Controversy is looming over a $38 insurance fee that students are required to pay for participation service-learning experiences off-campus.
John Nolt, professor of philosophy, learned of the relatively new insurance fee as a requirement for students in his environmental ethics class. He said he was shocked by the administrative policy that requires students, in his view, to pay for the opportunity to serve.
“I think it is wrong to charge students a fee for doing community service,” Nolt said. “Our students will be clearing trash from creeks and rivers, doing trail maintenance, growing food sustainably in organic gardens for the benefit of impoverished people, testing water for pollution, caring for abandoned animals and a variety of other projects. The work they do is beneficial to the whole community.”
The fee has been dubbed “Student Professional Liability Insurance” and is mandatory for UT students who would like to learn through service to the community.
“The requirement of a $38 liability fee for classes engaged in experiential learning has been brought to the attention of the Office of the Provost,” Craig Bleakney, service learning coordinator, said. “Students from any college might be required to purchase this insurance when they enter the community to participate in some project.”
The administration held that the fee serves an important purpose that benefits the student body.
“The origin of this fee was for the purpose of protecting students, the university and our community partners when students must leave the university to engage in service as part of a requirement for a class,” Bleakney said. “This began as an effort to protect our nursing students when they worked with patients in the hospital and has since been adopted by many of our colleges to protect our students.”
The fee is devoted to protecting students from potential legal responsibility that could result from their service projects.
“This $38 fee covers students for an entire year from all liability claims made by a third party,” Bleakney said. “If a lawsuit were to arise against a UT student for some reason, the $38 fee starts to look like a really good investment.”
Nolt, however, said he viewed the fee with some concern.
“If anything, we should be paying them,” Nolt said. “If a student organization does this sort of work, their members aren’t charged to do it.”
It is uncertain what effects this policy will have on UT’s involvement with the Knoxville community. Nolt said he foresees undesirable outcomes from the requirement.
“The insurance policy discourages off-campus service learning projects, which the university has been trying to promote, and which are educationally sound and effective,” Nolt said. “Instructors who find the fee and attendant administrative details burdensome or unfair may simply not offer such projects.”
The administration has made it distinctly clear that the fee was not intended to minimize service-learning participation.
“We certainly do not want to hinder students from engaging the community and building learning experiences,” Bleakney said. “However we also have a responsibility to protect our students from litigation should the situation arise.”
Terry Alford, graduate teaching assistant for environmental ethics, saw fit to discuss possible solutions with Nolt.
“When Professor Nolt discovered that students would have to pay $38 in order to participate in a group project that involved activities off campus, we discussed the situation,” Alford said.
Nolt and Alford were troubled by the potential effects of the policy on their service efforts.
“Realizing that the students might not be able to participate in many of the most potentially rewarding projects if they each had to pay the mandatory fee, and believing that participation has the potential to be a major life experience in the domain of environmental stewardship for students, I volunteered that I would be willing to cover the costs of the mandatory insurance if that was needed to go forth with the group projects,” Alford said.
Both saw a need for change in university policy.
“Professor Nolt then took the initiative to pursue policy change, as well as to continue the group projects initiative, and we agreed to split the cost of providing the mandatory insurance for our students if that continues to be necessary,” Alford said.
Nolt sees the fee as too cumbersome for college students to shoulder.
“This policy affects students by increasing the financial burden on them in a way that, so far as I know, is not covered by financial aid,” Nolt said. “Since it discourages faculty from offering service learning, it limits student opportunities to get such experiences.
“Also, students in a course that offers both on-campus and off-campus projects may decide not to do off-campus projects because of the extra expense. This is in part the reason why Terry and I decided to pay the fee for the students. We think it is crucial that many of them go off campus and into the community to experience first hand some of the environmental issues covered by the class.”
Nolt is in the process of working out the insurance-fee payment with the university administration.
“I called the Arts and Sciences Service Learning Coordinator to let her know that Terry Alford and I were coming by with checks to cover the student insurance for our environmental ethics class,” Nolt said. “She said that they would not accept our checks to pay for the students’ insurance immediately, but would accept the student enrollment forms. It is unclear what will happen next.”
While defending the major merits of the policy, the administration is currently working to address student concerns.
“For the extent of the coverage and peace of mind given to our students and our university, the price is wonderful,” Bleakney said. “That being said, the Office of the Provost is actively exploring avenues to minimize this cost to students while still offering the same protection, making it easier for students to be able to participate in these important learning experiences.”
Students who find the policy less than satisfactory are encouraged to get involved.
“Students can promote a change in the policy by making their views known to administrators,” Nolt said. “This can be done most effectively through their SGA representatives.”
