Description

The CIEE Service-Learning program in Santiago, Dominican Republic is designed for students with four or more semesters of college-level Spanish and demonstrated experience in volunteerism or community service. Participants engage in active service while reflecting upon the complexities and challenges facing Santiago's Cibao region through an approach that integrates academics and urban and rural community-based service. The program is ideal for students interested in grassroots and community-based learning, and those who are thinking about Peace Corps or other service- and community-based opportunities after graduation. The program is also ideal for those wanting to acquire skills and experience conducting fieldwork-based research, and those seeking to substantively improve their Spanish language ability.

Academic Program
Since 1947, CIEE has engaged in fulfilling its mission "to help people gain understanding, acquire knowledge, and develop skills for living in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world." The Service-Learning program serves this mission by providing a framework for students to fulfill their educational and personal goals while bridging relationships in the communities in which their learning takes place. In this sense, service-learning takes theory to practice to meet the challenges of social problems and closes the circle on an experiential learning cycle, while providing benefits to all those who are involved with the program.

The American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) defines service-learning as a method under which students learn and develop through thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of a community and is coordinated with an institution of higher education and with the community; helps foster civic responsibility; is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students enrolled; and includes structured time for students to reflect on the service experience.

The CIEE Service-Learning program is specifically designed upon the four core principles of service-learning, and each component of the program addresses one or more of the principles:
1) Engagement
2) Reflection
3) Reciprocity
4) Public Dissemination

Academic Culture
The design and nature of the Service-Learning program requires methodology that is more interactive, field-based, and reflective in theory compared to normal course pedagogies. Students are required to draw upon learned and new knowledge and reflect on these experiences through the analytic scope of research and observation methods drawn upon from the core course.

The language coursework is framed on the foundations of Spanish grammar, but focuses heavily on expanding everyday vocabulary and communication skills with regard to issues in community development and service work, enabling students to better communicate and understand the community in which they work.

The courses in the service learning track and Independent Research and Capstone Project draw on the expertise of the CIEE Resident Director and professors from the Department of Applied Linguistics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM). The service component is coordinated through various non-profit and non-governmental organizations in the Santiago area.