Initiating Community Partnerships

OSL can help facilitate relationships between faculty and viable community partners. OSL maintains contact with more than 200 nonprofit agencies and continually initiates new relationships. OSL works collaboratively with Spiritan Campus Ministry and the Duquesne University Volunteers Office (DUV) to tap other existing partnerships.

View the OSL's typical process for facilitating partnerships...

Partnerships vs. Placements

Forming a partnership with a community agency is different than finding a service placement for your students. "Partnership" suggests the exchange of knowledge and resources for mutual benefit. Often, service-learning classes start out with student placements and grow into faculty-community partnerships. The OSL will help you, whatever your needs are.

Recommendations for Success

• Faculty accompany students to the site for the first time.
• Faculty and community partners implement a sign-in/sign-out process for students to track their service hours.
• Faculty and community partners maintain regular communication throughout the course.
• Faculty visit the site while students are serving  at least once over the course of the semester to see how things are going.
• At the end of the semester, faculty and community partners evaluate the success of the partnership and make changes for next time.

Map of Community Sites

This map includes the 77 community agency sites that hosted service-learning students in the past academic year. By clicking on one of the markers, the agency name, address, and a photo will be displayed. Directions are available. To contribute additional sites to the map, e-mail the Office of Service-Learning.