UMD News

Director of Public Relations:
Susan Beasy Latto, slatto@d.umn.edu
315 Darland Administration Bldg.
1049 University Drive
Duluth, MN 55812
(218) 726-8830 Cell: (218) 348-5688
Fax: (218) 726-7413

April 6, 2006

Contact:
Susan Beasy Latto, Director, UMD Public Relations 218 726-8830 slatto@d.umn.edu
Karen L. Marsh, Asst Professor, UMD Department of Psychology 218 726-7117 kmarsh@.d.umd.edu

This Spring Semester, about 500 UMD students in Professor Karen Marsh's General Psychology classes are completing a total of 5,000 hours of volunteer work in the Duluth community. Each individual student worked a total of ten hours volunteering in the community as a part of this massive class project.

The purpose of the volunteer project class assignment was to put students in a setting where they could apply what they had learned in class to the experience of direct community involvement. Students were placed in a large number of sites at schools and in the community. They worked at soup kitchens, tutoring elementary school children, coaching, providing assistance to hospitals and humane societies, and helping with adolescent groups and other community organizations.

The large project was a joint effort of the UMD Department of Psychology and the Darland Connection, a non-profit organization supported by UMD, and located within the UMD College of Education and Human Service Professions,

On March 2, the UMD students conducted a Poster Session titled "Psychology in the Community Presentations" where they demonstrated what they had learned through their many out-reach experiences.