22 Does the program offer or require service-learning opportunities?

Yes, but not every semester, and only in one course – HIST 290. There are two, alternating, assignments in HIST 290 requires service learning.  For one assignment students work on the creation of an archive of individual NIC histories of former faculty and staff members.  As part of this assignment, students have to find contact information on that broad group, through a variety of means, and they have to make contact with the pool of potential survey respondents, and then finally deliver the surveys.  As part of the learning process, they have to research and then craft a release form that will allow all responses to be donated to the Molstead Library (in conjunction with the Walden Project).  Creation of the surveys is a collaborative class effort, where students use the previous year’s model and decide how much refinement they think is necessary, if any.  The idea is that information gathered could be used for interviews in the future, which would be conducted by students.  The other service-learning assignment is a mini biography assignment.  Through this assignment students are required to research (with emphasis on methodology)) and then create a biography of individuals buried in Forest Cemetery, Coeur d’Alene’s oldest cemetery.  The research for this assignment forces students to move into other public areas of information beyond books, articles, and online archival resources.  The plan is, once there are enough biographies collected (by the faculty, over many years) they will be turned over to the Museum of North Idaho.

The two assignments required in HIST-290 course (Historian’s Craft) described above currently account for one-third of the course work and points.  Both assignments expose students to the public history side of the historical field, while engaging the community through direct contact with former members of the NIC community, or in the future sense of the target audience for the biographies.