The 2007 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected a need for more than one million new and replacement nurses by 2016, while higher education continues to be challenged to find methods of producing graduate satisfaction, accompanied by successful transition from college to the workplace. Some nursing programs are meeting the challenge by…

This study is a survey of the town of Springfield, Vermont and an evaluation of its library resources and services developed as Phase II of the Institute on Developing Dynamic Public Library Services Responsive to Community Needs. Long range plans were developed to meet discovered community needs and techniques learned from participation in the…

This paper explores what service-learning is and how it is intended to benefit both the community and the student participants. Service-learning is a combination of community service and experiential education. The primary goal is providing for a community need, even as the experiential education aspect advances student learning and academic…

Service-learning in the mathematics curriculum provides a rich opportunity for students to learn while contributing to their communities. Service-learning in higher education integrates community service with academic instruction. Students participate in organized curricular projects, such as tutoring middle-school math students, while enhancing…

Emerging community issues and concerns were identified in focus groups of 104 Defiance County (Ohio) citizens and survey responses from 180 of 380 households. The research demonstrated the usefulness of capacity assessment as a participatory process in which community members are actively involved in identifying community assets as well as…

New Mexico Cooperative Extension Service home economics agents rated perceived technical knowledge and client needs for 144 family and consumer sciences concepts. Six areas in which they needed more training were identified: gerontology, health, employment, parenting, family dynamics, and child development. (SK)

Examples of creative programming to meet community needs in State College, Pennsylvania, are described: summer arts and crafts for K-6, intensive English courses for Russian refugees, brown-bag parent education seminars for employees of a local business, and a summer reading initiative. (SK)

To mark the occasion of its 25th anniversary, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) brought together policy, industry and academic leaders to reflect on the role that research and statistics have played in the development of Australia's vocational education and training (VET) sector. This publication includes the original…

Colleges and universities have failed to meet the long-recognized, growing need for nonacademic-credit gerontology education. With the explosive growth of the aging network, other organizations have readily responded to the fast-growing market. Results of two needs assessments over a 5-year period demonstrate employers' higher support for…

Classrooms across the country are discovering the power of service-learning--the ideal way to help students develop social and academic skills while giving back to their community. Now for the first time, there's a practical how-to guide on using serving-learning to promote inclusion and differentiate instruction for students with and without…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday, February 17, 2009. It is the broadest and largest funding package in American history. The intent of the statute is to stimulate the economy both through direct spending on a range of programs and to create tax relief. The package makes investments…

The Executive Director of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) identifies three ways in which the U.S. can improve its science education. The first is to ensure that all science teachers have enough knowledge of the content they are teaching. Second, the science education community needs to improve the science education standards by…

An important part of a community strategy to reduce substance abuse is a communications plan. The plan is meant to guide efforts as the targeted message is communicated and information is disseminated. Part 1 of this paper provides an introduction to the basics of a communications plan and helps providers think about different ways to get the…

Freedom Schools, which operated during 1964 after the collaborative efforts of several Civil Rights organizations, provided an opportunity to understand how students can drive the curriculum to meet individual and collective needs within a community. The presence and use of poetry throughout the Freedom Schools was mysterious, given that it is…

This article explores obtaining grants as a way of funding technology projects in the library. The authors' approach views technology as a component of a grant project or a way to accomplish the goals of a project. One can be more successful in his or her grant work by addressing existing community needs, rather than by requesting funding for…