Grants & Funding
State Farm Grant
Dominican University of California and the community engagement nonprofit, Listening for a Change (LFAC), has been awarded a $95,495 grant from the State Farm Youth Advisory Board in support of a service-learning program designed to improve educational equity and access to higher education for at-risk and marginalized youth in Marin County.
The Dominican University students will provide tutoring services in high schools to help close the achievement gap and partner/mentor at-risk youth using a community oral history project. This service-learning program is designed to enhance the motivation of these at-risk high school students to establish long range educational goals and provide the college students with practical experience connecting academics with social problems faced by at-risk youth.
To view some of the MCCS student-conducted and filmed interviews from spring 2008 and student reflections on this experience please click the link below:
Interview/Oral History Project at MCCS
State Farm Youth Advisory Board
Forbes.com
MarinScope.com
Campus Compact's California Recovery and Renewal Initiative (CARE)
We are honored and excited to be part of Campus Compact's California Recovery and Renewal Initiative (CARE):
This July, California Campus Compact was awarded a three-year Learn and Serve America Higher Education grant in excess of $1 million from the Corporation for National and Community Service. The grant will fund Social Innovation Generation, California Campus Compact’s new three-year initiative that will catalyze California colleges and universities to aid in the state’s recovery and renewal through service, service-learning and inventive solutions embedded in social entrepreneurship, microfinance and social investment.
Prior to being awarded the grant, California Campus Compact pre-selected, through a rigorous application process, nine California campuses as initial lead collaborators on Social Innovation Generation. Dominican University of California is one of those campuses. Dominican’s program will focus on the development of a more sustainable economy through green jobs. Funding will provide the opportunity for the service-learning program to collaborate with PACE (Professional and Continuing Education) their innovative Sustainable Practices Certificate program.
During the three years that Social Innovation Generation is funded, California Campus Compact has committed to working with more than 85 campuses, 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 500 faculty, staff and administrators and 300 non-profit organizations.
“This grant provides California Campus Compact with an outstanding opportunity to demonstrate the significant contribution that higher education has to make to the recovery and renewal of California,” said Elaine Ikeda, Ph.D., executive director of California Campus Compact. “Through our collaborations with colleges and universities throughout California, California Campus Compact will serve the immediate needs of those who have been hardest hit by the economic downturn and also work to aid California in emerging from this crisis with a more innovative, green and sustainable economic future.”
The Sustainable Practices Certificate program at Dominican provides the model for developing a program designed for under-employed and unemployed workers seeking training and employment within green-collar industries. Participants will gain green collar training and education, plus an understanding of civic responsibility and be expected to participate in a "community of practice" through a Service-Learning Capstone project, putting their newly-gained knowledge and skills to work in the community, thus benefiting local non-profit organizations and businesses while solidifying their understanding of the broader implications of sustainable practice. The unique structure of the program connects a wide array of community and educational organizations dedicated to sustainability, forging an important network and paving the way for equitable employment in the green industry.
We anticipate that developing this new green-collar track will enable those without higher education, including at-risk high school students who lack immediate opportunities for education, to be able to use the Certificate as vocational training to attain jobs within existing organizations and to position themselves for employment in the emerging green jobs and careers. For example, hourly wage earners can upgrade their employment by re-training into a sustainable field (i.e., energy, solar installations, etc.).
We will also explore partnerships with local organizations such as Van Jones’ Green for All, a trailblazer in this type of initiative, whom we are fortunate to have in the Bay Area. We are currently exploring opportunities to partner with other local agencies interested in branching into this type of vocational training and organizations such as the Marin City Community Development Corporation and Strategic Energy Innovation (with whom we already have a strong partnership).. Programs such as this may provide a pipeline into a certificate program such as ours. Young people who might otherwise not have considered higher education, will have the opportunity to spend time on several campuses while earning a certificate that can help secure the stability needed to pursue further education. We believe that organizations who are currently developing the hands-on training and job-readiness curriculum for youth, will be very interested in collaborating with the certificate program. Beyond the educational component, the certificate program is training contractors and small company owners in sustainable practices which will in turn create new green-collar jobs in Marin. In this way, the certificate program is supporting and creating future jobs for the youth in the green-collar track.
California Campus Compact Grant
CACC awarded a grant to Dominican University of California to further their service-learning faculty development workshop series. These six-session series include key readings on service-learning theory and practice, interactive sessions with student and community partners, and service-learning course development across all disciplines. A special focus is placed on interdisciplinary service-learning and faculty/course partnerships. A two-session workshop for community partners will be offered to enhance community partners’ understanding of service-learning and their role as co-educators. There will also be a “match-making” forum for community partners, faculty, and students to facilitate brainstorming, new partnerships, and enhanced partner communication.
