All current Bluffton students are required to be a part of the Bluffton Blueprint, created to build a framework of college and life experiences. Each year students are required to take a class based upon the four values Bluffton represents: discovery, community, respect and service.
In the spring of 2020, students volunteered to take an experimental class called Learning in Community. It was created for students to experience the second value that Bluffton University represents—community. Although, with the start of COVID-19 the Learning in Community class was never able to be fully followed through as intended.
Issues in Modern America was the class designed for third-year students in the university’s previous general education curriculum. Since the start of the Bluffton Blueprint, the Learning in Community class was designed to take its place and be part of the new foundational courses.
“When the Learning and Community class was originally being designed, the centerpiece of the class was to be engaging in the Lima community as a way of taking a diverse community with a service component,” said Paul Neufeld Weaver, professor of Education, Spanish and Learning in Community.
Now that Learning in Community is able to offer the field experience part of the course, students are taking on different hands-on learning tasks within the Lima community.
“This will be a chance for us to see if we can make the class a real experiential learning experience,” said Neufeld Weaver.
Ella Zaborowski, a junior marketing major, is currently in Learning and Community class. Zaborowski is completing her field experience by working with Crime Victim Services. She has already helped out with a 5k race they have put on. And while being a marketing major, she has been able to use those skills to help Crime Victim Services with social media and promotional ideas for the non-profit organization.
“Crime Victim Services has given me the opportunity to outreach the city of Lima, and I have never felt so satisfied with the work I have been doing,” said Zaborowski.
The field experiences that the Learning in Community class are offering are places that include: Crime Victim Services, YMCA, West Ohio Food Bank, Head Start, Changing Seasons (a drop-in center for clients of Coleman), Mental Health agency, Allen County Board of Developmental Disabilities and the Juvenile Detention Center.
“It is helping students to realize that wherever they go to live and work after graduation they’re going to be a part of a community in a way that they relate to that community is an important part of who they are,” said Neufeld Weaver. “Bluffton prepares people for life not just for vocation.”
