CSU Chico Educator Is Finalist for National Service-Learning Award

Teresa Davis, professor in the Department of Professional Studies in Education, California State University, Chico, has been selected as one of 10 finalists for the 2001 Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service Learning.

The national award is sponsored by Campus Compact, a coalition of more than 800 college and university presidents committed to the civic purposes of higher education. The highly competitive service-learning award recognizes and honors one faculty member each year for contributing to the integration of community or public service into the university curriculum.

As a finalist, Davis will be included in the Ehrlich Award brochure, and her efforts to institutionalize service learning will be profiled in the "Campus Compact Current," a national newsletter.

Davis has been a member of the Professional Studies in Education faculty for eight years. She is currently the coordinator of the Concurrent Program, which prepares teachers for special education certification as well as general education credentials. The program, which Davis helped to develop, has been awarded U.S. Department of Education funding support because of its unique design and the quality of the faculty.

One of her many service-learning projects was cooperating with a local conservation group in the creation of a laboratory and P-12 service-learning activities program for a local wilderness area. She was asked to help create a Service-Learning Steering Committee at CSU, Chico and became one of six Service-Learning Resource Faculty. Resource faculty mentor other faculty in service-learning curriculum development.

"Terri Davis has played a major role in the introduction of community service-learning into teacher education at the national, state and local levels," said Byron Jackson, vice provost for academic affairs and service-learning coordinator. "She is a tireless worker and is influential on so many levels in promoting service learning."

She has been the project director for two national service-learning grants, which have helped develop curriculum in her department. She has published a video on service learning as pedagogy. She has worked with other national leaders in producing policy documents. Her work is contained in the Corporation for National Service and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education publication, "Service Learning in Teacher Education: Enhancing the Growth of New Teachers, Their Students, and Communities."

Davis has been actively involved in the study and use of service learning within the teacher preparation programs since 1994. Approximately 500 teacher education candidates have participated in service-learning activity in either undergraduate prerequisite course work or during the fifth-year credential program because of her advocacy.


CONTACT: Kathleen McPartland, 530-898-4260