Developing agency partnerships and "appropriate service"

I am wondering if you have some examples of contracts or guidelines you
have established between your program and the agencies/sites that you
work with?  I am new to my position and as I start to make contact
with the local agencies, I would like to set up some criteria of what
they expect of us and our students and what we expect of them.  As
far as I can tell, this has never formally been done.

I am also wondering if you could send your definitions of or thoughts on
"appropriate service."  I have read several 
excellent definitions of service, service-learning, but I am wondering
about the nitty-gritty.  About what you may approve/disapprove in
terms of service.  The reason I ask is because we have a community
service requirement and we, at times, have to make the determination of
what is appropriate and our guidelines are fairly vague.  If a
student wants to work with a certain school in the area that is not
targeted as one of our partner schools (these schools are designated by
the school district, I believe, as being more in need based on
school-lunch program, proficiency test results), we most often decline
this request and help them find a similar type of experience at one of
our partner schools.  However, I wonder if some of the sites we list
as appropriate sites (i.e ushering at the performing arts center) are as
meaningful as some of the opportunities we decline .  We say
students we want to expose students to the issues that challenge the
community (hunger, violence, disabilities, aging, literacy, environment,
homelessness, health, mentoring, etc.) so I wonder how the performing
arts center fits this.

Just struggling with some of these issues.  Thanks for listening and
I hope you will respond to me with your thoughts.

Kristen

Kristen Collier
Director of Community Service
Wittenberg University
P.O. Box 720
Springfield, Ohio 45501
kcollier@wittenberg.edu
phone- 937-327-7534
fax- 937-327-7442