Antioch Hall, Antioch College, courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

While undergraduates across the nation sit in enormous lecture halls enduring their required courses and wondering, “What does this theory have to do with me?” undergraduates at Antioch University sit in a cozy group setting and thoughtfully ponder Professor Hymon T. Johnson’s philosophy, “theory without practice is pointless.”

Its all part of the school’s Service-Learning in the Community seminar, which is required for all undergraduates. Johnson recently took his class to the Santa Barbara Zoo, where they hosted 34 special needs children from El Camino, Ellwood and McKinley Schools, as well as eight of their teachers and teacher’s aides. This was all part of Antioch’s Annual Community Service Day, which began five years ago out of his desire to teach students, faculty, and staff the importance of “connecting in the community in which you live.”

The school has a very unique mission, “to make the world a better place.” The class really changes their way of seeing the world, said Johnson, a former UCSB professor and Goleta Union and Crane Country Day School board member.

Kym Mathers, a psychology major, said community service day was a great experience and a bit of stereotype buster. She had three boys in her group and said they were “bright, articulate, with great vocabularies,” adding, “these were not at all what you think of when you say handicapped children.”

Sitting in on one of the service-learning students’ Monday night meetings, they talked about their community service internships and related the text — which includes writings from a variety of academics, as well as the five major religious traditions — to things that were going on in their own lives.

Volunteering in the pediatrics unit at Cottage Hospital, Nicole Weaver, a psychology student, said she absolutely loves it. “I’m learning a lot about how to give my time other people.”

Ryan Ptucha, a communications major who is doing his internship at Devereux, said he was struck by how much attention his special needs charges required.

“I keep having to remember what it is to serve,” said Susan Utter, a psychology student who bemoaned the “dry, clerical tasks” she was asked to perform in her internship at the SLO Hep C Project in San Luis Obispo.

Wendy Barchat , a business major volunteering at the Single Parent Community Resource Center, is herself a single parent, and said it was difficult for her not to do “everything and then some, short of sending a check out of my own pocket,” for the people she was serving, “at the price of my own family.”

When Barchat commented about the difficulty of becoming too involved with the people she was serving, Johnson took that opportunity to lead the class into a lively discussion on codependent relationships and when the best help is no help.

“Critical thinking and diverse perspectives guide our curriculum,” explained Johnson, as his students discussed the writings of work of Ram Dass, Mother Teresa and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“I keep coming across things in the reading that fit exactly what I’m going through in my life,” said Utter.

That’s what should happen, said her professor with a knowing smile. “This is what education is supposed to do, not just fill our heads but also fill our hearts.”

For more information about Antioch University and Service-Learning in the Community call 962.8179 or visit www.antiochsb.edu.

Originally published in SuperOnda Magazine in May 2005.