Sheltercare, the Literacy Council, Oregon Public Network, Lane Educational Service District, the Register-Guard, Looking Glass/New Roads, Roosevelt Middle School, Sheldon and South Eugene High Schools, and the 44 Bilingual Education Center.