UW chemistry professor recognized for leadership in service-learning

Dear SL Colleagues,

The S. Sterling Munro Public Service Faculty Fellowship is awarded to a
University of Washington (UW) faculty member demonstrating exemplary
leadership in community-based instruction, including service learning,
public-service internships and community-partnership projects. Made
possible by a donation from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, the award is
named after an aide to Senator Jackson who was also a Bonneville Power
Administration administrator. Awardees receive $5,000.

This year's awardee is Deborah Wiegand, a faculty member in the Department
of Chemistry.   Below is the text of an article written by Vince
Stricherz for University Week, the faculty and staff publication of the
University of Washington.
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If you don't think community service is an integral part of science, just
ask Deborah Wiegand. Projects that help preserve a community stream or get
high school students excited about higher learning, she believes, help
cement ties between scientists and the community. 

Wiegand pioneered science service learning in the UW chemistry department
in 1994, and more than 1,000 students have taken part. They have led
hands-on science projects in area elementary schools, mentored at-risk
kids in science activities, monitored water quality in area streams and
helped high school teachers in DNA sequencing projects. 
  
Students in the three service-learning chemistry courses must provide a
needed service in the community by applying principles and methods learned
in the classroom. Those requirements, Wiegand said, help students
understand the value of what they are learning and how to apply it in
everyday life. 

"The service experience adds a dimension that has to do with the role of
science and scientists in society," she said. "It's a goal for our
students to feel more connected to the community and see themselves as
scientists who can contribute to the community." 

The three courses are progressively challenging. The first is the most
tightly structured in how students take part in community service. In the
second, which can be taken as many as six times, they are expected to take
on independent projects relating to their service sites. For the third,
they assume leadership roles in the work being done at their sites. 

"We definitely see the students who stay for two or three quarters are
getting more from the experience than those who stay for one," Wiegand
said. 

A byproduct is that the students become UW ambassadors in the
community. Whenever a student begins working in a high school classroom,
Wiegand said, there are inevitable questions about university life, and UW
in particular. The students enjoy general acceptance, whether it's working
with teen-agers in a high school classroom or patrons of a senior citizens
center. 

Anna Horton is a senior zoology student who expected to spend just one
quarter in service learning. But that quarter in an elementary school was
so rewarding that she stayed in the program three years. 

"The most substantial lesson I walked away from the program with was what
Debbie taught me about the value and necessity of service to others and
the importance of bringing science back into the community," Horton said. 

Chemistry professor Joe Norman Jr. extols Wiegand's vision at a time when
the only service learning examples involved high school tutoring. 

"She saw service learning as a vehicle to engage undergraduates actively
in science," Norman said. "She expands students' vision to include issues
of scientific literacy, ethics and objectivity as well as political and
social influences on community scientific decisions. This approach to
service learning in the sciences remains unique today." 

In fact, the Association of American Colleges and Universities acclaimed
Wiegand's approach as a national model, and this year she presented her
work at the group's annual meeting. 

Wiegand has a strong interest in education, and finds "the challenges in
chemistry education are particularly exciting." But her approach to
service learning isn't born from a lifetime in the classroom. After
receiving her bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois in 1973,
she spent four years as a chemist with a private food company in Rockford,
Ill. She returned to academia in the 1980s as an instructor at Rockford
College, then came to Seattle in 1988 while continuing postgraduate work
at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. She received her doctorate in
1990, the same year she became a chemistry lecturer at the UW. She was
named senior lecturer in 1995, a year after starting the science service
learning effort. 

Among the service learning success stories is the City of Bellevue Stream
Team, which works with landowners on ways to control runoff and protect
the city's waterways. A student might spend weeks examining the ecology of
a particular site and then recommend planting of native species that would
do well in that area's particular conditions. 

"That's been a really good site for some of our students," Wiegand
said. "Botany majors have done lots of work there, and students from other
majors who are interested in the environment have learned a great deal
from their projects there."