Service Learning Legacy Project (60% of total grade)

The primary portion of your grade will be produce a tangible project that seeks to address a community need related to your Research Paper. This project may be any type of project– physical, administrative, organizational, educational, media communication, etc.– but it must be a substantial project that has the potential to make a significant impact on a specific and real community need that you have identified either in or as a result of your Research Paper. In addition, your project must be able to continue to serve its community once you have completed it. In other words, it may not be a temporary project that you complete, but that no one has any interest in or need for after you are finished. It is intended to be more than just another college assignment; it should be something practical that can and will directly impact the future in a positive way. This is a project you will leave behind as your legacy to benefit your community. Therefore, you will need to work closely with community partners and other professionals to help you gain skills and knowledge that will allow you to succeed in making your Legacy Project one that will truly benefit others and address a need in the community.

Your Service Learning Legacy Project will be composed of the parts described below.

Proposal (20% of SL grade)
The proposal for your Legacy Project will provide a detailed outline for your final project. Unlike proposals for other types of projects, it will function as your contract for your project, which may not be substantially altered once you have turned in your proposal. Your proposal must consist of the parts below ordered and numbered as follows:

● Primary Issue Statement: 1-sentence statement of the primary issue your project will address.

● Project Summary: 1-2 page summary that establishes the context for your project and describes the project itself;

● Project Impact: 1-2 paragraphs in which you discuss the potential impact of your project on the people whose needs it seeks to address.

● Community Partner: 1 paragraph in which you identify an individual in the community who is willing to commit her/himself to advising and assisting you with your project. Describe why you wish to work with this person or how this person will be able to assist you in your project and include her/his contact information.

● Goal: 1-sentence description of the goal of your project.

● Objectives: List in chronological order all the specific steps involved in implementing and completing your project along with dates and deadlines for each objective. For example, while later objectives will vary depending on the project, the first few objectives you will include in this section are:
     – Get a Community Partner (date);
     – Discuss proposed Project Y with Community Partner (date);
     – Meet with Dr. Donovan to confirm that Project Y is an appropriate Legacy Project which will meet
          the requirements of this course (date);
     – Share proposal with Community Partner and get feedback (date)

● Signatures: At the end of your proposal include a line that says:
“We are committed to working together to complete this Legacy Project,” followed by a line for your signature and another line for your Community Partner’s signature.

Implementation Log (20% of SL grade)
You are expected to spend a minimum of 40 hours of your time working on implementing your Legacy Project. In other words, your project cannot be something you would like to accomplish, or that you plan out how it could be accomplished, but you will actually accomplish it. Therefore, it is important for you to select a project that is substantial enough to fill a real community need as well as a project that will require at least 40 hours of your time and that you can complete before the end of the semester. The time you spend will be recorded on the SL Implementation Log form stored on the Documents page on our course website. On this Implementation Log, record all your efforts to develop and implement your Legacy Project and how long each item on your Log took. Record all phone calls related to your project, people you meet with to talk about your ideas, time you spend constructing materials for your project, collaborating with others to work out the bugs in your project, as well as the various steps identified in your proposal under the Objectives section. However, you may not record the time you spend writing the Proposal, writing the Final Report and Assessment, or constructing and giving your Project Presentation.

Final Report and Assessment (20% of SL grade)
Once you have completed your Legacy Project, you will write a 3-5 page Final Report and Assessment of your work. This report should: summarize the completion of your project, assess how well your work on the project met the goal and objectives you identified in your proposal; reflect honestly and clearly on your work for the project in terms of both successes and failures; acknowledge and review any aspects of your process that might have been more successful if you had pursued something in a different way; make any necessary recommendations for the project’s future.