Weber State University professors Shannon Butler and Alicia Giralt have been named the 2008 recipients of the John A. Lindquist Award.
Butler, an English professor at WSU since 1984, has incorporated service learning in her classes since 1990. Her students have been assigned to serve as mentors to students in the English as a Second Language program, tutors to local high school students, and organizers of neighborhood reading programs including reading to patients at nursing homes and hospitals. She also was an active member of the committee that helped develop and create the Community Involvement Center at WSU.
"In my courses, service learning is not an addendum, an option or used for extra credit," Butler said. "It is a mandatory venture that teaches students much more fully than instruction alone ever could."
Since coming to WSU in 1999 to teach Spanish, Giralt also has incorporated service-learning opportunities in her courses. Her students have collaborated with other WSU students to tutor Central Middle School students, translate for local hospitals and clinics, teach adult ESL classes and interpret for small businesses with Hispanic clients. They also have traveled to Ecuador to assist nursing students who didn't speak Spanish in providing medical care.
"My goal is to help my students become life-long learners who know how to communicate with, appreciate and respect the cultures of the Hispanic people," Giralt said. "I also want to help them be better citizens by becoming involved in the community, putting into practice what they learn in class."
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