Founded in 2013, the mission of the Service-Learning Internship and Community Engagement Center (SLICE) within the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences (LAS) is to
- foster quality experiential learning opportunities for students,
- support faculty community-based outreach activities, and
- facilitate campus-community partnerships.
These partnerships significantly contribute to student learning, advance faculty teaching and research, support UCCS programs, and positively contribute to the Colorado Springs community.
SLICE of LAS seeks to develop mutually beneficial partnerships between students, faculty, and community organizations through enrollment in service-learning courses, internships, and community-based outreach activities.
Service-learning courses and Internships are types of High-Impact Educational Practices (HIPs) and have become increasingly common forms of experiential learning.
- Service-learning combines community service with explicit learning objectives, preparation, and reflection to enrich the learning experience and strengthen communities. Service-learning offers a balance between service and learning objectives, addresses community-identified concerns, and involves community in the design and implementation.
- An Internship is a form of experiential learning that integrates knowledge and theory learned in a classroom with practical application and skills development in a professional setting. Internships give students opportunities to gain valuable applied experience and make connections in professional fields--usually related to their career interests.
- Community-engagement activities engage faculty with the community in ways that benefit the community and advance the faculty member's teaching, scholarship, and service responsibilities. Community-based learning (CBL) and community-based research (CBR) are two types of community-engagement activities.