The Cupertino Courier

News

De Anza College program seeking links to real world

By Cody Kraatz

De Anza College has created an Office of Community and Civic Engagement to bridge the gap between book learning and real world experience.

"When we look at educating our students to engage in a democratic system...we believe that community engagement is a very important endeavor and tool to get us there," said Mayra Cruz, co-director of the OCCE. The office will be located on campus near the faculty services building.

Some instructors are already enthusiastic about including volunteer work in their curriculum but need help finding contacts for their students and imagining how to craft their assignments, said Lydia Hearn, president of the Academic Senate.

"There are a lot of people that want to do more of this and we just don't have time to look into it ourselves. If the Office of Community and Civic Engagement will help us do that, I'd be ready to do (service learning) in a heartbeat," said Hearn, who is also an English instructor and coordinator of the honors program at De Anza.

The office plans to focus its earliest efforts on general education classes, where students' volunteer work would shine through when they want to transfer to universities, but the honors program could also use OCCE support, Cruz said. It allows students to turn classes into honors courses and earn "honors student" status on their transcripts.

"Some of the students are doing a lot of community work as their honors project. We would like to formalize that more," said Hearn. "Our honors students are really bound for transfer to some of the top universities and we want to encourage them as leaders of the community, not just at school in the classroom."

Another idea is for advanced students to tutor local high school students in writing or math. De Anza may open its reading and writing center doors to the community and give its students a chance to tutor community members there.

"I truly believe that if you're creative, you can incorporate this in any department, in just about any class," said Cruz.

Off campus, community organizations have received OCCE's plans with open arms.

"This department that they're creating is commendable. It is filling a void that I think is missing at all levels of campuses across this state," said Elena Robles, coordinator of Santa Clara County's Immigrant Relations and Integration Services (IRIS) program. The program partners with such student groups as San Jose State University's AmeriCorps Bridging Borders project and likes to include students in its work.

"In this county, over 60 percent of the population are foreign-born or their parents are foreign-born," said Robles. IRIS needs interns and volunteers to help with presentations to immigrants or non-citizens about the challenging process of becoming citizens. The program, like the OCCE, also strives to get immigrants involved in their communities.

Cruz and OCCE co-director Rowena Tomaneng were both part of the 60-member community engagement task force created by De Anza president Brian Murphy in the 2004-05 school year, to draft a plan that formed the foundation for the OCCE. The group, composed of faculty, staff, students and administrators, studied examples of service learning and youth leadership programs, gathering experts at a 2005 summer institute at De Anza to learn more.

For more information about the Office of Community and Civic Engagement, visit www.deanza.edu.