Sowing the seeds of citizenship and social justice: Service-learning in a public speaking course

Students enrolled in two sections of the public speaking courses at a small liberal arts university were required to do 10 hours of service in a local not for profit agency. Student comments indicate that doing service-learning in these courses affected their self-perceptions and expectations as deaf persons in a local community. This article will also discuss the ways the university is responding to the service-learning pedagogy to encourage citizenship and social justice values for students who tend to be somewhat alienated from the surrounding community.