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Creating an Audience for Change Presenting your research brings Walden’s mission to life.
 Sheri Baxter In her presentation, “National Service Learning: Redefining Citizenship to Connect Citizens and the Community,” Baxter called for the incorporation of national service learning in every public school with involvement required for all K–12 students. Creating an Audience for Change Baxter says it was Walden’s social change mission that inspired her to submit her proposal to ASPA. “Unless you adopt all three levels of change—product, values and actions—the social change mission doesn’t mean anything,” she says. By presenting her research on a panel, Baxter says, “I felt like I was doing more to contribute to that social change by communicating with others in the field.” Personal Improvement Through Community Involvement Baxter says national service learning programs encourage civic involvement and interest, and this involvement translates classroom learning into real-life experiences. She witnessed this firsthand back in the 1990s, when she worked with the Association for Volunteer Administration in Anchorage, Alaska. “I saw the impact of youth getting more involved,” Baxter says. Her research originated in a project she did for her sixth Knowledge Area Module (KAM) and draws on the writings of several noted scholars in the field, including Robert Putnam, a Harvard University professor who has found that children involved in national service learning become better citizens, are more confident, exhibit cognitive gains, earn better test scores and have higher graduation rates. Baxter asserts there is a crucial need for U.S. citizens to take an active role in civic culture, particularly since participation has declined in recent years. She believes civic involvement can be rekindled through national service learning programs, with an emphasis on public service. A Seasoned Presenter Along with the March talk, Baxter made two other presentations on national service learning last year and wrote a journal article on the subject. Baxter has spoken at professional conferences on this and other topics for more than a decade. She credits her work as an adjunct professor at the universities of Alaska, Montana and Maryland with her comfort in public speaking. Baxter urges anyone who is interested in presenting at conferences not to “create an idea for a paper or research to fit a specific conference. It should be something you are already interested in and working on,” she says.
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