The Matchmaker of FGCU: Jamie Wilson on Connecting Classes to Community through Service Learning

In this episode of The Adjunct Files, John and Maggie sit down with the incomparable Jamie Wilson—FGCU alumna, faculty member, and faculty–community matchmaker in the Office of Service Learning & Civic Engagement. Jamie shares the history behind FGCU’s unique service‑learning requirement, why it remains central to the university’s identity, and how even the busiest adjuncts can weave meaningful community engagement into their courses.

From creative STEM partnerships to therapy‑dog reading programs, Jamie brings stories that remind us how service learning changes students, strengthens community connections, and helps faculty enrich their teaching without reinventing the wheel. A lively, inspiring conversation packed with practical ideas and big-hearted energy.

You can contact Jamie at jawilson@fgcu.edu and find resources online for faculty who are interested in service learning at: https://www.fgcu.edu/studentlife/servicelearning/facultyresources 

Theme music composed, performed and produced by James Husni. 

Adjunct Nation is a collaborative podcast under the auspices of The Lucas Center for Faculty Development at FGCU.  You can learn more by clicking on this link:

https://www.fgcu.edu/lucascenter/

Transcript

Welcome to the Adjunct Files.

We're a growing, diverse community who face challenging work in an ever-changing, higher

education landscape.

Your co-hosts for this podcast are with you in this.

I'm John Roth.

Adjunct since 2015 and now a coordinator for Adjunct Faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University.

I'm Maggie Hohne, Adjunct since 2022 and currently work in the Office of First Year Seminars.

Together we hope to have conversations to empower, support, and elevate Adjunct faculty.

This conversation today is one to do just that.

Hello everyone.

Welcome back to the Adjunct Files.

John, how are you?

I'm doing well.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

It's spring break.

Yeah, which doesn't matter really.

No.

The work continues.

I like to keep it in spirit even though we're here.

Yeah, the students seem to be enjoying things I think.

Although I know a lot of that are working and are stuck in the area and what do students

that go to a Florida university, what do they do for spring break?

I think still go to the beach.

Yeah, but they just go home.

There's no destination in a sense.

We're going home.

Don't sound so excited.

We're going home.

Hey, we've got another person who's stuck here at FGCU on spring break today.

Yes, we do.

She is the amazing, awesome Jamie Wilson.

Hello.

So please introduce yourself and what in the world are you doing here?

I don't know.

TBD.

So, yes, Jamie Wilson.

And I have been at FGCU as a student since 1998.

When she was four.

Yeah, I was a baby.

We won't tell my age like we did before we started recording.

Usually when I tell students I was here in 1998 and they start doing the math.

You could see the smoke coming out of their ears.

Carry the wand.

Yes, how old I am.

I came here right when the school opened the school open in 97.

I was here in 98 and I just haven't left.

I came back in 2011 and started teaching as an adjunct and then followed that path, had

some kids along the way.

You know, I had kids randomly.

I would leave, come back, leave, come back.

You don't know how you had kids?

No, it's still a mystery.

Blink it up.

And I have then transitioned to a visiting line.

Now I'm currently in a different role where I get to kind of wear both hats as a faculty

and a staff member.

I work in the office of service learning and civic engagement over here in McTardigan.

And what my role is to help kind of bridge the gap between faculty and community partners.

So I am faculty and partnership development for that office.

And my role is to really support faculty as they integrate service learning, but also

support the community partners as they integrate into classes.

Well FGCU is unique as part of our founding DNA, the whole idea of service learning and

civic engagement.

That all undergraduate students have to participate in.

Yes, yes.

So tell us a little more about why this became such an integral part of FGCU's identity and

how you see the legacy from the university's founding continuing today and going forward.

I think that the university was born because there was a need in the community.

We talk a lot about FGCU being a regional comprehensive university and really our students

who leave here, we want them to stay.

We want them to work.

We want them to live.

We want their children to go to school here.

We want to develop that workforce.

And so what we see from the university is it was really brought about, you know, Ben

Hillgryphon, Aleco Arena, right?

We preserve this land and the really the goal was how do we connect it back to the

community and that is where service learning comes in.

We like to say it's different than volunteerism because there's service and learning that's

attached to it.

And when the university was brought about and this has happened since 1997, it wasn't

something new and fangled that, you know, in the last five years, we were like, you

know what would be great?

Students are not busy enough.

Let's have them do some service learning.

Right.

Yeah.

This has been and will continue to be a founding principal along with the sustainability requirement.

I think it's unique in that we are only one of two public institutions in the country

that require that and our students are leaving with a really vast amount of skills and those

are opening doors for people.

They're allowing them to come into workplaces setting themselves apart and again giving back

to the community.

So again, FGC was born out of a need and our students stay here to fill that need.

You are so articulate about this.

Well, thank you.

It's like I do this for my job.

No, it's amazing.

I'd love to hear a story either about a student that you just say, this is what this really

is about or even personally.

Yeah.

I think that every time I interact with a community partner, I feel driven to help them.

I did work a lot with the Rock Center, Roots of Compassion and Kindness, Maria Raca, and

when I had my visiting line, it was through rock.

And I think that I kind of have this turned on in my brain that I think maybe because

I'm a mom, maybe because I've lived in this area for such a long time, I went to middle

school and high school in this area.

This is my home.

I feel a lot of connection and compassion to the people that live here.

And so when I hear stories, when I meet a lot with community partners and I hear a lot

of great things that are happening in our community, but I also hear a lot of need.

And I think of myself as a person who can connect the needs.

So, for example, I found out that in Lee County, there are approximately 1,200 students that

are homeless in Lee County.

And whether we knew this or not, the crazy part is if you are a homeless senior who is

graduating and you cannot afford a cap and gown, you do not walk.

What?

Yes.

And I have found this out from my friends at the Imagine Initiative.

Lovely people over there.

And they told me and I kind of scrolled that away.

I was just like you, like what?

And because of the opportunities afforded to me through the university, through talking

with teachers and those types of things, I kind of look for opportunities to kind of

plant seeds of things that I know that are our needs in the area.

And I have served on the leadership of Starrow class.

I'm class of the 2025.

And at the end of it, and I am representing FGCU in the class, so it's a unique opportunity.

And at the end of that, they say, hey, we have an opportunity for a class project.

Does anyone have an idea?

And I was like, I do.

I do this for a living.

Yes.

And I luckily have had know the stories about the community and know what I need.

And I told them just what I told you.

We have approximately 100 students who are graduating in Lee County who will not have

a chance to walk unless they have the money.

So caps and gown are $50.

That's $5,000.

And that's a cheaper rate, right?

It's like at cost for the effort.

So I'm working with the main social worker at Lee County.

His name is Paul Milford.

I'm working with Rhonda from Imagine Initiative.

I'm representing Leadership of Starrow and FGCU.

And we're putting together a huge collective movement to allow all of these kids to walk

with dignity.

Is this something I don't think if I wasn't in this job, I wouldn't know about?

And giving the place that I have at the table affords me a lot of responsibility to help

people.

So I'm really excited about that.

We have until May to raise all the funds.

We're halfway there to $5,000.

And it's just something that I feel very, very blessed that I have the opportunity to

help people.

And there's lots of stories about students who kind of under-discovered their passions

and discovered what they want to do in life because of service learning.

I kind of have a similar trade about why I went into teaching because of that.

And I hope that when students come through our office or go into my class or interact

with a community partner that just plants a seed for them like it did for me.

Amazing.

That's just one story.

And I think FGCU's done over 5 million.

Over 5 million.

Yes, over 5 million.

And it just keeps growing.

And students, we know that there's a requirement.

There's 40 hours for those upper level transfers.

And then you have the 80 hours for first time in college.

Most of our students go over that amount.

I always kind of use that idea of students raking.

And then all of a sudden they're like, I'm at 80.

And they throw the rake down and leave.

You know?

I'm done.

Clocking out.

Yeah, clocking out.

And our students don't do that.

We see them go back.

We see them create internships with these nonprofits and create jobs with them.

Well, they kind of get hooked.

Yeah, yeah.

Just like.

They actually enjoy it.

Yeah.

And they see that that's connection to the community, right?

If you're not from here.

And I send you to a nonprofit that serves food to the hungry twice a week on ML cable

of our right community cooperative.

And you don't know this because you haven't been out in the community.

You just came here from Iowa, right?

Right.

So you haven't been exposed yet.

You haven't been exposed.

You don't know until you know.

And that's part of our job.

This is another curveball maybe, but not really for you.

You can handle that.

Anything.

So this podcast mainly focuses on on adjunct faculty in terms of and we've got like 430

here.

We teach 20% of the courses.

Yes.

I'm like the blood of the university by the way, adjuncts.

Yeah.

Like you're doing the most.

Well, you are one.

Yes.

Yes.

So a lot of new adjunct faculty come here every semester.

Tell us what adjunct faculty can do and why it's so good to include service learning into

their courses.

Just the learning is so much more enhanced.

I mean, that's a high impact practice.

Yeah.

Isn't it?

Yeah.

And I think the question or the answer is twofold.

I think adjuncts are a little overwhelmed, right?

When you come into the area, you're like trying to figure out Canvas.

You're trying to get your syllabus.

Now we're putting it on simple syllabus.

Now you're where do I park?

You're doing the A plus.

Plus attendance, right?

You're doing all these things.

And as wearing the hat of a teacher, I know that.

And I never want to overwhelm a faculty member, right?

I don't want to be like, this is what you should do, right?

And I never want to have to create something out of nothing.

So my goal is always to ask them what are they doing in their class and then give them

ideas about how they could turn that simple assignment into just adding or tweaking one

or two different things, it could turn it into a service learning integrated project.

The other thing, I wouldn't say we have a ton of adjuncts that are teaching service

learning integrated courses.

Some of them are probably doing it and I don't know about it, which, you know, they don't

like to reach out.

Yeah.

J.A. Wilson.

But the other thing is we hold a cohort, which the both of you have gone through and you're

fantastic.

You're graduates of that.

And we accept both full time and adjuncts.

So you don't have to be a full time faculty member to apply to that.

We hold it twice a year.

So the one that we will be holding in May will be for fall integration into the course

that you're teaching.

So this is an appropriate time for this podcast.

Yes, it is.

Such serendipitous.

It is.

Looks like you almost knew.

And the faculty come from all different colleges, all different areas.

We have adjuncts.

We have full time.

And it's a nice place because you can come together and talk about what works and what

doesn't work in your class.

We don't, you know, we're not like, oh, they're an adjunct.

Go sit over there, you know.

You're just as part of the conversation as everyone else.

And you have a lot of experience to lend itself.

And when you do the cohort, just the sales pitch here.

Yes.

And when you do integrate it, what happens?

You did.

Well, you get paid $1,000.

We work really, really hard.

We are now partnering with career development services to allow people to come through and

be certified in both service learning integration and to be a career champion.

We've added, we've added that new to it.

Awesome.

And so we are able to have in two and a half days, you have a ready to go assignment,

whether that was brand new or altered.

And then once I review the assignment, your syllabus, we know that it's going to be integrated.

Your chair signs off saying, yes, you're teaching this.

Then we process the payments with HR and you are given $1,000 stipend.

Whether you're an adjunct or whether you're a full time faculty doesn't matter to us.

So, I think that's a good thing.

And something that I also want to harp on, like you said, is it's multidisciplinary.

Yes.

So, a lot of times, I know my own personal bias when I think of service learning, it's

like the touchy feeling, it's going to be in the humanities, the social sciences, but

it could truly be in any course.

Yes.

Do you have some examples of maybe some more STEM oriented courses that have service components?

Yeah, we have an environmental class that's working now.

There's a lower level environmental class and there's an upper level environmental class.

It's called interpreting the environment where that group of students are working with a

non-profit, so they worked with Calusa Nature Center and they interpreted what the different

types of messages that Calusa wanted to give to the patrons that came through there.

So they have the environmental knowledge.

What we did then was then we connected those students with graphic design students who

led out the fruition of what the interpreting the environment students did.

So we have very science heavy STEM based students working with graphic design students and all

of them are working together to serve the need of that partner.

We've worked with math teachers, history teachers, sociology, GIS mapping, Merib every, we're

working right now with a transportation engineering faculty member.

I always go into the classes.

I'm like, I am not an expert in transportation engineering.

I know nothing what you all are talking about, but I know who you should be working

with.

That's okay.

And that's my job.

I call myself like the match.com of FGCU.

Yes.

You really are.

Yeah, thank you.

So I guess just kind of going into a little bit more of service learning.

We recognize as an institution those four different types of service.

Yes.

Direct, indirect, advocacy and research.

I know for me too, a lot of times when I think of non-necessarily volunteering, but service

learning, community involvement, I think of me physically having to be there.

Like chopping the onions and serving the soup.

Yes.

Like I want to see the whites of your eyes kind of thing.

But like you said, faculty are often overwhelmed.

They're not here full time.

What are some other ways that students, if they are interested, can get involved in service

within their class?

I think we have to realize that every student is coming to our class with a different set

of skills and a different set of expectations, even different schedules, right?

We have students who are first, yes, yes, who are, you know, back in school for the

first time, who have families who have mortgages, right?

They have all these things they're working on.

We need to think about what they can do and what they're comfortable doing and how can

it work inside our class.

So I think one of the most underutilized is research.

We have a lot of community partners who maybe are one or two people that are running it.

They have all this data, but they don't know how to interpret it or how to turn it into

manageable chunks to then apply to a grant, let's say.

And so we have students, I always tell them, it's not me.

I would be doing this, right?

My love language is not an excel sheet.

Mine either.

I'd be on YouTube all day.

Me too.

Pivot, table, pivot.

I said, but if that's your area of specialty, if you want to be an accounting major, you

are a software engineering major, you are a business analytics and whatever it is that

you want to do, we can find a place for you.

Same thing with students who are really great at maybe making those digital designs or doing

marketing or public relations.

And you need to prove and build a portfolio.

We can give you a community partner who needs that.

So you don't have to make up a fictitious company to do the same thing.

There's a number of things that you all do.

Like I don't know how you do it all, but the service learning fair is an example of that

and there was record turnout.

Huge amount of students who came out.

How many?

I think we had over 850, I think, that came through.

And it really was kudos also to the faculty who are promoting it in their classes.

We have days of service, which we team up with SLS classes.

We do those twice in the fall.

We have our service learning fair.

We hold community partner workshops where we teach partners how to interact with our

students and we answer their questions about what works, what doesn't work.

You know, how do you approve hours?

You know, some of the nitty gritty things.

We have an online training program that we've instituted just because we realize that not

every partner is local and can come to our area for a workshop.

And also, you know, if there's a turnover and you have someone new in your office, they

don't have to wait for a workshop.

They can attend one of those.

We have different events on campus and we also have a guided trips that we do that are

really popular because we have a van.

It's the coolest van.

They've got a ride.

We have a ride.

It's, I always tell people, like, you know, it's a van because it says on the side, making

change happen.

And it's completely branded.

It's beautiful.

Our friend Katie in our office organizes that with her student assistant.

And we do often two or three a week and it helps students who do not have transportation.

Or if you know, you have a colloquium class, let's say, and you are putting together an

entire visit to ECHO and you have half of your class who you know that is not going

to be able to have transportation.

Or if, you know, it's a fraternity sorority life who want to put together something with

their people, if it's 15 people are under, we can help arrange that with the community

partner.

That's, yeah.

And I think I really love the idea and initiative of those guided trips as well.

As we know, this is the most anxious generation.

Right?

And I'm kind of taking that fear of, okay, I'm going to drive a half hour away.

I don't know anyone.

I'm from out of state.

I think this is the picture from the website, but I'm not sure all the doors are locked.

I'm panicking.

I'm just going to go home.

I mean, I'm a mom.

It takes that fear away.

I for sure.

I'm a mom and I know that my 17 year old would be so anxious and not feel equipped to go

on to buy herself to a place she's never been for the first time, like drive her little

Kia.

Yeah.

Over to that location.

And this provides that community where we want people to make friends.

We want a belonging.

Yeah, that sense of belonging.

We want them to, and then get like bit by the bug, right?

So you serve there.

You realize the needs.

And now you feel comfortable because you've made friends and now you all can go back.

So that's really the goal.

And we're also just trying to get students to understand that service learning is should

be connected to your major, right?

And I always sell students to do it better than I did.

I was I was a communication major here at FGCU and I think I was just picking up trash.

I'm going to be real honest with you.

Like how do I get to 80?

Yeah, I was I never I never even though I knew it was supposed to be I didn't use it as

an experience building tool.

And my goal is that we hope that students are seeing that shift a faculty are seeing that

shift that this is resume building.

This is career building.

This is community building opportunities that's not just to get to 80.

It's really to make something of yourself and to set yourself apart at the end of it.

Let's say you're a new adjunct here.

You get a course given to you, which most do, and you have enough time.

You get more than two weeks.

Yeah, yeah, you got to have a number four.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

See you tomorrow.

But let's just assume that you actually get told.

Plenty of time.

And you've got two months ahead of time.

And you're just kind of going like, huh, I have an idea, right?

Like what can I do?

Yeah.

Just I know you do presentations and courses too, right?

Yeah.

Just to give some of these people.

Just a little framework, right?

A little framework.

Yeah, I think a couple areas we work really hard on for me on the faculty side of it.

I work to meet with a faculty wherever they are.

If they just want to explore what service learning means, it may not mean that semester.

There may be three semesters from now.

I have an idea, but I need to get this class worked out first, right?

Or it could be, hey, I'm doing this project.

What do you think?

That's where I can come in and help design that.

I don't have to be an expert in your field in order to know kind of the what I call buckets,

right?

What are the buckets that you need for the students to complete?

Where are your areas of emphasis?

That's where I come in.

And then we also work in conjunction with our presentations where we'll come in and

then inform your students.

So it's one thing that you have an idea what service learning is, right?

I can tell you till the cows come home.

But unless your students also understand, right?

And some faculty don't feel, especially if you're a new adjunct, you may not feel comfortable

answering their questions.

Like for example, those dang password resets.

Our office is the only one that can reset your password.

And we can take care of that.

The faculty member can't take care of that.

And it can be inundating and intimidating because you don't know how to answer all their questions.

So that's what we come in for.

There's three of us that do presentations from our office.

It used to just be me.

Oh my goodness.

And we get so many requests and it's great.

I love it because that means that.

But how do you get everything done?

So I'm like, I can't clone myself.

So we get the request.

There's a form on our website that you can request a service learning presentation.

I get that request.

I go through.

I see on everyone's calendar, what's available.

We try to get everyone's first request.

I will say, can I give you a little hot tip?

Yeah.

Don't do it in the first week of school.

No.

Why?

Why?

Because they all drop and they all are they don't come or silly.

Yeah.

And everyone's just like all over the place.

And so some faculty, I love this for them.

They weren't like, you're going to show up on day one.

I'm like, they don't even know your name.

And I think that students are just deer and headlights.

So when I come in, I'm like, hey, we're doing service learning.

It's like drinking from a fire hose.

It's drinking from a fire hose.

I prefer week two or three if faculty have space for us.

We also have online presentations that we can do that students can plug that into Canvas.

But it's honestly the teacher.

I always say like they are the captain of the ship.

You're the captain of the ship.

You get to steer your ship.

We are here to help you steer, but we're not in charge.

And if something feels wrong, you're allowed to adjust course.

Okay.

So here's another little curveball.

Yes.

Online asynchronous course that you're teaching.

How can that get plugged in and how could that work?

Do you know of some that are doing it?

I taught those.

Yes.

I taught those.

Yes.

There's a lot of courses like foundations of civic engagement who have asynchronous service

learning courses.

I've taught those.

They take some proper planning up front to front load those.

They need to be well orchestrated so students know exactly what they're getting into and

they're not fumbling along.

But we even work with faculty who are teaching an eight week asynchronous course and they're

doing service learning from the College of Business to integrated studies, all those

types of things.

I think it's just knowing your students, knowing your content and see what works and

then trying it out.

Like what's the work that could happen, right?

Like come to us, ask us for a breast practices, ask us to, you know, take a look at your assignments,

take a look at your syllabus.

I'm more than happy to look at those things and give you some ideas.

That part really excites me is building the faculty part of it and assisting them and

making them feel supported.

I do have a question because we have in some previous episodes, we had our digital badge

friends here.

Is there any opportunity for overlap if let's say we're already doing this to kind of double

dip?

Yes, yes.

Because we do everything through SDG, so Sustainable Development Goals, but we also

attach it to the career readiness competencies.

So we ask that in our forums when students are tracking ours, but if the student is working

on a project and they're working with others, they can apply that to the teamwork badge.

If they are leading a team and they're going out in the community and leading advocacy,

that's leadership, right?

If they put together a plan of graphic design for a partner, right, then they have the technology

or communication badge.

So all of that is applicable.

We encourage that with students.

And it's something that I know that we've seen more faculty doing it.

And I know there are some regulations about artifacts and how many you can pull from one

class.

From one class.

Yes.

But that's okay.

But if you say with the same partner, you can still do more.

You can pull different artifacts, right?

So that you could start a project in one class, continue that partnership throughout your time

at FGCU and pull different artifacts.

How would you like to see more of here?

Good question.

I think there's a lot.

There's a lot.

In my perfect world, I would, and if you ask my boss and his perfect world, it would

be that every class is integrating service learning in some way.

How would that work?

Because I've been thinking about that.

Yeah.

Have you just in your spare time?

Always.

Her brain is going like a hundred miles an hour all the time.

Yes.

I'm like, do we have that many community partners for every single class?

What if a student is working with five different community partners for all their classes?

How did they track that?

And then I just start spiraling.

Okay.

That's understandable.

I get that.

So...

Like, is it too much?

Because we know there's a lot of untraditional students who are working more.

Yes.

Yes.

I think that giving students some autonomy to pick something they're passionate about,

right?

It is aligned with a sustainable development goal.

So for example, can we introduce them in a lower level class to partners, right?

So like, could we do a sampling of different partners, right?

Have them come to the service learning fair?

Didn't understand that.

And there's a lot going on in the university.

They call it like in career services, they call it the flight plan.

Service learning is working on something like that.

Like milestones for every year.

Yes.

So there's this thought that like, you know, incrementally we are getting students exposed

in different ways.

So for example, I'm working with a competeture who she's having them right anyways for their

course.

So what they're now doing is writing blog posts that they would have to write anyways

for a nonprofit and so living on their website now.

Oh, cool.

So they can choose whatever they want to write about.

Yeah.

As long as it's within that realm.

I work with a math teacher and her students have to understand a concept well enough to

teach others.

So they film videos teaching a concept and then it's sent over to elementary school kids

at a school that's using those.

So I think that if we can be creative, I think that there's a lot of room for that.

And don't forget that FGCU is also a partner, right?

Because they're a government agency.

So if you're doing work, let's say for the chemistry lab, you know, that counts, right?

The orthology lab, that counts.

All of those counts towards service learning.

I think a lot of students sell themselves short and they just don't realize what they're

doing is service learning.

And then I think the other part is that faculty, I think there's a lot of myths about service

learning.

You know, people will be like, we can't do service learning during class time.

I'm like, that is untrue.

You can.

You can and you should.

Yeah.

Because as much as you connected to course content.

So I wish that we could dispel some of those myths and that I would love for us to have

a day of service across campus where staff and faculty have the ability to serve on campus,

off campus, those types of things.

I think that's a real opportunity for us that as we continue to grow, that would happen.

Even when I was a student here, I don't remember that happening, but it could be and I'm just

not aware of it.

But we have it built into full time faculty.

It's built in that they're doing some sort of service.

And so right.

Yes.

It's built into that, but service looks different for different people.

It can be like service like you are serving the sack, that service.

Right.

It doesn't have to be serviced to a particular community.

It could be serving just on a committee to hire someone.

Okay.

But I mean, don't quote me.

Don't quote me.

But that when we think about all the opportunities, I think if we're going to talk the talk, we

need to walk the walk.

Yep.

I agree.

Yeah.

Very much so.

Oh, you, I believe received excellence in teaching awards.

During 2020.

During the even more impressive.

That was a wild time, guys.

During the COVID.

The COVID.

It was, I was on like online teaching.

I got observed an online teaching when we all went to online teaching.

2020, 2021, somewhere around there, we did it.

What was that like?

It was wild.

I was teaching in my colophis, which is my closet office.

Colophis.

My colophis.

My colophis.

And I had to be really inventive of how I was going to interact with students and get them

excited about things.

I did a lot of new things that I probably wouldn't have done.

Like group forming in a synchronous class online is difficult, right?

Like it's not as walk around the room.

Everyone put their name, right?

Yeah.

And then you can come up and stand in the red corner, right?

There's a lot of fun things you can do in person that you can't do online.

And COVID was also throwing us for a loop like some kids were sick.

Some kids were quarantined.

What was happening?

And I remember at that time, I was like, what can I do that's different and unique?

And I made a BuzzFeed quiz, which was so fun because I felt really hip and cool.

Like I was like, hey, guys, take this BuzzFeed quiz.

And then it put them into groups based on SDGs.

And you said SDGs, not STD.

No, I was just trying to figure out.

It gets complicated sometimes.

Absolutely.

Yeah, sustainable development goals.

Yes.

So it was like, hey, which if you're at a party, would you be more likely to pet a

dog, pump some iron or play with the kids, you know?

And depending on their answers, they were then placed into groups.

And that's how I did group forming online.

And it was really fun.

It stretched me as a teacher.

I was we didn't have like a typical ceremony.

I had no idea that like I wasn't invited to a ceremony.

They sent out like a link to a video and I was nominated by a great friend of mine,

Miles Mancini and went through all of that work.

And it was a good defining moment for me because I felt sometimes as I was an adjunct and

I want that.

Sometimes as an adjunct, you have no idea if what you're doing is being recognized.

Recognized.

Yeah.

Or.

Is anybody paying attention?

Sometimes most of the time.

Yes.

Yes.

And it was really a fulfilling eye before I came to teach in the collegiate world.

I was a middle school teacher.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And you could check on all the time in the K through 12 setting, right?

Like, is your board correct?

Are your lesson plans turned in?

They're on you.

So coming to a college, you're like, I hear.

Here we are.

It's kind of like free range.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's, but it's exciting to have that freedom.

I love that creativity.

What haven't we covered about service learning?

What's something you wish we all knew?

Or other myths that should be busted.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Mythbusters.

Mythbusters.

There's so many of them that faculty can do as much or as little as they want to help

in the process.

I think that some faculty sees other faculties that are doing a bunch.

Like when I go and teach a class, I walk in and I'm like, I know all things service learning

because that's the world I live in.

But you don't have to live in that world to feel comfortable in it.

If you want to dip your toes into it and, you know, create a book drive because you have

a literature class and you want to expose students to literature, that's great.

We'll find you a community partner.

Believe in books.

Yeah.

We can find a community partner who needs that.

So it doesn't have to be a long term multi-semester, 90% of your grade in class type of thing,

right?

We don't have to go full in.

We can expose ourselves to it, expose students to it.

And at the end of the day, we want students to have a really great experience because we

want them to continue doing it.

And we want faculty to have a good experience.

And I always say, I don't know what I don't know.

So if you're doing service learning and I don't know about it because I haven't coded

it in your class as an SRVC class, I don't know you're doing it.

So if you're having problems with a community partner not calling you back or students are

doing whatever they're doing in the class and I don't know, I can't help you.

So just having that communication with me, with our office, letting us know so we can

track that.

And then we can let you know, hey, this is something really cool happening.

We have a fair going on.

Send your students to this event.

And then that way they get messages from me that say, hey, if you need a presentation,

this is the link you use.

Hey, if you haven't done so already, remind students to track your hours.

And that works for us.

One thing your way, Jamie, since we do an adjunct faculty newsletter twice a month,

send me some articles.

I will.

I will.

That'd be awesome.

And they can be repetitive in a sense, especially when the fairs come up and other

things that are coming up to just have them in it like a couple of weeks in advance, even

kind of maybe a plug and play of here's a slide you could drop in.

To your class.

Into your class just to announce the service learning fair or whatever.

Having started as an adjunct in 2015 here, I was clueless.

As to all of the resources around here.

You are not alone in the classroom.

You have so many others that will support you, will come alongside you, will help you

with things.

And I don't know anything about service learning at that time.

I think you bring up a good point too, because my job is unique, because I came from the

faculty world and now I'm in administration.

Some of my friends will say I went to the dark side.

What that allows me to do is to think like a teacher.

And so sometimes when we discuss things as a whole group of individuals, I'll say, no,

teachers will not do that.

Like, don't teams a teacher.

Don't teams an adjunct.

They are not on their teams waiting for you.

I know I can teams another administrator, right?

And they will be there, but the faculty are not doing that.

So it's email.

It's email.

It's email for sure.

I've learned that too.

Yes.

And I think these teams are like, no, no, no, no.

They don't really use calendar invites for the most part.

And so I think it allows me to see things from two points of view.

And I hope that I never lose that teacher perspective, because I think it helps me be

a better resource to the teachers that I help through the office.

Cool.

Yeah.

And people like you who are helping us along the way.

My proud protege is coming from that cohort.

It was so much fun.

It was.

It was great learning about service, but also, at least when I went through with our workshop,

just getting to meet everybody from all the different areas, because I feel like faculty

are very siloed.

Yeah.

They talk about everybody having silos, but I feel like for staff, I know more staff

than faculty and faculty, their schedule is different, right?

They have that service, that research.

And then adjunct faculty are even siloed more, I think.

Right.

They don't even have an office.

They aren't here at the same time as many.

So I think that was part of the cohort.

That was one of the best things is just that interaction.

I taught as a faculty member, sorry to adjunct faculty member here to a class of 180 at 8

AM.

What?

At 8 AM?

In person?

In person.

How come?

It gets better.

It gets better.

And I was brand new.

But I think-

What?

Thank God you had-

And my counterpart was also teaching in big class.

And I said to them, I was like, listen, where are my students supposed to see me?

For office hours, like there's 180 of them.

I had two or three TAs helping me, because it was a lot to manage.

Just attendance was a lot to manage, right?

This was before QR codes, by the way.

And I said, where am I supposed to meet my students?

And I was told, meet them at Starbucks.

That was their answer, right?

And so I was like, should I just bring my stapler to the Starbucks?

And literally-

What if they start crying?

Yeah, and literally, I- students, I would say, follow me.

And I would just walk and talk with them, because I had no space to meet them.

And so again, adjuncts are worrying about those types of things.

Not like, how can I embed service learning?

How can I do more work?

Yes, yes.

And so I know that.

I've been there, I live that life, and I get it.

What class was that?

It was a foundation of human communication.

Fundamentals, fundamentals of human communication.

Now it's not taught like that anymore.

I- that was crazy.

It was 8 a.m. and it was a wild time.

And did they actually show up?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I had a microphone.

There was a whole thing.

We made it fun, though.

Oh, good.

My 9 a.m. course?

It's like, it's like, oh my gosh.

I have students on my 10, 30 courses.

Two courses.

Bless their hearts.

Bless their hearts.

I just got up.

Like, that's nice.

I know.

I hope you got some sleep.

I hope you're well rested.

Yeah.

I, you know, the thing is, at the end of the day, everyone's doing their best.

That's how I live my life, right?

Yeah.

That's true.

Everyone's trying to do their best, and, you know, whether you're an adjunct faculty,

full-time faculty, everyone's trying to do their best.

And I think our job is to support them, to give them the resources without overwhelming

them, and also knowing that there are people who have lived that life and know what they're

going through and can be a resource that are a burden to them.

Well, this has been great.

I don't know.

We could go on for hours, I think.

I know.

The whole life story.

Just, yeah.

Do you have, could we end on another student's story?

Yeah, it'd be great.

Do you have anything else?

Let me see.

I mean, there's so many student stories.

I'm trying to, it's hard to think of one.

Well, I know there's so much good work, too.

We have Eagle X coming up in April, which is our big showcase for service learning,

I think internships and then leadership.

Yes.

Yes.

There's four neighborhoods.

And research.

Research, yeah.

So research, internships, leadership, and community engagement.

I'm really excited.

We worked with a faculty member in the College of Education, and that faculty member, again,

through our cohort.

And what she found was the students were, they were working with, they're working at

Veterans Park Elementary, our Veterans Academy for the Arts is where they're working at.

And she found that her students were working with kids and they were struggling readers.

It's entitled One School, there's a lot of struggling readers.

And so she had this idea.

And when she told it to me and she presented it in the cohort, I just teared up because

she's bringing therapy dogs inside the school.

Oh, that's sweet.

And the Duke is the name of the therapy dog and it's through Beasley's paw prints via

the United Way.

So she has now, as an adjunct, College of Education faculty member, is not only training

our future teachers to work with students and struggling readers, right?

She's teaching students how to work with students who may have or need therapy dogs as assistants.

And it's like a full circle moment because everyone's getting something out of it, right?

Those kids that are reading to Duke, they lay there and she says that kids read to the

dog.

They read to the dog.

Yeah, that's perfect, isn't it?

Yeah.

And so it's called, I want to do that.

Her program is called Tales for Tales.

When you die, can't you just die?

It's just too, it's so cute.

And she sends us pictures and she's like, Duke's been busy and Duke is laying on the ground.

Duke is a big, big brown lab.

And he is just the sweetest boy and he lays there and the kid, there's one picture.

I think we shared it on Service Learning Instagram.

This little kid is rubbing Duke's ear and reading for the first time, like ever out loud.

Oh my gosh.

Doesn't that make you want to cry?

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

And so I've convinced her, I said, you have to present this at Eagle Lax.

Please, can you bring Duke?

Can you bring Duke as a member of the team?

And can I rub his ears while he's there?

And just things like that.

Like she had the wherewithal to connect the dots.

And it's not like this groundbreaking thing, right?

Like she didn't have to put this massive, you know, book fair together and a carnal

to read the kids.

Yeah, we're bringing kids and we're bringing a dog and Duke's handlers come and they love

it.

And it's just like that to me, like I get chills just thinking about it.

Like I know that I am leaving a mark and we're leaving a mark if those kids are excited about

reading to Duke and they work before.

That is great.

That's a great story to end on.

That is.

Everyone does matter and can make a difference.

And FGCU gives them the path to do that in so many different ways, right?

Yeah.

We need to improve our communities.

We need to improve community, just being community to each other.

Yes.

And showing compassion for each other.

Yeah.

Oh boy.

We have a compassion deficit at the moment, I think.

Yes.

But there's a lot of it still.

And there's a lot of good in the world too.

I think it's sometimes hard when we watch the news.

We don't talk about it.

We don't talk about it, right?

We're talking about it.

Yeah.

We sometimes focus on the bad and I think now like when I get to do the things we do,

of course there's bad days.

Of course we find out that, you know, something doesn't go right.

But for the most part, our kids are doing fantastic.

And I am not worried about the youth of America to be real honest with you.

Like if you can see what we see and you see the forms that are put in and you see the

reflections that these kids are doing, they're taking a lot out of it.

And I'm just excited for what the next five years will bring if this is what we've been

doing since 1997.

Jamie, we're going to have to do this again.

Yes, of course.

Yeah.

I'll bring some more stories.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Yes.

Yes.

Duke.

Yes, you bring the duck.

If we can get him to talk, that's the...

He just cries in the corner.

I love kids in reading.

I'd be like, come here.

I'm going to rub your ears.

Everything's fine.

Well, thank you so much, Jamie.

This was too easy and a great, good afternoon to do this, right?

Yes.

Fun Friday.

I love a fun Friday.

Me too.

Okay.

Thanks guys.

Well, we'll see you all next time.

Hopefully you'll connect to you and we'll have it, I think, our notes.

We should have some links.

Okay.

If you could give us a couple of links, we'll put it right there.

So, you can connect and for the fall, this is a perfect time to be thinking about it.

Perfect time.

Start thinking now because we know what we're teaching and...

At least some adjuncts do.

Oh, some adjuncts know what they're teaching or know what they have taught in the past.

And if you want to explore that, you can reach out.

Awesome.

Well, have a good afternoon, y'all.

Thank you.

Bye-bye now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.