Effective Fall 2012, all community-based student engagement in service-learning courses and service-learning/internship courses must be documented in LOCUS as part of substantiating students' fulfillment of the university's Engaged Learning requirement.  Information about students' community engagement also helps the CEL manage student risk while working in the community, and provides important data about Loyola's partnerships with Chicago-area not-for-profit organizations through experiential learning classes.

In placement model classes, where individual students are required tosecure their own service sites, your students are also responsible for creating an individual engaged learning record in LOCUS.  Instructions for creating this record are available for students on the "Documenting Your Service" tab on the Service-Learning 101 student resource site.

Once students have entered their information into LOCUS, it is your responsibility as course instructor to APPROVE students' sites.  This step is extremely important for risk management purposes, as it demonstrates to Loyola's insurer that you, as a faculty member, were aware of students' off-campus activities, and that they are therefore covered by Loyola's general liability policy.  Instructions for approving students' placement information can be found here.

In project or community education/advocacy classes, where groups of students (or entire classes) are cooperating to complete community-based projects with one or more organization partners, the CEL staff can create class-specific "template" descriptions that can be used to create these engaged learning records for multiple students at the same time.  Use the following form to submit information about community-based projects that your students are completing for a particular class.  Please submit one form per project site.

NOTE:  If you would like the CEL staff to assign your students to particular projects for you, email a listing of project groups to servicelearning@luc.edu or include the names of students assigned to each project in the project's detailed description.