LESA-L 105, Beyond the Sample Gates, Topics requirement for the
College of Arts and Sciences, S&H

This is a service-learning course, and the FOUNDATIONS course for the
minor in Leadership, Ethics, and Social Action.  Students will spend
about twenty hours in the Bloomington community engaged in structured
and unstructured activities -- in addition to course assignments
using reading, reflection, analysis, web tools, group and individual
work.  The central project of this course is a group effort in
developing civic skills as you work with an issue of interest, for
which you will even determine your own learning goals with your team
members.

Education for democracy is WORK, with real consequences, about real
problems, engaging with the world.  Each student is a citizen with
interests, values, needs, and ideas.  Can you find your energy and
creativity for acting in public life?  You will be encouraged to
follow your own questions to a deeper level—to enjoy taking your
ideas seriously enough to work them out in logical detail and to give
them the language they deserve for the consideration of others.

We discuss moving from the perspective of community service to one
of “service politics” and advocacy, where individuals can act as co-
creators of a public, common good, connecting service to systemic
social change.  As you learn to make informed and reasoned decisions
and to act responsibly on your knowledge and convictions, you will be
doing the work of a citizen in public life.  Your class and group
will mirror the greater community as you practice the various ‘arts
of living democracy.’

For further information, contact lesa@indiana.edu, or see the
website at www.indiana.edu/~lesa.