Service learning students impact MSU community
November 20, 2015
STARKVILLE, Miss.— A group of Bagley College of Engineering students are using their time to improve the operations of a major campus-based program.
Working through the Center for the Advancement of Service-Learning Excellence (CASLE), members of Lesley Strawderman’s industrial ergonomics course are gaining both academic knowledge and practical experience in a real-world setting.
An associate professor of industrial and systems engineering, Strawderman said her students have assisted Mississippi State’s T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disabilities in resolving certain seating and mobility issues faced by some of its clients.
With a statewide service mission, the university-based T. K. Martin Center works to ensure that individuals of all ages with disabilities may benefit from the latest advances in assistive technology solutions. Its clients deal daily with a wide variety of physical challenges, including dexterity, communication, mobility, vision, hearing and learning impairments.
Strawderman said class members first learn the basics of ergonomic design, then how to analyze and make necessary adjustments based on individual requirements. After dividing into teams-half of the teams focused on mobile assessments; the other half, on-site assessments-the students analyzed current T.K. Martin operations with a goal of recommending appropriate changes.
To gain a better understanding for the challenges some T.K. Martin clients face, the students also engaged in a number of hands-on activities, including navigation through a variety of campus buildings while in wheelchairs.
In Strawderman’s third year of working with the Center for the Advancement of Service–Learning Excellence, she says students continue to gain valuable experiences from working with community partners each year.
“The addition of service-learning to my classroom has helped my students achieve many of the learning outcomes I establish at the beginning of each semester,” Strawderman said. “They are able to connect our topics from the classroom to a real, tangible project throughout the semester.”
“Even better,” she added, “it improves student engagement because the students become very passionate about helping their community partners.”
For more information on the T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disabilities visit www.tkmartin.msstate.edu; for more on MSU’s Center for the Advance of Service-Learning Excellence, visit www.ccel.msstate.edu/.
Information about the Bagley College of Engineering is found at www.bagley.msstate.edu; its industrial and systems engineering department, at www.ise.msstate.edu.
By: Emile Creel