About Western New York Service-Learning Coalition 

The Western New York Service-Learning Coalition (WNYSLC) is a collaboration of colleges, universities and community organizations. We are committed to sharing resources, knowledge, and practices related to service-learning and community engagement in an effort to strengthen reciprocal campus-community partnerships to promote student civic responsibility.

The goals of the WNYSLC are:

• To educate faculty, staff, and not-for-profit professionals to work effectively to develop mutually-beneficial service-learning and community-engagement experiences to impact college/university student learning and the WNY community
• To openly engage all higher education institutions and organizations that are interested in service-learning and community engagement in sharing ideas, resources and practices.
• To serve as a national model of an effective collaboration between and among higher education institutions and community organizations.

To accomplish these goals the WNYSLC undertakes the following strategies:

• Share resources to the mutual benefit of all stakeholders- College and university service-learning administrators and faculty members, students participating in service-learning, and community organizations that understand the benefit of collaboration.
• Create valuable service-learning and community engagement experiences for students that meet academic goals and local, regional, and/or global community-identified needs.
• Support active citizenship by engaging college students in the life of our region through partnerships with community organizations that provide students with awareness of social issues and promote action towards social justice.

The WNYSLC primary activities include:

• Service Learning Faculty Fellows: a biennial intensive two-day training program facilitated by nationally recognized experts that provides support for the process of converting an existing course or creating a new course which incorporates service-learning.
• Service Learning Conference: one-day conference held every two years. The conference provides learning and presentation opportunities for faculty, community partners and students through workshops, round-table discussions and dialogues on service learning and community engagement best practices for effectively managing campus-community-student relationships to promote successful results for all stakeholders.
• Community Partner Programming: one to two professional development opportunities per year for community partners.
• Networking Events: one to two casual, social networking for higher education faculty, service learning administrators and community organizations offered per year.
• Electronic Newsletter: to engage members throughout the academic year on service-learning events and opportunities for collaboration. The newsletter is delivered monthly to faculty, service learning administrators and community organizations.

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