St. Thomas More College offers students a variety of opportunities to engage with the larger community both locally and internationally through the Engaged Learning Office.
Hear more about the work that goes on!
Service and Justice Project (SJP)
This co-curricular program allows students to gain valuable volunteer experience, serve real community needs, and reflect on those experiences in a supportive environment. Every year, up to 30 students are able to participate.
Program Requirements
- Volunteer Placement
Students volunteer an average of two hours per week in the community (16 to 20 hours per term). At the beginning of the school year, interested students meet with a member of the Engaged Learning Office to select a community placement that is relevant to the student’s interests, and is also serving a real community need. The Engaged Learning Office has a variety of different placement options, but with the office’s approval, students can also choose to volunteer with other organization.
- Reflection Sessions
Students are required to attend two reflection sessions each term. These small group discussions, led by mentors, allow students to talk about their volunteer experiences in a supportive environment, think critically about their own assumptions, and connect those back to larger issues of community, solidarity, subsidiarity, and the common good.
- Community Suppers
Students attend four community suppers throughout the year. These suppers are an opportunity to meaningfully connect with community partners, discuss pertinent social and moral issues, and get to know your fellow SJP-ers better.
SJP 2024-2025 information will be available soon. We look forward to hearing from you!
Financial Support for Service & Justice Students
Les and Irene Dubé Service & Justice Scholarship
Each year there are up to 12 Dubé Scholars. These are first year students who have been selected by their own high schools due to their commitment to community service. These students are awarded $2,000 scholarships, endowed by the generous benefactors of STM's Community Service-Learning Program, Les and Irene Dubé.
Les and Irene Dubé Service & Justice Award
St. Thomas More College recognizes that many students have employment commitments which may limit their ability to spend time volunteering. To enable any interested student to participate in the SJP, STM offers a limited number of awards of varying amount. To be eligible for this award, students must be enrolled in at least 3 credit units at St. Thomas More College.
What students say about the SJP
Dr. Jessica Froehlich (2014 SJ Scholar, SJ Award Holder, Participant 2014-2019)
“I am so grateful for the program — both what it taught me and the incredible people I connected with. Through my service learning with the program, I volunteered with the Ronald McDonald House Saskatchewan and L’Arche Saskatoon. I was also connected with both the Intercordia Program and Canadian Roots Exchange which further impacted my journey in understanding social justice and accountability. The program not only included a volunteering requirement, but group discussions and reflections where I could meaningfully think about the work we were doing, why we cared, what impacts it might have, and critically question our intentions and impacts. The program also featured community suppers, where we further learned about social justice in an ethical and sustainable way. I came to university with my heart in the right place and a will to serve. Ultimately, what SJP did for me was to help foster that passion throughout my time as an undergraduate student, where those motivations can often be lost to the stresses and pressure of life as a young adult. More importantly, it helped guide my slightly naive and simple understanding of justice into something more thoughtful, empowering, and ethically responsible.”
Jessica Froehlich is completing her family medicine residency in La Ronge, where she will start working as a staff physician in July 2024. She practices full scope family medicine, offering hospitalist services, covering the very busy and high acuity emergency department, delivering babies, providing palliative care to those in the later stages of life, offering addictions medicine therapies, providing local clinic services for my patient panel, and flying out to four First Nations and Metis communities to provide clinics on a weekly basis.
Joi Ines (2019 SJ Scholar, SJP Award Holder, Participant 2019-23)
“SJP was instrumental in helping me apply what I learned in the classroom to the world around me. In my time with SJP, I volunteered with the International Women of Saskatoon and Saskatoon Open Door Society to serve newcomers to Canada. Through my volunteer work and reflection sessions with my peers at SJP, I was challenged to critically and compassionately draw connections between the social structures governing our daily lives and their asymmetrical effects on different groups. SJP encouraged me to seek change both on the macro and micro scale. I learned that while zooming out to see the bigger picture of social injustices is essential, it is equally critical to meet people where they are at. These perspectives are foundational to my education as a law student and will continue to be in my future career as a legal professional.”
Joi Ines graduated with a BA in Political Studies (2023). She is a second-year law student, J.D. Candidate 2026, at the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan. She works at Legal Aid Saskatchewan as a Summer Student.
Joshua Smith (2011 SJ Scholar, SJP Award Holder, Participant 2011-2015)
“SJP played an important role in my university education. I was a member of the program for all four years of my undergrad. Through our monthly suppers, I felt part of a vibrant Catholic community and was inspired by a variety of speakers who spoke about their work for the common good. Through monthly discussions I was able to reflect and think critically about how what I was studying could make a positive difference in the real world. This thinking translated into my life. I’ve spent seven years working alongside people with disabilities at L’Arche Saskatoon, which I can trace directly back to my experience with SJP as it was my final volunteer placement. I would also say that the seeds planted in my discussions with SJP have inspired me to pursue decolonization through education as I begin my journey as a teacher by pursuing a Bachelor of Education through SUNTEP in September.”
Joshua Smith is a filmmaker and father. Born and raised in Lloydminster, he lives in Saskatoon and is a proud citizen of the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan. As a member of L’Arche Saskatoon, he has worked alongside people with and without disabilities to tell stories through art. In September, he will begin a Bachelor of Education through SUNTEP at the U of S.
Kasia Wicijowski (SJP Award Holder, Participant 2019-2022)
“When I first moved to Saskatoon from Regina for university, I was unsure about how to get involved in the community. I had enjoyed volunteering in Regina, but did not know how to start in a new city. I was introduced to Caitlin and SJP, and immediately knew this was the program for me. SJP gave me the opportunity to interact with and aid marginalized populations including inner city youth, immigrants, and the elderly. SJP ignited a passion in me for learning from those with different backgrounds than my own and I know the experiences I had in this program will enable me to be a caring and compassionate physician in my future career.”
Kasia Wicijowski is in her second year of medical school at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus. She is currently living in Ile a la Crosse for the summer, volunteering with and learning from the community through the Global Health Program. She applied to this program because she wanted to continue the work she started with SJP, serving underprivileged communities.
H-ELP
Health Care Engaged Learning Project
Are you interested in gaining practical research experience while still an undergraduate? Are you interested in pursuing medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology? We have the program for you!
The Health Care Engaged Learning Project (H-ELP) provides students with meaningful ways to learn applicable skills in healthcare research, especially data collection from patients and patients’ families. In the first term, students will learn key concepts in research ethics, privacy and confidentiality of health information, patient-oriented research, Indigenous health, sex and gender, and equity in healthcare. In the second term, students will have hands-on experience collecting Patient-Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) in partnership with the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA). Training will be provided in partnership with the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient-Oriented Research (SCPOR), the University of Saskatchewan, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The project aims to provide students with a unique experience to not only develop crucial skills in healthcare research but also contribute to quality improvement initiatives within the Saskatchewan Health Authority with the collection of PREMs. These metrics are necessary to inform policies and improve healthcare in the province.
If you would like to hear more about the program, please contact Project Coordinator Kelly Heinemann (kelly.heinemann@usask.ca).
You can apply here: https://forms.office.com/r/5v1MemubE8
Community Service-Learning in STM Classes
Students can participate in Community Service-Learning as part of their academic program in a variety of courses.
Students are paired with a community organization relevant to the class they are taking, and are given an alternative set of assignments that engage with their volunteer experience. The Engaged Learning Office has many community partners that students can work with, but students are also able to work with a community partner of their choosing, as long as they have approval from the Engaged Learning Office and their professor.
For more information about which STM courses will have CSL options, please contact Caitlin Ward, Manager of Engaged Learning at cward@stmcollege.ca
STM Classes with CSL
Courses offering CSL options in Fall 2024:
CPSJ 203.3 Cultivating Humanity
CPSJ 310.3 Peace Theory and Praxis
ENG 114.3 (63) Literature and Composition Reading Culture
PSY 214.3 Adolescent Development
RLST 362.3 Monsters and Mischief Makers
Courses offering CSL options in Winter 2025:
ENG 114.3 (66) Literature and Composition Reading Culture Disability and Literature
ENG 215.3 Life Writing
PSY 216.3 (62) Psychology of Aging
RLST 328.3 Jewish Christian Relations in Historical Perspective
SOC 112.3 (62) Foundations in Sociology: Social Construction of Everyday Life
Community partners CSL has worked with in 2023-24. (Look for our list of partners for 2024-25, coming soon):
St. Ann’s Senior Citizen’s Village
Usask Recreation Centre
International Women of Saskatoon
Just Youth
Museum of Antiquities
Study Abroad
Given the current global climate, STM has not yet made a decision concerning the viability of study abroad for spring 2025.
Not Offered in 2024-25
There is no better way to understand the Spanish of Latin Americans than by traveling to Latin America yourself! This St. Thomas More College study abroad offers students the unique opportunity to learn about Latin American Spanish by traveling to communities in and around la Cordillera de Talamanca, the interior mountain range in Panama.
Using an experiential learning model, this 3 credit unit course will help students understand the colonial history and contemporary reality of the Spanish language in Latin America. Rather than working in a classroom in Panama, students take the majority of this course’s instruction in Saskatoon for 3 weeks with Dr. Allison Smith. Students then immerse themselves in the language and culture of interior Panama for 2 weeks, living with families in the town of Santa Fe. Students will meet with some of the founders of La Cooperativa La Esperanza de Los Campesinos, observe small-scale sustainable sugar, coffee, and rice production, and drink coffee that was grown and roasted within walking distance of the house in which they are staying.
To learn more, visit the Panama Field Study program page.
On hiatus during conflict in Ukraine
Develop an understanding and appreciation of Ukrainian language and culture through this study abroad experience! This five-week full-immersion program accelerates students’ learning of the language while also introducing them to the culture of Western Ukraine.
Students attend Ukrainian language classes on weekdays at Ternopil National Pedagogical University, with regular tutorials to develop students’ comprehension and spoken language skills. Students stay with host families who live within easy traveling distance of the university, both to fully immerse themselves in Ukrainian culture and to accelerate their language skills. Students will also have opportunities to visit the mountains and villages surrounding the city of Ternopil, as well as take in the unique architecture of this historical city.
To learn more, visit the Spring Session in Ukraine program page.
Not offered in 2024-25
This 8-week immersive service-learning experience challenges assumptions about poverty, development, and culture by inviting students to live with and learn from communities in Dominican Republic, Ecuador, or Panama.
We invite students to live with host families and work in grassroots community organizations in one of these three countries: students can choose to live with campesino (peasant farmer) communities in the Cordillera Central (central mountain range) of Dominican Republic and work on tree-planting brigades or with coffee nurseries; students can live Indigenous Quechua families in the Ecuadorean Andes and work in community-run daycare centres, medical clinics, or in schools; students can also choose to live with campesino families in Santa Fe, Veraguas, Panamá and work with the town’s impressive cooperative, La Cooperativa La Esperanza de Los Campesinos, now nearly 50 years old.
Using a service-learning model, the Intercordia experience begins months before students actually depart! Students complete ENG 215.3 in the winter term to prepare them academically for the experience, and complete RLST 377.3 while abroad. Rather than learning in a classroom during spring term, however, students are invited to reflect upon concepts they learned in their winter-term class and see how they apply, or don’t apply, to their lived experience.
In addition to academic courses, students also participate in four co-curricular seminars that prepare them practically, philosophically, and emotionally. Upon returning to Canada, students also participate in a 2-day reintegration seminar to help them process their experiences in a supportive environment.
To learn more, visit the Intercordia program page.
MCC Seminar in Ottawa
The dates and details for the MCC seminar in the academic year 2024-2025 are yet to be announced.
Canadian Roots Exchange
The Engaged Learning Office is not able to support students attending Canada Roots Exchange for the 2024-25 year.
Engaged Learning Fund
St. Thomas More College is committed to providing its students with opportunities for community engagement throughout their undergraduate experience. The Engaged Learning Office manages academic community service-learning, the extracurricular Service & Justice Project, and various study abroad programs.
In addition to these programs administered through STM, students have a variety of opportunities to participate in extracurricular community engagement projects and events, such as solidarity trips, UN Study Sessions on social justice issues, or Saskatoon events with a social justice theme. With that in mind, the Engaged Learning Office established the Engaged Learning Fund to help offset the cost of non-college specific CSL-related experiences.
St. Thomas More College students are invited to apply to the Engaged Learning Fund at any time throughout the year. We consider the following criteria in deliberating over applications:
- The event/project has a clearly defined social justice and/or service-learning component.
- The event/project must harmonize with if not implicitly promote STM’s Catholic mission.
- The event/project will be beneficial to the student, to STM, and/or to the larger community.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Caitlin Ward, Manager of Engaged Learning at cward@stmcollege.ca
Community Partners
The Engaged Learning Office partners with a variety of community-based organizations, locally, nationally, and internationally! Our students work with these groups in many ways, whether they are offering support to existing programs or developing new projects.
National and International Partners
Canadian Roots Exchange (Canada)
La Cooperativa La Esperanza de Los Campesinos (Panama)
La Federación de Campesinos Hacía El Progreso (Dominican Republic)
Fundación Reto Internacional (Ecuador)
Ternopil Pedagogical University (Ukraine)
Local Partners
Central Haven Special Care Home
Hands On Outreach and Development Centre
International Women of Saskatoon
Namaste Care Program at Saskatoon Convalescent Home
P.A.A.L. (Physical Activity for Active Living)
Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre
St. Ann’s Senior Citizen’s Village
St. Maria Goretti Community School
Are you interested in becoming a partner of the STM Engaged Learning Office?
We are always interested in exploring new partnerships with organizations who work with marginalized communities. If you are interested in finding volunteers through STM programs, we’d like to hear from you! There are a couple of things we would like you to know:
National and International Partners
We’re happy to have a conversation about prospective national and international partnerships. However, since education abroad and immersive service-learning is resource-intensive, please know that we rarely take on new national or international partners!
Local Partners
Most of our local programming requires that students volunteer an average of two hours per week in the community. This does not have to be an exact two hour shift every week, but we would like students to have a regular volunteering commitment throughout the term that adds up to roughly 20 hours. We find generally that it is best for both students and community partners if students have a regular weekly commitment.
With some exceptions, our programs run for an average of two and a half months: from late September to early December, and from late January to early April. Though some students do stay on to volunteer past this commitment, we can’t guarantee it. Because we do volunteer intake in September and January, the best times to get in touch with us to explore a prospective partnership are August and November.
If you are interested in partnering with the Engaged Learning Office, please contact csl@stmcollege.ca.