Academic Service-Learning

The Community is Your Classroom

17 Years of Academic Service-Learning Impact

Academic Service-Learning (AS-L) is community-engaged learning embedded within a credit-bearing course that enhances your understanding of the course’s learning objectives and your sense of civic responsibility. AS-L allows students to apply what they are learning in class through community service, benefiting both students and service recipients. All UW-Superior’s academic departments have utilized AS-L within their course offerings.

How Academic Service-Learning Works

Being enrolled in an Academic Service-Learning (AS-L) course means that you serve with a community organization or business to learn and apply course concepts (sometimes this occurs outside of normal class time). The number of hours that each student serves varies from 5 to 40 hours, and the specific expectations are uniquely described in the syllabus of each course.

AS-L has similarities to volunteering and internships but is always connected to a course and is unique to both the course content and community need. Each year, students can engage in one of 70 AS-L course sections. AS-L is a key workforce development strategy for area nonprofits, schools and businesses plus provides students with critical hands-on learning.

Our career services team can help you highlight this experience on resumes, cover letters, and during interviews.

Types of Academic Service-Learning

AS-L courses are available in both on-campus and online courses. AS-L can be integrated into a course in three ways: 

• Placement model: Students usually serve 2-3 hours per week throughout the semester at their community site 
• Presentation model: Students take material that they are learning in class and create a presentation needed by the partner 
• Project model: Working alone or in groups, students collaborate with community members to devise and implement a project to produce a tangible product, such as a report or newsletter, for their agencies

Benefits of AS-L

• Expand your resume to become a competitive job candidate or for future education/graduate school experiences
• Apply classwork to real-world issues to address real community needs
• Reinforce classroom concepts through hands-on real-world applications
• Affirm your career path by experiencing a related work environment
• Network to build relationships for your career while making meaningful connections and change within our community
• Deepen your sense of belonging to a community

Partnership Agreement for UW-Superior Students (PASS Agreement)

As required by the Universities of Wisconsin, students need to have a Partnership Agreement for UW-Superior Students (PASS Agreement) on file before they begin any undergraduate or graduate internship, academic service-learning, community-based research, volunteering, field work, practicum, clinicals, student-teaching, capstone, or other types of community engagement experiences with an external organization. At UW-Superior, all PASS Agreements are facilitated through the Link Center.