NOTE: President Corrigan delivered the following keynote address at the CSU Institute on Service Learning, held Oct. 10, 2000.

Good evening. I am delighted to be here to talk with you about a national movement in higher education that I find as personally exciting -- and potentially transformative -- as anything I have experienced in some four decades in this profession. Service learning, and its central role in our increasingly articulated goal of educating students for lifelong civic engagement, may be the most significant educational development since the university curricular reforms of the 60's. In fact, I believe that it will prove to be the higher education legacy of the early 21st century, and that it will have a lifelong impact on our students -- just as active participation in the civil rights struggle did on my generation.

As leaders in the CSU's teacher preparation efforts, you bring multiple perspectives to this conference's discussion of service learning and teacher preparation. You know both the realities of the teacher training curriculum and those of the K-12 classroom. You are interested in new pedagogies, but you demand that they prove their value, and insist that they can and must be assessed. You know that successful teachers reach both the mind and the spirit. You know that the demands on K-12 have never been greater, that our schools are being asked both to raise test scores and to raise our nation's children; to impart not just facts, but values. I guarantee that you will find in service learning a vehicle for achievement of all these goals, a teaching approach every teacher needs and deserves to know.

One of the many remarkable things about service learning is how quickly it has won a recognized place in higher education. As a broad movement, this ascendancy of service learning and accompanying revival of what my good friend and valued colleague, Tom Ehrlich, has called "civic and moral learning" can be said to have started some 15 years ago when a small band of college and university presidents (including Chancellor Charles Reed) committed themselves, and their institutions, to community service by creating Campus Compact. Now numbering almost 700 member institutions, Compact has grown into what many consider to be the most exciting movement in higher education today, as the concept of community service has evolved into service learning and now beyond that, to the even broader goal of civic engagement. There are now, I think, 26 state Compacts, the oldest and best of which, I am proud to say is California Compact.

Let me confess right now that I was once a skeptic about university community service and service learning. When Campus Compact was founded, I saw it as an elite institution guilt trip, a response to a public perception of students as wealthy narcissistic types, concerned only about money and power, attending colleges and universities totally lacking in a sense of community responsibility. I don't recall a time in which I have been more wrong about American higher education, our students, and our campus leadership. What began that year has culminated in the most extraordinary reform movement that higher education has seen, probably since the creation of the community college system. And I have gone from dour skeptic to enthusiastic drum major!

Service learning helps to fill a vacuum that emerged -- paradoxically -- from a time when our campuses were alive with social action -- the 60s and 70s. For many of us who as faculty or students were active then in the Civil Rights movement and the antiwar movement, a progression from community action to university curricular reform was a natural one. We sought to open up the university to new ideas, new teaching strategies, and new populations. But while we successfully challenged old institutional values and authority, we did not succeed in providing a new value system to support the political reforms we had instituted. Nor have we over the past three decades been able to identify and institutionalize a new set of civic and moral values to replace those that we helped to discard. On the contrary, there was instead a conscious effort to make the individual classroom, and the university as a whole, value-free communities. An unreasonable, if not impossible task, I might add.

After this three-decade hiatus, however, educators are once again discussing the university mission in terms of values, particularly those of active citizenship. We are recognizing that our students need a sense of community and social values, and that our democracy depends on the readiness of each new generation to take personal responsibility for the governance of society. We have accepted the obligation to turn things around again, to demonstrate that there are life-enriching alternatives to cynicism, categorical distrust of authority, and a sense of civic powerlessness.

Through service learning we are rediscovering a historic educational mission -- one that goes all the way back to the founding of Harvard College in 1635. And not a moment too soon. From many quarters, we are hearing a chorus of concern that something is going awry with the very basis of our democratic society: that is, with widespread active participation in civic affairs. From student residence halls to Silicon Valley, we're seeing uncomfortable evidence that many people have chosen to retreat into their own lives, electing not to engage themselves with the communities and issues around them. Witness the almost instant impact of Bob Putnam's "Bowling Alone" that has achieved the cult status for this era that Riesman's "Lonely Crowd" did for an earlier one. Lately, we've all been reminded that many Americans aren't even bothering to vote -- that most basic and easiest -- of civic acts. And I read two weeks ago that a Harvard poll has found that 49 percent of respondents were paying "no" or "only a little" attention to the presidential race. As a result, our communities, our political institutions, and our national soul, if you will, are suffering most grievously.

When it comes to young people, national surveys show us a paradox: Although individual student volunteer activity is at an all-time high, participation in civic life has dropped precipitously. A year ago, the annual national survey of college freshmen conducted by Sandy Astin revealed the lowest levels of political interest since the survey began in 1966. Just 21 percent, for example, wanted to take part in community action programs; only 28 percent were interested in becoming community leaders. As troubling was the decline in what the report calls "indicators of social activism": student interest in helping to promote racial understanding -- at its lowest level in a decade, or in influencing other social values. Yet these same students were performing volunteer work in record numbers -- almost three-quarters of them.

Now having provided you with a somewhat alarming view of current national civic dispiritedness, let me share some examples of what I see -- what many see -- as an antidote. Service learning is a spur to civic engagement, an expression of higher education's social mission, and an academic powerhouse, strengthening both teaching and learning. A key underpinning, if you will, of what my colleague Don Gerth likes to call "The People's University."

I wish that all of you could have been with me some months ago when I introduced San Francisco State University student Cecilia Shepard to Chancellor Reed. Ceci, a 38-year-old public housing resident, single mother of five, and former self-described drug addict, achieved phenomenal gains for herself and the mostly Black residents of her public housing complex as she combined the resources of the community and of the University with her own extraordinary energy and talent. Utilizing two San Francisco State service learning courses, one in political science, the other in health education, Ceci is helping to change her community -- bringing a University health program right into her housing project, getting 500 computers privately donated and installed by HUD in every apartment, with SFSU computer science students (in yet another service learning course) lined up to provide on-site training for both adults and youngsters. For her part, Ceci Shepard describes her service learning classes as "phenomenal."

That is, clearly, an exceptional example -- and it won Ceci a national award -- but let me give you some others that demonstrate the way service learning more typically works.

At CSU Chico, the Students in Free Enterprise program sends business students into a variety of community settings -- schools, juvenile hall, a shelter for homeless families -- to mentor and teach financial planning and basic business skills. With the guidance of the Chico students, young people at a special high school that's the last step before juvenile hall have opened and run a business -- a food cart on the courthouse grounds.

• At CSU Northridge, students in an advanced communication course run a Saturday workshop on speechmaking for 7th-to-12th graders, working on everything from notes, to delivery, to dealing with anxiety.
• At Cal Poly SLO, students in a general education course in writing and argumentation volunteer in a non-profit agency of their choice, then write a series of advocacy pieces for the agency.
• San Jose State has adopted its near neighborhood -- 360 square blocks around the campus -- and through faculty and students in six colleges, is providing economic, educational, neighborhood design, and other help. One group of students is teaching computer skills to senior citizens so that they can find part-time work to supplement their incomes.
• In a San Diego State course called "Community Applications of Business Principles," students successfully negotiated a Marriott Corporation pledge to donate more than $50,000 worth of furniture to a local battered women's shelter as a hotel was being remodeled.
• A San Francisco State University finance class team entered a City-sponsored competition to produce a design and financing package for affordable senior housing -- and won first place! Our team got special praise for the way they worked with a non-profit housing developer, with the neighborhood, and with others in the community -- including Mayor's Office staff and the Bank of America. The project is going forward -- there is a reasonable chance that it will actually be constructed!

Students who have had experiences such as these begin to learn their power to navigate the complexities of community activism; to listen, learn, and partner; and to make things happen. They can be forever changed. And they are well on their way to the kind of lifelong engagement with social issues and community affairs that we are seeking to generate.

But if that were service learning's only contribution, we would probably not be gathered here tonight. The truly wonderful thing about service learning is its demonstrable educational value. As a growing body of data show persuasively, service learning is one of the most powerful methods for teaching and learning that we have yet discovered. Repeated studies show us that students absorb knowledge better when they are given hands-on opportunities to apply it. Students engaged in service earn higher grades and have better graduation rates. Service learning also builds problem-solving skills and a wealth of other real-life capacities. Through service learning, our students can get the full educational package: subject matter mastery, strong social values, and the skills to apply both in the world beyond the campus.

The latest study to reinforce these academic and civic benefits of service learning was published last January by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute. To the already-long list of good outcomes of a well-conducted service learning course, the report added: greater student enthusiasm for an eventual career in service; more active student participation in the learning process; and -- touching two fundamental academic goals -- stronger writing and critical thinking skills! The study also found that both faculty and students develop a "heightened sense of civic responsibility and personal effectiveness through participation in service-learning courses."

Universities have found that service learning not only enhances student learning; but strengthens a sense of shared community; earns community respect; improves student recruitment and retention; supports diversity; addresses at their root educational problems such as remediation; improves an institution's reputation; wins strong public support; even increases private giving.

With all this to offer, why wait till students enter college to expose them to service learning? And what about students who aren't college-bound? We are here tonight because you -- and the CSU -- aren't waiting. From kindergarten on, students can build their civic skills, making active connections between what they are learning and the needs of their communities. There is no reason to make service learning the preserve of colleges and universities -- and tremendous reason to build it into the earlier years of schooling, where its benefits can take root.

A classroom visit I made, when we were getting San Francisco State's "America Reads" program under way, brought home to me the potential of service learning even for very young students. With me in that San Francisco first-grade classroom was California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and we watched in awe as a Chinese first-grader named Albert tutored his classmates in the use of a computerized reading program that he himself had been taught only a few weeks earlier. Albert was demonstrating a kind of service learning -- that is, he was applying what he had been taught to the benefit of his immediate community -- in the case of the first grader, his classmates. Pelosi has told the story of this 6-year-old teacher to her Washington colleagues so many times that Albert has become something of a legend in the halls of Congress. And he has made a good start on a life of looking beyond himself, to the needs of others.

A NATIONAL MOVEMENT, A NATIONAL MOMENT

Remarkable-in higher education, we are now talking openly and with great enthusiasm about values -- particularly those of active citizenship. We are recognizing not only that our students need a sense of community and social values, but that our institutions must be civic leaders as well, demonstrating ourselves the civic responsibility we want our students to practice.

All in all, this movement in higher education has become a true wave, sweeping across the nation. I strongly believe that we have -- at this moment -- an historic obligation and an unprecedented opportunity. Service learning and its outgrowth, civic engagement, promote everything we most value in the academy, and if we embrace this movement together, we can truly transform our students, our communities, and ourselves.

Here in the CSU, service learning has just taken a great leap forward. As you know, a year ago, Governor Davis challenged our State's three systems of public higher education to institute a service requirement for graduation. The CSU was the only system to respond. We sought to persuade the Governor of three things: that service should be strongly encouraged rather than required; that the most effective vehicle for achieving our shared goal was not volunteerism alone, but service learning; and that we needed -- and would use effectively -- major funding.

The systemwide service learning plan we developed in response to the Governor's call won his strong support -- $8.8 million dollars worth of support, no less. Governor Davis made that four-year commitment to the CSU, and gave us the first installment -- $2.2 million dollars -- in this year's State budget. With these funds, our 22 campuses are committing ourselves to double over four years both the number of service learning courses we offer and the number of students who have at least one service learning experience before graduation. Surely some of those new service learning courses can fall within the teacher education curriculum!

For as this conference reflects, the newest dimension of service learning is rooting it strongly in the K-12 curriculum, giving younger students a chance to gain from this powerful educational strategy from their earliest school years. Even as we were expanding service learning opportunities throughout the university curriculum, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin was setting out to build a place for service learning in K-12. Her goal: that by 2004, half of the State's school districts will offer all students at least one service-learning opportunity at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Last year, the Service-Learning Task Force she had appointed to recommend how this might be achieved, made its report. Among its eight key recommendations: make service-learning a part of teacher education programs.

I have no doubt that a number of you have already been doing this to some extent, moved by your own awareness of the power of experiential education. But a formal place in the curriculum is essential for the future of service learning in K-12. I believe you will find this rewarding, and in some ways familiar, work. The essence of service learning is partnership -- and that is something that faculty in colleges of education know especially well. You have led the way as the K-16 movement has grown, forging strong and creative ties with local schools, drawing in colleagues campuswide, and finding community and private support to move exciting projects forward. This expertise is going to be invaluable when you start to shape a sustainable model for K-12 service learning.

All of this is tremendously exciting. Imagine an unbroken chain -- from kindergarten through college -- of community service experiences that help our children and young people learn, help them find their place in the world, and make them superb custodians of our future. Throughout California, we are bringing a more diversified population of students to our K-12 schools and college campuses than ever before -- the future leaders of our community. Thus, this mission-preparing new generations of principled and active citizens-has become absolutely critical.

Last year, in his annual baccalaureate address, Yale President Richard Levin reminded the graduating students of his words to them four years ago when they were freshmen: "I told you that this is a place where ideas are taken seriously…where community service is taken seriously, where involvement and moral responsibility are taken seriously." He praised them for their community service while at Yale -- the University has an extensive program -- and told them that "What you have done for this city you must now do for your country and the wider world ... The nation needs your involvement, and the wider world demands your attention."

That is the message and the great joy of participation in service learning. And it need -- should not -- wait for college. By making a place for service learning in K-12 classrooms, and before that, in the teacher preparation curriculum, we can engage our children with the world around them, even as we strengthen their academic skills.

If we catch the spirit of service learning -- and help to move it forward in our schools -- we will, I strongly believe, see both tangible benefits to our society and an uplifting of our collective spirit.

You are doing critical work, which will resonate in our schools for years to come. I admire you, I envy you, and I wish you every success in your work here. Thank you.