Service-Learning at Dominican - Profile on Julia van der Ryn
Julia van der Ryn has an MA from Dominican University of California and is an Adjunct Instructor in the Humanities Department at Dominican. She is also the Director for the Dominican Service-Learning Program. Ms. van der Ryn recently secured a grant from the State Farm® Youth Advisory Board in the amount of $95,495 to expand the scope of the Dominican Service-Learning Program to incorporate the work of non-profit organization, Listening for a Change (LFAC). As a result of this new funding, LFAC and Dominican are working together to implement a model tutoring and mentoring program that will address the achievement gap for marginalized at-risk youth in our community.
Youth in Marin County are sharply divided by income and differing socio-economic and academic opportunities. Dominican and LFAC have developed an innovative program that will allow Dominican students to partner/mentor at-risk students in local high schools and teen organizations. The first partner will be the County Community Probation School. LFAC will train Dominican students in the use of oral history so that they can help at-risk youth come to know themselves, their families, and the community at-large through their stories. By collecting oral histories from successful members of their own community, at-risk youth will become empowered, and begin to see themselves as contributing members of a diverse community.
This program addresses an overarching need for university students to be engaged in the community, making connections between the academic world and hands-on, practical learning, and to become aware of core societal issues. This program will also help Dominican students to be better prepared to apply their education upon graduation, and increase their overall sense of responsibility for their own education.
Ms. van der Ryn began the Dominican Service-Learning program in 2003, with the help of a grant from the Marin Community Foundation. This past year more than 150 students participated in the growing Service-Learning Program, which now fulfills an ethics/moral philosophy course requirement and is a required course in the Honors curriculum. Ms. van der Ryn has also implemented faculty development workshops on the service-learning pedagogy, and created leadership positions for students to act as liaisons between community partners, faculty and other students. This year she received a renewed grant of $4,000 from the California Campus Compact to support another faculty development workshop, which will be held in spring 2008.
The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs will continue to assist Ms. van der Ryn in obtaining and maintaining grants that can support the expanding Service-Learning Program at Dominican University of California.
