Service Learning

Service Learning provides students with the opportunity to make academic connections between the University and the world through service experiences, promoting their development into true citizens and leaders of the community. Service Learning is a partnership between students and the community whereby both parties are learning from and giving to one another. During the Service Learning Colloquia, students participate in meaningful service projects and learn from texts and classroom discussions about the issues they are studying.

Honors is committed to extending learning beyond the classroom through a reflective service curriculum which allows students to use their newly acquired skills and knowledge in real-life situations throughout their academic career. The powerful benefit of Service Learning is not that students end a social problem, but that they begin to better understand themselves and their community.

The Service Learning Colloquia are designed to help students engage in a variety of academic and intelligent discussions about many of the social issues in the Jacksonville community such as: At-Risk Youth, Children's Health, Domestic Violence, Poverty, Refugee Issues, Adult Health Care, Literacy, and the Environment. Students are offered a wide range of service sites including: Clara White Mission, Habitat for Humanity Jacksonville, Nemours Children's Clinic, Mayo Clinic, The Bridge of Northeast Florida, Hubbard House, Lutheran Social Services, BEAKS, Tree Hill, and the Boggy Creek Gang Camp.

Some examples of past service learning projects include:

Honors students created a mentoring program for at–risk high school youth as a means to understanding the barriers to success in the lives of these youth. In addition, students secured a partnership with NIKE and the Jaguars Foundation who sponsor a scholarship for the at–risk youth to attend UNF.

Honors students traveled to our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., for spring break. There they worked with children on the burn unit at the Hospital for Sick Children in an effort to understand children's health issues.

Honors students adopted refugee families who had just arrived in the United States. They help the refugees learn and adapt to the American culture while examining the impact of displacement of individuals on politics, health, homelessness, and employment issues.