At Neumann University, service isn’t an add-on or a resume builder; it’s a way of learning. Grounded in the University’s Franciscan identity and RISES core values (Reverence, Integrity, Service, Excellence, Stewardship), service-learning blends academic study with structured community engagement, so students leave with both knowledge and experience.

Neumann’s Office of Service-Learning & Community Engagement coordinates courses, community partnerships, and volunteer programs. The office supports faculty who design service-learning components into their syllabi, helps match classes with vetted community partners, tracks student hours, and offers reflection resources and assessment tools that connect service activities back to learning outcomes. This centralized support helps faculty translate classroom goals into meaningful community work.

Service-learning at Neumann is intentionally woven into the Core experience. The Core Curriculum uses experiential learning, including service-learning, as a vehicle for achieving core learning outcomes such as civic responsibility, ethical reasoning, critical reflection, and problem solving. What makes service-learning rigorous at Neumann is the deliberate cycle: faculty set academic objectives; students perform service linked to those objectives; and structured reflection converts experience into learning. The university provides multiple reflection models so students examine what they saw, what they learned, and how the experience relates to theory, RISES values, and civic responsibility. This emphasis on reflection ensures that service becomes transformative — not just charitable.

Framed by the Franciscan tradition and Neumann’s mission, service-learning aims to form graduates who see knowledge as a gift to be shared. By embedding community engagement into required courses and core learning experiences, Neumann moves beyond volunteerism toward formation: students practice humility, learn to challenge unjust structures, and develop habits of civic responsibility that carry beyond graduation.

At Neumann University, service-learning is not a side project, it’s woven into the fabric of the undergraduate experience. By making community engagement a core educational strategy, the university equips students to apply classroom learning in real contexts, to reflect ethically on their actions, and to graduate as committed servant-leaders ready to work for social good.