Graduate students Hilary Rasmussen and Josh Miller

The UWM Report featured an unusual service-learning opportunity for Leslie Harris’s Rhetorical Leadership students. In her course Argument Theory and Practice, students experienced real-life situations within Milwaukee area community services organizations. Harris, Associate Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Leadership, worked with UWM’s Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership and Research to identify Milwaukee-area organizations that might benefit from student’s knowledge and skills in communication. Harris explained that the theories of communication can teach students how to connect and persuade, and that the purpose of class projects in the community was “to connect the theories they were learning in class to the real world.”

Doctoral students Hilary Rasmussen and Josh Miller worked with the Milwaukee Health Department to create effective messages about healthy beaches because of  their interest in environmental issues. Other students chose to work for the Milwaukee Center for Children and Youth, Wisconsin for the American Civil Liberties Union, Sojourner Family Peace Center, and the Center for Aging and Translational Research.

The Argument Theory and Practice class was held during the 2015 fall semester, but many of the students volunteered to finish their projects or continue working with their organizations.

Read the complete story on the UWM Report.