Faculty and Staff

The Public Service Center supports faculty and graduate student instructors in developing community-based courses and research. We also work with advisers and other staff to share relevant public service opportunities for your students.

“When we draw the box around water in the Central Valley that contains nitrate, we don’t look at undocumented laborers, we don’t look at substandard housing, we don’t look at that larger picture because that’s not what our training tells us to do. We are there to deal with nitrate in drinking water. I started unpacking that in my own work and started asking about the bigger picture.”

Khalid Kadir, PhD
Chancellor’s Public Scholar, 2014 Chancellor’s Award for Public Service for Service-Learning Leadership
ACES Course: Engineering, the Environment, and Society

Support PSC

Help the PSC create a more just and equitable world, one student at a time. Make a gift to the Public Service Center now!

Tell Us Your Story

We love to profile alumni, student, and partner stories through our newsletters and social media. Your stories go a long way toward inspiring current students, and show the world what the Public Service Center community has accomplished. Please take a moment to share your story.

Support for Faculty

American Cultures Engaged Scholarship Program

The Public Service Center partners with the American Cultures Center to support faculty in developing new or revised American Cultures courses that integrate community engaged scholarship. Faculty are selected as Chancellor's Public Scholars and receive a $3,000 research grant, $1,500 for project needs, training, staff consulting services, and a paid student fellow to support the development of the community partnership project. Applications are released 1–2 times per year (usually in September and April), and will be available on the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) webpage.

Additional Support for Course Development

The Public Service Center provides a comprehensive Toolkit for Designing Community-Based Courses, which you can use as a starting point.

We can also assist you with:

Identifying placement sites for your students
Setting up community partnerships
Guiding you through campus requirements, including experiential learning guidelines for risk management
Incorporating ways to sustain the course and/or project
Connecting you with colleagues in the fields of engaged scholarship and community-based research

Other Resources

Center for Teaching and Learning: supports UC Berkeley faculty in course development
Campus Compact: a coalition with resources in support of campus civic engagement
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health: offers a Community-Based Participatory Research Curriculum and mor
Imagining America, Artists & Scholars in Public Life: offers reports for community-based arts, design, and humanitie
TRUCEN: this network of Research 1 institutions offers an Engaged Scholarship Toolkit and models for student engagement

Access

Please note that community-based experiences in courses must include options accessible to students with disabilities. The Disabled Students Program is available to help resolve any challenges involving students with disabilities, including issues related to off-campus activities and wheelchair access.

Resources for Staff

Sign up for our monthly student updates if you would like to know about public service opportunities for your students. (Sign up through "Sign Up for Student Updates" sidebar on the left.)

Tell us about public service events and opportunities offered through your department and we’ll help spread the word through our social media channels.

Plan a one-time volunteer event for your department/team using our best practices for a one-time event.

Staff Volunteer Opportunities

Find a volunteer opportunity for yourself in the community through our VolunteerMatch database.