"It's very revolutionary," said Maureen Rubin, director of CSUN's Center for Community-Service Learning. "The idea is to have faculty who have experience teaching community service classes to mentor new faculty who are interested in doing it but aren't quite sure how."

The university currently offers approximately 50 community service-learning classes in which students do projects in the community that are tied to the curriculum of their courses.

Nonprofit and public organizations benefit from the students' work, while professors help the students understand the connection between the tasks they perform and their academic course work.

Projects have included bringing music from around the world to elementary and middle school students, creating a "Lunchtime Handbook" for people serving jury duty in downtown Los Angeles, teaching at-risk youths in foster care the skills they need to function independently in society, teaching the elderly how to use the internet and serving as teaching assistants in middle schools.

Eight faculty members have been awarded $1,500 each to start new community service courses:

• Music professor Ron Borczon for "Integrating Music Therapy at the Therapeutic Living Centers for the Blind;"
• Art professor Leonardo Bravo for "Creative Community Interactions;"
• Chicano/a studies professor Gabriel Buelna for "Las Palmas Park Technology Project;"
• Art professor Paula Jeppson for "Art for the Exceptional Child;
• Theatre professor Doug Kaback for "Developing Theatre for Young Audiences with Teenagers on Probation;"
• Art professor Russell McMillin, for "Gallery Community Involvement and Education;"
• Secondary education professor David Moguel for "Building Civic Engagement and Responsibility in Teacher Education;" and
• Health sciences professor Debra Sheets for "The Effects of Poverty on Health."

Eight faculty received grants so they can present papers on community-service learning at conferences across the country. They are Janna Beling, English professor Elizabeth Kessler, psychology professor Luciana Lagana, kinesiology professor Steven Loy, Ahmad Sarfaraz, manufacturing systems engineering professor Tarek Shraibati, communication studies professor Kathryn Sorrells and Virginia Vandergon.

Four grants also were awarded to academic departments - health sciences, accounting and information sciences, art and educational psychology and counseling - to encourage the development of more service-learning classes.

California State University, Northridge has more than 30,000 full- and part-time students and offers 63 bachelor's and 51 master's degrees. Founded in 1958, it is the only four-year university in the San Fernando Valley and the third largest in the 23-campus CSU system. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges recently said CSUN "stands as a model to other public urban institutions of higher education.