General Partnership Criteria

The following general partnership criteria applies to service learning at SJSU and all off-campus academic learning partnerships with the California State University (CSU).

Community Organizations:

• Provide students with an orientation to service that includes, but is not limited to an overview of the organization's programs, policies, procedures and clients served; the service or work the student will be performing; placement expectations, including attire and professional conduct; specific training; and, information about any potential hazards or risks.
• Provide student supervision.
• Identify activities or work that may pose a health or safety risk. In the event that additional unforeseen risks become apparent, the organization must communicate in a timely manner all risk-related concerns to SJSU.
• Determine whether such fingerprinting is required.
• Determine whether TB testing is required.

Conducting service learning activities can involve risk. It is important to identify and address potential risks to reduce concerns about liability.

Partnership Process

To partner with our Center and service learning classes, please complete our Partner Proposal Form. Completion of this form enables us to learn more about your organization and the service experiences you would like to make available to students enrolled in SJSU service learning courses.

The person completing this form should be familiar with the learning activities SJSU students will be engaged in as well as the organization’s safety policies and procedures. The information submitted in this form will be used to create a site within the SJS4 database for SJSU community members associated with experiential learning classes.  

After this form is submitted, SJSU staff will review the information and email our University Organization Agreement (UOA) for signature.  The UOA ensures that your organization and SJSU formally acknowledge each other’s responsibilities in this mutually beneficial partnership. In short, the UOA supports our efforts to prepare and monitor students, provide quality service, and appraise your organization of expectations for our students’ quality of experience.

SJS4 is the San José State University instance of CalStateS4 (S4), a web application hosted by the Chancellor’s Office. SJS4 is used to:

• capture service learning student placements;
• facilitate risk management processes required by the CSU for curricular service learning; and
• list approved organization site information.