By Jacqueline Arroyo / The Jambar
The Youngstown State University’s communication department offers a hands-on course, Community Engagement, for students to learn how to interact with the community while developing a service-learning project.
Taught by Jeffery Tyus, professor and graduate program director in the department of communication, the course helps students collaborate with local organizations that may need assistance.
“I have all the students go out and look for community partners, you know organizations that we could partner with to help that organization with whatever,” Tyus said. “And so I was hearing presentations from the United Way [of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley] to Second Harvest Food Bank [of the Mahoning Valley] to even smaller organizations.”
Ultimately, Tyus said the students chose to work with animals and partnered with New Lease on Life, an organization in Struthers. The class is planning a food and donation drive to encourage students to contribute items.
The fundraiser is scheduled to run from March 31 to April 15, with donations drop-off scheduled for April 15. It will be promoted across campus through various social media and campus channels. Each student in the class is responsible for a specific aspect of the project.
“So we have students that are responsible for creating information sites on Facebook and Instagram letting people know,” Tyus said. “We created a GoFundMe account because sometimes it’s not just about, you know, food items but also about funding other things that they can buy.”
The goal for the GoFundMe campaign is $3,000. In addition to promoting the fundraiser on campus, the class hopes to work with various deans to set up donation drop-off locations in their departments.
The primary lesson Tyus wants students to take away from the class is an understanding of what goes into planning a community event. He aims to equip them with the necessary tools and confidence to organize similar initiatives in the future.
“I mean you’re putting what we’re learning into play by actually organizing an event, you know, and I think that’s one of the things that we always talk about, learning by doing,” Tyus said.
Students are graded on various tasks, including weekly quizzes, researching potential organizations to partner with and exploring ways YSU can support the community. A key aspect of the course is event promotion — once flyers are created, students are responsible for sharing them on social media.
Although the course is relatively new to YSU, Tyus said that some students were eager to start working on their assignments.
“I always get excited when students are interested in giving back, because there are a lot of people who that’s not a passion of theirs,” Tyus said. “My ultimate goal once again is to … encourage students to just consider giving back to their communities.”