Service Learning

Hands-on skill development, civic insight, and value creation for the community serve as the hallmark of service-learning at Mercer University. Through a service-learning curriculum, students across the University have a unique opportunity to achieve their learning objectives, meet needs in the community, and have an impactful learning experience.

The service-learning coursework of Mercer’s Center for the Study of Narrative (CSN) stems from a tradition of narrative theory and narrative therapy/counseling. Narrative theory is a multidisciplinary effort to understand how stories help people make sense of the world and how people make sense of stories. Narrative therapy/counseling emphasizes how one’s life can be changed through storytelling and re-telling. Through skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments, and abilities, people can reduce the influence of problems in their lives by re-authoring their stories. While Mercer’s service-learning initiative does not involve formal counseling or psychological interventions, we believe participants receive a significant emotional benefit when someone takes the time to listen to their story. For example, students in COUN 614 Human Growth and Development interview grandparents and create digital narratives as a way to conceptualize stages of development and celebrate cross-generational collaboration.

Other College of Professional Advancement and Narrative-based and CSN-funded service learning activities include Dr. Melanie Pavich’s project where students interview African American descendants of Harrington School graduates living on St. Simons Island, Georgia.