Discover the Power of Learning With Purpose

At Dominican University, you'll find countless ways to engage in civic learning. It's all about taking what you learn in class and using it to make a real impact in the world. It’s your chance to connect with communities, tackle issues you care about, and discover your voice as a leader. Through hands-on service projects, immersive travel experiences, and courses that blend academics with social justice work, you’ll build skills, discover who you are and prepare for not just for a career, but a lifetime of meaning.


Mission

The Office for Civic Learning provides Dominican University students with opportunities to build a bridge between their academic lives, their passions for social justice, and their desire to engage closely with public leaders, human service agencies and policy advocacy groups.


Civic Learning Vision Statement

Civic Learning provides undergraduate and graduate students’ with courses and community experiences to:

  • Practice open-mindedness, civility, concern for the well-being of others and the planet
  • Develop an informed and critical understanding of complex public issues
  • Research and analyze civic and environmental debates and policy perspective
  • Build skills and connections to others to address difficult public problems, engage in public life, and work to create a more sustainable planet and pursue the common good

Create a More Just World

As a student at Dominican, you’ll serve your community, find your voice and build the knowledge you need to make a difference in the lives of others

Community-Based Learning and Civic Learning 

Community-Based Learning (CBL) provides DU students with course experiences that include service with community partners. In CBL courses, DU students take their education outside the classroom and engage with human service, environmental sustainability, and social justice advocacy organizations.

Community-based learning combines community-based activities with academic instruction as it focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsibility. Community-based learning involves students in organized community service or civic engagement that is directly linked to the curriculum and addresses local community needs. 

This learning experience provides multiple benefits to the students, including the enhancement of course-related academic skills, further development of critical thinking and social analysis skills, and opportunities for meaningful commitment to and civic engagement with the broader community.

Most community-based learning courses are designated in the course schedule by the sentence “Includes off-campus service hours.” These courses engage the entire class in service, community-based research or civic engagement activities and reflection while fully integrating these activities into the learning and understanding of course content. Another community-based learning option can be self-initiated through an agreement between the professor, the student, and the Office of Civic Learning. This “299” CBL course intensification carries one semester hour of credit and can enhance any course. For additional information, contact the Office of Civic Learning: Lewis 216.

DU Impact – Your Portal to Civic Engagement

DU Impact offers Dominican University students’ opportunities to connect with organizations working to create a more just and humane world.  Please visit the link below to log in, explore agencies, and select times and opportunities for you to join them and make an impact.

DU Impact

Social Justice and Civic Engagement Minor

Take your passion for social justice a step further with our minor in Social Justice and Civic Engagement. This interdisciplinary minor (SJCE) allows students to deepen their civic engagement in the community while studying emerging research in the field of social justice. It provides a forum for students to deepen their pursuit of the mission of Dominican University through study, compassionate service, the pursuit of truth and the creation of a more just and humane world. 

Dominican student Timiya Ray is wearing a yellow hoodie and ripped jeans sits on a stool in a dimly lit recording studio, singing into a large microphone. Timiya wears headphones and holds a phone, reading lyrics. The room is lit with blue LED lights and features soundproofing panels, a window to the control room, and recording equipment.

Funding Your Passions

Dominican’s Excellence in Experiential Learning (ExcEL) Scholar Award program provides funding for high-impact learning experiences outside the classroom, including study abroad, independent research, entrepreneurial projects and more. 

Learn more

For more information,
please contact:

Office of Civic Learning
civiclearning@dom.edu