UMC Receives $100,000 From Bremer Foundation for Service Learning
The University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) has been awarded a grant from the Otto Bremer Foundation that will provide a total of $100,000 over the next four years. The grant will be used to support UMC’s Service Learning Program, which involves students and faculty in course-related community service projects.
According to Pam Holsinger-Fuchs, director of student activities and service learning at UMC, the money will be used to set up a volunteer clearinghouse that will benefit the entire community and to fund staff positions for the program. “We’re very thankful to the Bremer Foundation and very excited to show how this grant will help build on our existing service learning initiatives,” she says.
Rob Jacobson, President of Bremer Bank of Crookston, commented that the grant from the Foundation is an excellent example of Bremer’s commitment to university programs that have lifetime benefits for students and the communities they will serve.
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The Otto Bremer Foundation has a commitment to the countryside and a focus on serving regional and local communities. This focus reflects the asset structure of the Foundation that is the principal owner of Bremer Financial Corporation, a regional bank holding company with bank, insurance, and trust companies serving over seventy predominantly rural communities in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.
For UMC, a focus on civic responsibility and service learning is nothing new. The campus made a strong commitment to the concept in 1996, with the hiring of Holsinger-Fuchs as director of student activities and service learning. In addition to the traditional responsibilities of working with students to provide educational and entertainment programming, she was charged with involving students and faculty in various service learning projects in the community.
This coming fall semester the program will again play a role in New Student Orientation, when on Saturday, August 25, new students and UMC faculty and staff will join together for a day of service projects throughout the city. “The idea is to show new students that there is a commitment from day one at UMC to be civically engaged,” says Holsinger-Fuchs.
A distinction between service learning and community service is important. Holsinger-Fuchs wants to break the preconceived notion that service learning is little more than having UMC students pick up roadside trash or perform similar community service activities, although UMC students do take part in those types of activities, too. “The goal of service learning,” she states, “is to connect UMC students to the larger community by involving them in activities that are directly tied to their majors or their courses. It’s a way for students to gain real experience by taking concepts and theories they learn in class and applying them to volunteer projects that really help the community.”
From humble beginnings and a handful of community projects in the fall of 1996, UMC’s Service Learning Program has grown to over 50 projects involving more than 500 UMC students—and that’s just for this past spring semester. The program even received recognition from Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura in 1999, when UMC’s service learning initiative was honored as a “Star Program” at the Minnesota Services Recognition Day.
Posted 08/14/2001
Contact: Andrew Svec,
218-281-8435