Keeping Up the "Pace," CU Instructor Leads Students in Service

From broken families to sexual abuse, her classes focus on some of society’s most challenging problems. But for Lori Pace, one of Concord University Beckley Center’s sociology instructors, her study of these issues went beyond the textbook and into the community.

Pace has included service-learning opportunities in many of her courses for a long while, but her efforts were catalyzed by the terrorist attacks that hit the United States on September 11, 2001.

“The week after [the attacks] we went back into class and we were just all so devastated and we didn’t know what to do,” Pace said. “But we wanted to do something.”

Students and Pace got together and decided to host a community bazaar as a charity fundraiser.

On weekends, Pace and her students got together and made crafts for the bazaar. The students also donated baked goods and yard sale items. More than $1,000 was donated by the class to a local women’s shelter and over $700 to the United Way 9/11 response fund.



This spirit of service continued on in nearly all of Pace’s courses. But, most of all, the service experiences tie in to both the class work and what community leaders shared with her students.

In a criminology course, the class involved community speakers on the topic of sexual assault crimes. Through those speakers, the class learned that a common problem for the victims of
sexual assault is that they must forfeit their clothing as part of the assault investigation. Often then, victims of sexual assault are forced to leave the hospital in nothing more than a medical gown.

After learning of this problem, the students decided to create packets for the victims of sexual
assault that included a change of clothes and made those available to local emergency rooms. In all, nearly 100 packets were made.

The service-learning project also introduced them to the different issues that arise in dealing with victims of crime, when they realized the diversity of victims of sexual assault and the need to produce clothing packages for children and teenagers of both genders.

In a course about marriage and families the students learned about the issues surrounding
foster care and the fact that many children do not have the opportunity to bring many of their personal belongings with them to their new foster homes. The class then made backpacks with stuffed animals, hygiene products, toys, and donated them to the children through the Greenbrier County Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR). In all, the students
and Pace made 110 backpacks.

In another criminology course, students promoted a local child advocacy organization, Just for Kids, at a community Halloween event. The students labeled and handed out candy to trick-or-treating children and shared information with parents about the organization.

In addition, students in her other classes held a bake sale fundraiser for Just for Kids at the Erma Byrd Higher Education Center. Other projects in recent years have included similar fundraisers and food drives for the Salvation Army.

Pace said that these service-learning experiences have enhanced the learning experience of her sociology students.

Most of all, she said it has brought them together as a team for their own communities.



“This is their community, and this is their family,” Pace said. “The students really had a heart for service."

According to Pace, the students enjoy meeting community leaders and are introduced to different ideas of what they can do once they earn their Concord University degree.

“They’re not going to remember all my boring, you know, Charlie Brown teacher’s lectures…but they’ll, years from now, remember that they participated in this,” Pace concluded.

Recreation [, Service,] and Tourism Management

CU Faculty Member Dr. Susan Martin-Williams shares about how the RTM department is taking the lead on incorporating service throughout the academic program, and she is challenging the University to find ways to make service more meaningful.

What would a recreation and tourism management (RTM) program be without getting outside of the classroom every once in a while? But for Dr. Susan Martin-Williams and the RTM department, getting their students involved with opportunities outside of the classroom has given more than just personal enjoyment to the students. It has enhanced their learning, confidence, and careers. “In general, the RTM department has agreed on a philosophy that the more hands-on we can have our classes and classroom experiences the more students will learn,” said Dr. Williams. “Some of that leads over into what I believe are some wonderful community service projects.”

Thus, the assignments in some of her classes have ranged from conducting and presenting research to the citizens of Hinton on their town’s tourism potential and challenges, educating children and youth about management of natural resources for the National Park Service, participating in area clean-ups, and experiencing life as a Concord University student using a wheelchair.

In addition, her future assignments will include having community leaders share on how to manage volunteers and an international experience working to attract visitors to a castle in Russia.



Through many of these experiences, the students have learned—well, just how much they have really learned, and they have grown in confidence.

“I have taken students out into various communities so that they can do tourism assessment projects, and it’s a really great learning experience for the students because very often students don’t realize the knowledge that they’ve acquired while at school,” said Dr. Williams.

“In these situations, they actually get to become the consultant or educator,” she added.

In addition, students have learned through these experiences how to respond to a diversity of needs and to become well-rounded citizens.

Through a class on inclusive services, students experience the struggles that people using wheelchairs experience daily. Dr. Williams said that she has seen her students have trouble getting through doors on campus and finding a place to take notes in class.

“I believe that makes them better citizens all the way around,” Dr. Williams said.

In addition, Dr. Williams feels that the inclusive services project gives the students an experience they wouldn’t otherwise have.

“That’s not something we would do voluntarily, so it’s good to have that classroom experience in that capacity as well,” she said.

Dr. Williams is also tapping into regional service efforts to make students more comfortable with
incorporating and facilitating service into their jobs after graduation.

Teaming up with the social work department in the development of a course, Dr. Williams is co-teaching a volunteer management mini-course in the spring semester. The course will take students to Elkins, West Virginia to learn hands-on from local community developers, AmeriCorps members, and Concord University faculty.

While volunteer management is the main topic of the course, students are also expected to learn why volunteering is vital to the success of their career
goals.

“Students are going to go up to Elkins and hear what the community issues are, and obviously, they’re far more than just the tourism. There are social capital issues and other issue that plague traditional community life,” Dr. Williams said.

Through the course and other service-learning experiences, Dr. Williams hopes that students will have a rise in motivation and increase their leadership skills.

“I think that students will be empowered to come back and be better community leaders wherever they end up after graduating,” she said.

Another reason that service learning in recreation and tourism management is important to Dr. Williams is because of what is at stake alongside her students’ education.

“Over the years, the public lands have gotten into really bad shape…however,
increasingly in the United States, volunteerism has been the answer,” she said.

However, for Dr. Williams service learning shouldn’t just be anything. She indicated that she wonders sometimes if the service experiences that students are engaged in now are effectively introducing students to service through their careers.

“As we’ve looked at all that Concord has to offer, and the various campus
organizations who really do focus on community service, I think there can be
an opportunity to tailor their service hours to fit their degree requirements or
degree interests.”

Williams has said that she has seen recent graduates who have looked back on their Concord years wishing they had more service experience that was tied to their degree studies and career goals, not only sporadic volunteering.

“If we can unite Concord’s forces, so that we can really offer a greater impact for our students hours and efforts, I think that that would be an admirable goal for everybody,” she concluded.