Benjamin Wagley, MFA

In Fall of 2019, Benjamin became part of the UTA community, teaching in the Department of Art and Art History; he took interest in incorporating service learning into his coursework to be engaged with the community. After being introduced to service learning by a fellow professor, Benjamin applied to the Service Learning Faculty Fellows Program as his starting point. Without a concrete plan on how to implement service learning into his course, he wanted to participate in the program and learn more about it.

By going through the program, Benjamin was able to integrate service learning into his 2D game creation course with the target audience of elementary and middle school students. The service learning aspect of the class consisted of his students creating material to assist elementary and middle school students on subjects they may have difficulty with in the form of a game. With the help of the faculty fellows program, he was able to keep in contact with Arlington ISD and establish a starting point for this project.

According to Benjamin, the faculty fellows program is a welcoming experience with a variety of professors and approachability amongst one another. Being able to hear perspectives from different professors allowed him to utilize what was being taught in the classrooms to further the education of his students. Benjamin believes service learning should be taken into consideration for a multiple of disciplines at UTA because it's able to set an impact beyond the campus setting and engage with the community to enhance student learning.

For faculty integrating a service learning component for the first time, he advises them it's not anything but good. So go ahead and do it.