Tressel era begins

By Kevin Fitzsimons New coach Jim Tressel, left, outlines his plans for the Buckeye football program during a Jan. 18 news conference at Ohio Stadium. President Kirwan, center, and Athletics Director Andy Geiger introduced Tressel to the community after completing a search for John Cooper's successor.

Glenn Institute extends its reach

It has been a busy year for Ohio State's John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy, both locally and globally, with an agenda ranging from moving to new headquarters on campus to extending its reach nationally with sponsorship of an education commission.

Former Sen. Glenn is chair of the National Commission on Service-Learning, which is working to increase the prevalence of service-learning programs and to improve the quality of such efforts. The Glenn Institute and W.K. Kellogg Foundation support the commission, which released its first news release in December, marking its first meeting and announcing the results of a national poll on attitudes about education (see sidebar).

Deborah Jones Merritt, director of the Glenn Institute, said the commission will meet three times over a year, finishing up in Columbus next fall. The commission is part of the Kellogg Foundation's "Learning in Deed" initiative, a national project designed to engage more young people in service through their academic life.

The national connections for the institute don't stop there, however. The institute's third round of participants in the Academic Internship Program in Washington, D.C. -- 12 Ohio State students -- began their program Jan. 2. They arrived in town for their service in the executive branch, on Capitol Hill, in corporate, government and civic affairs offices, and at nonprofit organizations just in time to be among those watching the inauguration of President George W. Bush on Jan. 20.

"The Washington internship is a major component of our emphasis on engaging students in public service," Merritt said. "And this really extends to all citizens -- we are here to encourage people to be involved in their communities, but naturally, being based here at Ohio State, we have a particular focus on students."

Merritt described the institute as focusing on activities surrounding three clusters of programming: engaging students in public service, community partnerships and public policy research.

Among other new events falling under the first cluster, the institute launched its Living Learning Center this academic year in Baker Hall. The center allows students interested in public service or public policy to live together in an interactive, supportive residence hall, and to attend special events and organize their own public service activities. Forty students are participating this year, and organizers have opted to house a maximum of 60 students in the center to maintain meaningful special events and programs.

At the end of January, the institute's Internship Program for High School Seniors will continue, doubling in size since last year. Thirty central Ohio high school seniors serve internships in state government, the media and nonprofit organizations under the program.

Through its community partnerships initiatives, Merritt said, the Glenn Institute seeks to enhance the quality of public service by strengthening the capabilities of people already in public life and assessing and improving the quality of community and government programs.

Term limits in Ohio have increased the importance of one institute partnership, the Annual Orientation Program for Newly Elected Legislators -- more than half of whom are new to the General Assembly this term. The five-day program is run by the Legislative Service Commission, with help from the Glenn Institute and similar centers at other Ohio schools.

In addition to its year-round Management Development Programs for public officials and public-sector leaders, the institute recently joined with the College of Human Ecology to establish a Center for Learning Excellence, which evaluates programs for high-risk youth.

The Glenn Institute also has partnered with the city of Columbus and United Way of Franklin County to form Community Research Partners, an independent organization that evaluates the effectiveness of government and community programs. The organization also is building an extensive database on human services. "This collection of data is useful for people writing their dissertations or conducting research projects," Merritt said.

Research is the focus of the institute's third cluster; so far, 150 faculty have become affiliated with the institute. In addition to advancing public policy research in a variety of disciplines and distributing findings to policymakers, the institute promotes policy research related to the concept of public service itself. Eventually, Merritt said, the institute expects to have funding available to support research projects.

Within the next year, the Glenn Institute intends to hold a national conference on Public Service at the Millennium for academics, policymakers and others with an interest in the future of public service. An ongoing series of John Glenn Policy Series conferences, co-sponsored with other academic units, explores such issues as privacy in the digital age and the trend toward local regulation of environmental matters.

All of these activities and several others have been launched, hosted or maintained during a time of transition at the institute. Offices were moved from Bricker Hall to the fourth floor of Stillman Hall in late September, providing additional room to house offices for institute staff members, Glenn and his staff, and a variety of mementos from Glenn's NASA and political careers. Eventually, the institute's permanent offices will be housed in Page Hall -- after it is renovated.

Also part of the transition was Merritt's appointment as permanent director of the institute in November, after service as interim director since July. A professor in the College of Law since 1995, Merritt was the college's first holder of the John Dea

ver Drinko-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law. Herb Asher, counselor to the president, professor emeritus of political science and the institute's first interim director, now is a senior fellow at the institute.

For more information about the Glenn Institute, its staff and programs, and the John Glenn archives, visit the Web at www.osu.edu/units/ucomm/Glenn/index.html.

National commission emphasizes service-learning

A new survey shows that Americans want an educational system that is strong on academics, but based in civic responsibility.

The poll, conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide and released in December, reveals that the public wants schools to teach more than reading, writing and arithmetic. In addition to results-driven academics, students need to learn social skills, tolerance and good citizenship.

Service-learning -- a teaching method that combines service to the community with K-12 curriculum -- is seen as key to achieving this goal.

"Service-learning is unique because it enables teachers to improve students' academic performance, sense of civic responsibility, self-confidence and workplace skills with a single teaching method," said former Sen. John Glenn, chair of the newly formed National Commission on Service-Learning. "It links classroom lessons with real-life learning."

Glenn said the National Commission on Service-Learning, which held its first meeting in December, is working to increase the prevalence of service-learning programs and to improve the quality of such efforts.

"Our purpose is to bring a new level of public commitment to service-learning by developing recommendations and an action plan to make service-learning available to all K-12 students," Glenn said.

The commission -- comprised of education, government, business, citizen-action, media, entertainment and youth leaders -- is supported by The John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The Kellogg Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation funded the national opinion poll.

Key survey findings include:

• Virtually all Americans (94 percent) agree that one serious problem facing the United States is that people lack the education or skills they need to succeed.

• Nine in 10 Americans (89 percent) said improving the quality of the public education system for students in kindergarten through 12th grade is a very high priority -- more than any other issue.

• Asked to name the top priority for the United States, 49 percent cited education, more than the health care system (22 percent) or Social Security system (7 percent).

• Eighty-three percent strongly agree that a good education is much more than just learning to read, write and do math.

• Most Americans think that public schools in the United States have a definite responsibility to teach students academic skills that they need (78 percent) and encourage good citizenship (54 percent).

• Nine in 10 Americans support service-learning being included in their local school, after being presented with the following definition of service-learning: Students, as part of their education, strengthen academic skills by using what they are learning in school for community projects.

The study was conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide from Sept. 10-27. It included a national sample of 1,013 adults. Results based on the entire sample can be projected to the entire adult population of the United States with a sampling error of +/- 3.5 percent.

For details about the commission or the survey results, visit www.servicelearningcommission.org.

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