Placement Process
The learning in service-learning begins with your active engagement in each of the following steps of the placement process.
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What should you expect from the Placement Process?
The placement process, running from mid-August until September 9th, allows the En/Route students to find their way to working with your institution. It is an opportunity for you to promote your work and convey your expectations to prospective students; this helps to ensure that there will be a good fit between community site and student, and so reciprocity of benefit. It is also an opportunity for students to dive into the learning process. In keeping with the value put on discernment at Regis, and, particularly, on vocational discernment, the process is structured in such a way that students must reflect on where they are drawn to serve and why. Even students who do not eventually come to work with you benefit from your participation in this process because of their reflection on these questions and because of the greater familiarity they gain about the broad range of good work being done in the Denver area.
Placement Research: August 1st - 23rd
The details offered on this website and in the handbook about the placements, as well as the hyperlinks to further information, are our student's first glimpse at the work done by your organization and their first opportunity to reflect on where they would like to do your placement work. Feel free to head over to the "Our Community Partners" page to ensure that your the information provided about your organization is correct, or to learn more about our other partners.
Town Meeting: August 28th (Wednesday)
Town Meeting has two parts, each with its own purposes. First, at the dinner, representatives of all the major stakeholders in En/Route (with the exception of the students) have the opportunity to meet one another and break bread together. Second, after dinner, you will offer presentations about your agency to interested students. The week before Town Meeting, En/Route students will be asked to identify three community partners which most interest them so that they can attend three, half-hour informational sessions. Each of you will be paired with representatives from another site so you should plan for about a 10 minute presentation, with an opportunity for about 5-7 minutes of questions at the end. All the En/Route students, then, at any presentation will have read about your agency and about half of them will already be interested in you, so this is an opportunity for them to hear from someone who can share things that would not show up in their initial research about your agency. It is also an opportunity for you to make clear what you regard to be the essentials about responsibilities, scheduling, and policies. All the rooms will be equipped for Power Point, video, etc., and Engaged Scholar Activists (ESAs) will be available all evening to help with set up (and trouble-shooting). Or, feel free to bring any handouts you think might be helpful.
Discernment: August 28th - September 9th
In lieu of placement tours (as in the past), students will engage in an extended, on-campus discernment process. This process calls on campus resources – including faculty, staff, Engaged Scholar-Activists, Peer Writing Mentors, and En/Route alumni – to assist students in determining the placement with which they will work for the academic year. In this process, students examine their own interests, the practical realities (i.e., transportation and schedule) of working in the community, and issues concerning professionalism in their off-campus engagements. This process culminates in their e-mailing to Community Partners a formal letter of interest.
Acceptance of Students: September 5th-September 13th
WARNING: This step in the placement process will be a little messy. If there is one place for prompt and consistent communication with the En/Route students, it is here. Without good communication (in some cases, even with it), the placement process will now begin to have a nightmarish resemblance to the college-acceptance process, which most students (especially first-year students) are not anxious to repeat. In terms of dates, this step begins the day the discernment process closes (September 9th), and in some circumstances, can properly end well before the 13th. As soon as a student feels confident that she knows where she wishes to do her service work, she will send you a letter of interest by email. We ask that you acknowledge the receipt of the letter, and give the student a date when you will give an answer to her inquiry (until she hears from you, she will not send a letter of interest to any other community site). When you do respond to interested students, we ask that you inform all students who have contacted you whether you have accepted them or not. Your email informing students of their acceptance is also a good occasion to describe what next steps, formal or informal, will be required for getting started (see “Guide to the Learning-Work Process, Orientation” below).
Begin Service: Week of September 16th
All En/Route students must begin service work by the week of September 16th, but, in practice, many will begin before this. If you already have accepted students the week before, you do not need to wait to make arrangements for them to begin. If your accepted students do not begin their work during this week without communicating to you an acceptable reason, please get in contact with them and with us, at enroute@regis.edu.