Hi Becky

At University of Guelph we're using the Community Service Learning model to engage students in community development and social justic projects in undergrad and grad courses in capacity development and extension (where we teach various courses in communication process). The undergrad class that has used this framework is Educational Communication (www.communicationprocess.ca) and it is actually taught in distance education format.

The other more relevant example is our graduate course in Development Communication - Communication for Social Change where the students work in praxis on a comdev project either individually or in small groups. Most often their partners are NGOs in Canada or internationally. We have learned to include the following in the course: 
a) learning contract between student(s) and community organizations; 
b) necessary ethical considerations/permissions for the project; 
c) public presentation of the comdev project for awareness raising and feedback. 

For anyone interested in the model offered by community service learning there is a Canadian Alliance for CSL that is quite active and has various resource materials on its website: http://www.communityservicelearning.ca/en/

regards
Helen


----- Original Message -----
From: "Prof. Becky Lentz" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 10:21:49 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Request for information on community radio media policy research 'clinics'

Dear colleagues, 

I’m trying to find models of university-based courses/syllabi that have already implemented and/or piloted something like a legal clinic model used in law schools, but adapted for/to the field of media/communication policy. The idea is to use a class as a kind of research lab/clinic for an NGO needing research that could be completed in a semester term. So, the syllabus would be described as a theory/practice clinic and a call for ‘clients’ would go out ahead of time; NGOs could apply to be a client for the class; the class meets and does a set of projects for one or more of these clients. Kind of like in business schools where a class takes on a client as a pro bono project. 

Does anyone have any models to offer like this that have been used for community and/or campus radio/media organizations anywhere in the world? If so, can you please email me offline? 

Thank you, 
Becky 
-- 
Becky Lentz, Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor, Department of Art History and Communication Studies 
McGill University 
853 Sherbrooke Street West, Arts Building, W-265 
Montreal, QC Canada H3A 2T6 
514.398.4995 (phone) 514.398.7247 (fax) 
email: [log in to unmask] 
Dept website: http://www.mcgill.ca/ahcs and Media@McGill: http://media.mcgill.ca/ 
Web: http://rgmagnolia.wordpress.com/