business writing & community partnerships: it’s about change jim dubinsky english department...
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Business Writing & Community Partnerships:
It’s about Change
Jim Dubinsky English Department
Virginia Tech
Kim Kirk Town of Blacksburg Planning & Engineering Office
Association for Business CommunicationAnnual Conference, Cincinnati, OH
October 23-26, 2002
Who we are Kim Kirk
Coordinator Neighborhood Enhancement Program Town of Blacksburg’s Planning & Engineering OfficeBlacksburg, VA 24060http://www.blacksburg.gov/services/planning/neighborhood_enhancement.php
540. 961-1126 / KKirk@blacksburg.gov Jim Dubinsky
Director of Professional Writing ProgramDepartment of EnglishVirginia TechBlacksburg, VA 24061-0112http://www.english.vt.edu/~dubinsky/540.231-7909 / dubinsky@vt.edu
What we did & how we did it What?
Semester-long, Service-Learning Partnership How?
Before term: Met to discuss goals, develop projects, and discuss deadlines/schedules
During term: Introduce project to class, work with students, share notes and evaluations, present material, revise & edit material
Student tasks: Informal Proposal, Progress Report, Oral Presentations, Final Written Project
After term: Refine products, discuss results, and use products and what we learned
Why we did it Kim
Address local government’s responsibility to reach out to citizens (including 4-5,000 transient students)
Gave access to student perspective Additional resources (in terms of experience, labor, and
talent) Jim
Belief in service-learning’s pedagogical value Belief in fulfilling land grant’s civic mission & introducing
students to the concept of civic duty Teach students the importance of deadlines Gain another perspective on my students’ work & my class
Importance of Partnership Partnership changes dynamics of relationship,
increases accountability, & expands potential for learning
Kim’s previous experiences with interns Student labor but no faculty involvement Issue of accountability
Jim’s early ventures in service-learning Client projects or service-learning Balancing number of projects with goals of pedagogy
Student’s Perspectives “ The service-learning project exposed us to what really goes
into developing professional documents. . . . We learned . . . more than any lecture [could present].”
“Before our group began this project, none of us knew that the [NEP] existed. We now know it does, have helped Kim do her job, and, more importantly, have helped countless tenants (particularly students) in single-family homes.”
“There is definitely a place for academic service-learning; our class played a pivotal role in helping us learn group skills. We applied the material in the class, using our different backgrounds, and . . . channel[ed] our diversity towards the community project to achieve a goal that benefits everyone involved: all of us, Kim, and our fellow students who live in town.”
Overall Benefits: Effect “Change”
PersonalPedagogicalPoliticalProfessional
Immediate ImpactTown
Outreach (student outreach to effect change in government’s ability to reach out)
Valuable input for town government from students
Valuable input for students about town government and its services / roles
Use of materials in presentations
Long-term Impact Boundary between town and gown dissolves Feedback and suggestions on methods for Town to
communicate with students living “in town” On leading edge of movement to help community
regain trust of student population Products and their potential value
Survey, brochures, information sheets, newsletter Establish models for partnerships at many levels Addresses notion that courses with strong practical
components are “market-driven” or, worse, simply “vocational”
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