Experiential & Service Learning

Three people holding shovels.

Students from Sara Perl Egendorf’s Urban Poverty and Affluence class spent a day with the Clean Soil Project at the Ravenswood Houses in Astoria, Queens.

The Urban Studies Program features Experiential and Service Learning by incorporating it into multiple courses every semester. Thanks to generous support from the Amy and Horace Hagedorn Fund, we offer Course Enhancement Grants to instructors who want to foster an experiential learning environment in their courses. In these courses, students “learn by doing” – that is, they engage in active and embodied activities (i.e. field trips, tours, service learning projects, taking students to a conference, lecture, museum, campus gardening, travel for students conducting research IN THE FIELD such as interviews, surveys, etc).

In addition, several of our courses center on service learning projects, where students collaborate (either collectively or individually) with a public service organization to complete a project that furthers the organization’s mission as well as the courses’ pedagogical goals.