Honors College Service-Learning is one option for satisfying freshman/sophomore Honors College requirements. Aside from the personal satisfaction of helping people, it's a great option for a semester when you can't get enough honors classes.
Here's how it fits your program. You must do 18 semester hours of honors freshman/sophomore work for University Honors distinction or General Honors distinction when you graduate. HCSL satisfies up to 6 of those hours. HCSL earns 3 hours of honors credit per semester up to a maximum of 6 hours over 2 semesters. This is not degree credit but credit toward Honors College distinction in your degree. So there is no tuition or other cost.
Description
There are three honors service-learning areas--Adult/Aging, Children/Education, Hunger/Homelessness. Each semester we designate at least three local agencies for each area. You will choose one of the agencies and work with it for the semester. If you are already committed to an agency that's not on the list, you may be able to substitute it (see below). 
To make it service-learning instead of just service, you will do readings, journals, and online discussions (in a Blackboard community) in addition to 15-20 clock hours of service at the facility. When you have completed your tasks satisfactorily, you will receive 3 hours' credit toward honors requirements. The process is spread over 10-11 weeks to give you the flexibility to fit HCSL around your courses and campus events. You will be wrapped up before final exams start in your regular courses.
It’s an “HonorsCredit/NoHonorsCredit” arrangement. You must do solid work at the agency and online to receive Honors credit, as assessed by your supervisor and your Teaching Assistant and ratified by the Honors College dean. If you can't finish your semester's commitment to HCSL, there's no penalty for dropping it, but no honors credit, either.
Contacts and record keeping.
HC Service Learning is overseen by the Honors College office (Dr. Chris Willerton, dean, chris.willerton@acu.edu, 674-2728, with administrative coordinator Ms. Kelsey Evans (kelsey.evans@acu.edu) and the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center (Ms. Nancy Coburn, director, coburnn@acu.edu, 674-2932, with administrative coordinator Ms. Rita Harrell, harrellr@acu.edu).
All the hours you work at the agency will be documented on an Individual Service Timesheet signed by your supervisor. Pick up and turn in these timesheets at the VSLC (in the Campus Center, near the Bean Sprout). Your work will be assessed by your agency supervisor and by one of the HCSL Teaching Assistants (peer leaders). They are Honors College students and members of the Service Learning Action Team, and they'll understand your experiences. Your service achievement isn’t an academic course so it won't show on your transcript. But it will go on your resume and help get great recommendation letters when you graduate.
Reading, reflection, online discussion
"Experiential learning" means you process your experience by reflecting, talking it over, and connecting it with new information. Every week, you will post a few paragraphs about your volunteer work and the assigned readings. Every few weeks, you'll turn in a journal of reflections. By the end of term, you'll be a wiser, more compassionate person. And you will have made some people's lives a little better. (At right, Honors students working at a nursing home.)
How to sign up
Each semester begins with interest meetings for HC Service-Learning, and all Honors College students are notified by email and flyers. You may sign up at an interest meeting, turn in the HCSL form later at the Honors College office (Hardin Admin 216), or email kelsey.evans@acu.edu with the information requested. Email kelsey.evans@acu.edu ahead of time if you want to be placed on an interest list.
Questions1. What if you already have a service commitment for a class or scholarship or organization? Do you have to stack the Honors service learning on top of that work? Probably not. Consult Ms. Coburn, director of the VSLC. She will work with the profs and administrators involved and help them overlap the requirements, reducing your total commitment to a feasible number of hours.
2. What if you're a Presidential Scholar? Could you count 15 hours of your Honors service learning to meet your Presidential requirement? Yes.
3. What if you already have a service commitment but it’s not with one of the agencies we list? Again, consult Ms. Coburn. If she approves, then you’ll count 15-20 of your hours for HCSL and write your online discussions, etc. on that project. The reading and journal requirement will be tailored to what you’re doing. See the VSLC document Service Defined on the kinds of service acceptable for ACU organizations and programs.
