The goal of Community Service Learning is to promote two distinct facets of service -- service learning and community service.

Service-learning, as defined by Campus Compact (http://www.compact.org/), is a teaching method which combines community service with academic instruction as it focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsibility.

Service-learning programs involve students in organized community service that addresses local needs, while developing their academic skills, sense of civic responsibility, and commitment to the community.

Essential to a service learning project is 1) community service and 2) a graded reflection assignment that links the service to one or more course outcomes.

Community Service can be defined as "…services which are identified by an institution of higher education, through formal or informal consultation with local nonprofit, governmental, and community-based organizations, as designed to improve the quality of life for community residents, particularly low-income individuals, or to solve particular problems related to their needs, including, but not limited to, such fields as health care, child care, literacy training, education (including tutorial services), welfare, social services, transportation, housing and neighborhood improvement, public safety, crime prevention and control, recreation, rural development, and community improvement…support services to students with disabilities; and activities in which a student serves as a mentor for such purposes as tutoring, supporting educational and recreational activities; and counseling, including career counseling."

Taken from the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended by the Higher Education Amendments of 1992, and the Higher Education Technical Amendments of 1993