Service Learning

Professor Wayne Tanna wrote: Students in Advanced Taxation participated in a Service-Learning project as part of their course requirements. The project involved doing tax returns for people who are living in homeless transition shelters (Maililand and Loliana, Sponsored by Catholic Charities, and the Weinberg homeless village in Waimanalo) and homeless emergency shelters (The Institute for Human Services – IHS – men’s and women’s shelters). The work was done at these various sites. Since the work was done at the actual sites and not on the Chaminade Campus or in some posh Bishop Street Office, the experience provided an awakening for many of our students. The Chaminade students prepared both federal and state tax returns for homeless and low-income people. The experience was beneficial for all: the students, while providing a meaningful and valuable service, got to learn and further develop their interviewing and tax preparation skills. I, as the instructor, got to take a part of my usual teaching out of the classroom and into a real life situation. The clients got assistance in legal and tax compliance that all citizens have a duty to fulfill but for one reason or another they could not do it by themselves.

Beyond the academic and technical aspects required to be a successful accountant, the students also were exposed to a social policy issue. That issue revolved around the basic need for a tax system and why such a system is so difficult to adhere to. Additionally, students were pushed into asking the questions: Why do the poor and the homeless need to be concerned with taxes? Why are the poor and the homeless taxed to begin with?

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, on 4 March 1999, reported that the tax tab for Hawaii’s poor is the second largest in the U.S. The threshold for tax liability for a family of four in Hawaii is $6100, less than half of the national poverty level ($16,550.00). The students know from class that the standard deduction for a married couple filing a joint return is $6900 and that the four personal exemptions at $2700 each come out to a total of $17,700. They also know that these amounts were set by Congress because they roughly approximate the poverty-line income level for a family of four in the U.S.

As a result, some students ask why the state taxes those who have so little to begin with. Hopefully, this leads to thoughts and discussions as to equity or inequity among different groups in the state. Hopefully, this Service-Learning experience has started the students thinking about why the state’s policy is the way it is and how it could be changed to lessen the burden on those who are least able to pay. Borrowing from anthropologist Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraus, from their work entitled “Aspects of the Present”, we offer a salute to our students who have forgotten, remembered and now learned something of substance about themselves and their abilities.

“We live in a society that has always depended on volunteers of different kinds – some who can give money, others who give time and a great many who freely give of their special skills, full-time or part-time. If you look closely, you will see that almost anything that really matters to us, anything that embodies our deepest commitment to the way human life should be lived and cared for depends on some form – more often, many forms – of volunteerism.”

To this we humbly add Service-Learning.

The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll recognizes colleges and universities nationwide that support innovative and effective community service and service-learning programs. The Honor Roll’s Presidential Award is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning, and civic engagement.

• In 2007, Chaminade University was one of only 3 to be awarded “Presidential Award for Service to Youth from Disadvantaged Circumstances.”
• In 2006, Chaminade University was one of 10 to be awarded “Presidential Award FINALIST for Excellence in General Community Service.“

Award Levels:

• The Presidential Award is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive.
• About 100 were given titles of “Honor Roll, with Distinction”.
• Over 500 were accepted to the Honor Roll.

Selection Criteria:

• Reviewer evaluations of the scope, innovativeness, and evidence of effectiveness of the service projects described in the application.
• Percentage of total student enrollment engaged in community service activities and academic service-learning courses.
• Percentage of total student enrollment engaged in at least 20 hours of community service per semester.
• Extent to which the institution offers academic service-learning courses.
• Whether the institution requires academic service-learning
• Whether the institution rewards the use of academic service-learning through faculty promotion and tenure decisions, or other means.
• The institution’s Federal Work-Study community service participation rate.
• Whether community service or service-learning is cited in the institution’s mission statement or strategic plan.

Much of the work that was highlighted in the award application centers on Palolo Valley. Our community partners, faculty, and students collaborate with the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Kapiolani Community College to provide tutoring, early childhood/family education, computer literacy, and more. Chaminade’s service-learning classes focus on diversity in these broad, entry-level tutoring programs. Then, as students progress in their majors and gain specialized knowledge, they move down a “pathway” of service-learning projects that allow them to apply that specialization to help the community. The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) project, for example, prepares intermediate accounting majors for the senior-level VITA project and the nonprofit consulting projects.

A quote from CUH President Sue Wesselkamper:
“As an institution for higher learning, Chaminade University emphasizes integrated service-learning as a way to enrich its academic curriculum. By using service opportunities as deliberate learning opportunities, this integrated approach helps our students to develop skills, broaden their understanding and knowledge base, as well as build awareness and sensitivity to diversity. In our service-learning Pathway of Projects, we worked together to address issues systemically and with intentionality, building tracts for student leadership and deepening engagement across semesters. 

We thank our students, faculty, staff, and community partners for their commitment to service and humbly accept the CNCS recognition on their behalf.”

A quote from Candice Sakuda, CUH Director of Service-Learning:
“Chaminade is a small university with a big heart and many willing hands. What is especially meaningful about the President’s Award is that the work we do in our own local communities can be of national significance.”

Recommendations from the Awards Panel

• This award should give Chaminade the momentum to KEEP UP the impressive work.
• We should look to the examples for which we’ve won, to inspire service-learning pathways in other disciplines. All areas should encourage students to sustain service through leadership.
• We should keep focusing on quality integration of service-learning – not as an “add-on,” but as an integral part of academic education.
• We should encourage faculty participation through the formal valuation of service-learning and community-based research in the RTP process.

The Foundation for Excellent Schools’ Century Program, TCP, continued to do great work mentoring at Waimanalo Elementary and Intermediate School for its second semester. In this article, CUH student Keith Davis shares his experiences:

On March 4th, 2006, four Chaminade Ethics and Criminal Justice students coordinated the first annual Farrington High School Challenge Day as a service-learning project through Chaminade. The event, supported by four military volunteers, thirteen Chaminade Wahine Volleyball Team members, and one civilian volunteer, took place at Schofield Barracks’ Leadership Reaction Course (LRC). Thirty nine Farrington High School mentorship program students and one Moanalua High School student participated. Observing the day’s activities in a supervisory role were the CJ 332 professor and a Farrington High School vice principal, two teachers and three prospective mentors. The Challenge Day 2006 objectives were to provide the students with physical, mental, and ethical challenges through a fun variety of events. To accomplish this, the students would run several team based races, be faced with three ethical situations, and run through several LRC obstacles. The ethical situations were prepared by [us students]. The LRC obstacles, whose scenarios were modified to be appropriate for high school students, are laid out to be physically and mentally challenging while forcing participants to work together as a team.

This service-learning project allowed us to fulfill our civic responsibility to a community of high school students. By coordinating Challenge Day, we were able to actively participate in the public life of a community in an informed, committed, and constructive manner, with a focus on the common good.

Realizing that the students involved were from an area where their expectations for the future were low, our desire to make this event a motivating experience drove us to a standard of excellence that might not have been present otherwise. As we prepared for Challenge Day, we felt that we were preparing an event that would allow us to give students in our community an opportunity to see that they can do more than they ever imagined and that setting goals for themselves, both short term and long term, would lead them to successful futures. This experience has left me with a great appreciation of the principles of service-learning.

Part of the college educational process is participating in service-learning projects that lead to the fulfillment of one’s civic responsibility. This aspect of learning is often the most challenging to begin because we come into such experiences with more questions than answers.

Human beings are eager to help others; however, we typically only want to help others as long as we are able to do so within our own comfort zone. Once we break out of our comfort zone and see how rewarding service-learning can be in an unfamiliar setting or situation, we then open up to serving in any number of situations.

Dr. Gail Grabowsky’s students spent most of their service-learning time in the Waianae Mountains, in The Nature Conservancy’s Honouliuli Preserve. They did a lot of hard, dirty work trying to replant a native forest there and teaching high school students how to do the same. Having picked up the tools of their trade, they proceeded on a short hike to the work site.

The kinds of work required ranged from pulling “weeds” (exotic plants) to watering existing plants, mulching and planting new growth.

One student wrote:

“Volunteering in situations like this makes me feel good, both inside and out. Waking up at a ridiculous hour, driving out into the country and hiking up a mountain all helped me physically. By the end of the day, my hands hurt, not to mention my arms and my back, but the hurt was a good feeling. It felt like I just finished a vigorous workout but did something meaningful and productive in the process. Being up in the mountains, in the clean air and the cool wind, is actually really relaxing. Every once in a while we would take a break and listen to the birds sing. These are the memories that stand out the strongest in my mind. The ones where I really got to know my classmates and sweat and work side by side with them, all for a common cause.”

“A cleared space provides a safe haven for the new plants, with filtered sunshine instead of the direct hot rays characteristic of O’ahu’s leeward side.”

Another student wrote:

“… my [service-learning] experience was wonderful! I learned that we need to respect life because there are a lot of things out there against us. Same with the plants, we need to respect nature because it gives to us in ways we do not even know. I also learned that if we do not intervene, there probably would be hardly any native plants left in the islands. I feel I have a greater appreciation for plants and their life because now I see the color and life they have given to each of us. No matter how much we say we know what nature gives to us, we will never really understand until it is all taken away.

“kuleana” – Right, privilege, concern, responsibility, title, business, property, estate, portion, jurisdiction, authority, liability, interest, claim, ownership, tenure, affair, province; reason, cause, function, justification.

“pono” – a Hawaiian word commonly rendered as “righteousness”. The Hawaii state motto: “Ua mau ke kea o ka `aina i ka pono” or “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness”  Goodness, uprightness, morality, moral qualities, correct or proper procedure, excellence, well-being, prosperity, welfare, benefit, behalf, equity, sake, true condition or nature, duty; moral, fitting, proper, righteous, right, upright, just, virtuous, fair, beneficial, successful, in perfect order, accurate, correct, eased, relieved; should, ought, must, necessary

Hawai’i is known for its welcoming hospitality, it’s aloha – the unconditional extension of trust and friendship.    Here in Hawai’i the common definition of “kuleana”  is “rights and duties or accountability and responsible stewardship.”  In comparison to most communities, the academic community has immense resources that most institutions are loath to share.  Still, the vast majority of institutions of higher education institutions constantly bemoan their “poverty.”  Yet to those who much is given, much is expected.

Universities worldwide have a “kuleana” to make things in their communities, local, national and global, more “pono”.  Both the academy as well as individual academics have a duty to enhance the general welfare and prosperity of the less fortunate in their communities.  Actions that perpetuate righteousness can start as close as their own neighborhoods.  Academics have for too long been guilty of telling the third biggest lie when they say that “I am from the university and I am here to help you.”  For those of us who are involved with educating and empowering business leaders at all levels, we should be aware of how our engagement prepares those we work with, both in and out of the university, to do well and to do good.

Wayne M. Tanna, Professor of Accounting at Chaminade University in Honolulu, Hawaii has developed and implemented service-learning initiatives in his classes to further his students’ educational experiences.  Building on the Hawaiian values of “kuleana” and “pono“, he regularly involves students in activities where service in the field fits into a course curriculum to include tax clinics at homeless shelters and pro-bono legal service assistance in low income communities.  Mr. Tanna has made presentations on service-learning at numerous state, regional and national conferences.  As an exemplary role model for the Chaminade University Marianist community, his volunteer efforts, community non-profit work and activities has garnered him numerous local and national awards and recognitions from the State of Hawaii to the American Bar Association.

This year alone, Mr. Tanna, his students and community collaborators provided tax assistance to over 8,200+ in Hawaii, resulting in over $7.2  million in tax refunds.  Their assistance on tax returns for the homeless and indigent have made the difference in providing the needed deposits for housing to help people out of their homeless situation and  the extra funds for  provisions for transportation, meals and basic daily needs.

As a professor, he teaches classes in taxation, accounting, business law, ethics, management, international law, environmental studies, history, political science, education and pastoral leadership.  Mr. Tanna holds a Bachelors Degree from the University of Hawaii, a Juris Doctor from Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College and an LL.M. in taxation from McGeorge School of Law.  Mr. Tanna is currently licensed to practice law before all Hawaii State Courts, Federal Courts, U.S. Tax Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.