Documenting students' community engagement

The following forms and other resources are general forms that may or may NOT be used by a specific service-learning class.  Check with the Program Manager for Service-Learning if you are unsure which forms are best suited properly documenting your students' community-based work.

NOTE:  Effective Fall 2012, students and instructors in service-learning courses are required to document and approve the specific community organization(s) that they have served in LOCUS.  This is now the university's PRIMARY way of documenting students' community engagement.  All OTHER, supplemental methods of documentation (including paper forms) may or may not be used at the course instructor's discretion.

Service-Learning Agreement -- this paper form, which is signed by the student, the community partner, and the course instructor, documents the agreement between the student and the community organization representative who will be supervising him or her while onsite.  Ideally, it would be signed by the organization representative/site supervisor during the student's orientation to the organization, and would be accompanied by a conversation about the student's learning objectives for the community-based experience.  NOTE:  the information on this form must also be documented in LOCUS.

Instructions for Documenting Engaged Learning in LOCUS -- this instructions manual, aimed at students, walks them through all the steps necessary to document their service-learning agreement information in LOCUS.  NOTE:  The same information can be found, in video form, in the CEL's Service-Learning 101 student resource site.

Approving Engaged Learning Records in LOCUS -- this manual, aimed at faculty, walks them through all the steps necessary to approve student-entered service-learning agreement information in LOCUS.  Note:  this step is extremely important, as it demonstrates to Loyola's insurer that students' service activities are part of your class, and therefore covered by Loyola's general liability policy.

Faculty who are teaching classes that involve group/class projects or community-based research may prefer to create a generic "template" record in LOCUS that can be applied to ALL of the students in the class or group.  The web-based form for submitting project information can be found on this site, under "Documenting Projects."

Generic ‌ -- this form is intended for documenting a student's volunteer hours at his/her volunteer site throughout the semester.  At the end of the semester, it should be returned (with all appropriate signatures) to the course instructor.  Note that some organizations may have their own version of this form; it is up to the course instructor to determine what forms of agency documentation are acceptable in her/his class.