Ottawa University

The Pleasure Is OURS

          OU Sociology Students Introduce Service Program to the Community

OTTAWA, Kansas - OURS (Ottawa University Research Service) is a mutually beneficial partnership that is forming between Ottawa University sociology students and community agencies - a dream child, if you will, of Sociology Professor Kelly Fish-Greenlee that has been 10 years in the making.  

OURS finally became a reality this past fall "because of the confluence of administrative support from Dean Dinneen and two senior-level students interested and willing to develop the project," said Fish-Greenlee.  Those two students were Haylie Colby and Cassie Grella, who formed OURS to meet their field research requirement.

Designed as a service-learning program, OURS allows students to utilize classroom instruction in a real-world setting, and at the same time provides area non-profit agencies with free research that will potentially enhance their provision of services. 

The services that OURS can provide to area agencies include, but are not limited to, research work, needs assessments, presentations, and data analysis.  While students will work closely with an agency to meet its clearly defined needs, OURS is not a volunteer service or an internship program.  Instead, the service learning projects are completed by undergraduate social sciences students who receive college credit for their work under the supervision of Professor Fish-Greenlee.  "We believe that our students can be conduits between local agencies and contemporary research findings," said Fish-Greenlee.

A partnership between OURS and a local agency is formed when the agency completes a "Request for Work" form outlining the type of project being requested, a general time frame for completion, and an agency contact.   Once a project is accepted, students are paired with the agency according to their strengths and abilities.

Area agencies are already beginning to benefit from OURS.  Five projects, the maximum number available at any time, have been approved to begin in the spring of 2007.  Two of those projects are with the East Central Kansas Area Agency on Aging (ECKAAA).

Caren Rugg is the Community Services Coordinator for ECKAAA and is very pleased at the upcoming prospect of using OURS.  "We have so many projects and ideas that we simply don't have resources to develop," said Rugg.  "We've been wanting to offer age-appropriate fitness programs for the boomer generation in Franklin County for some time.  Now OURS can provide us with the research and statistics we need to apply for grants to help fund such programs.  This new service is an invaluable resource, not only to us, but to the whole community."

As OURS becomes mainstream at Ottawa University, the hope is to expand the program to other academic majors that can offer additional services within the community, whether it be in business, marketing, communications, ministry, or IT.  This would provide a consistent campus-wide venue and format for conducting service-learning projects.

Of their efforts in creating the OURS program, Colby said, "Cassie and I have come to realize that not everything we do in the classroom is about achieving a grade, but it is more about becoming a better person and being able to contribute to our community - either as a student on campus or as a member of the extended Ottawa network."

Founded in 1865, Ottawa University is a comprehensive, not-for-profit educational institution affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. Ottawa University's educational mission brings together a residential campus in Ottawa, Kansas, and adult campuses in Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe, Arizona; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Jeffersonville, Indiana; as well as multiple international instructional sites.  For more information, visit http://www.ottawa.edu/.

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