Center for Service, Spirituality, and Social Justice (CS3) will now operate as separate entities as The Center for Civic Learning & Action (CCLA) and Center for Spirituality & Social Justice (CSSJ) and have separate goals.

In January 2019, Gary Kirk, associate provost & executive director of the CCLA, was named the executive founding director, according to the Dickinson College website.

CCLA will focus on mosaic programs, Justice is Served, Civic Learning, Commserv, Service Trips, Montgomery Service Leaders, among other programs, according to their website. “CCLA’s approach to civic engagement includes both curricular and co-curricular opportunities […] we hope to create more intentional linkages between civic learning in the classroom, academic service-learning, and community-based research courses, and community engagement programs that occur outside the classroom,” Kirk explained. 

CSSJ will work to promote interfaith dialogue, training and experiences with faculty and students. It is also intended to develop a campus where students and faculty will respect and appreciate others’ religious practices, according to the CSSJ website.

CS3 focused both on service and spirituality, but with the split, “both areas are able to get the full attention of professional staff as well as student workers,” Donna Hughes, director of the center for spirituality and social justice said. 

When CS3 split, college funding was split with funding for student wages and funding for CCLA. Provost Neil Weissman explained that the funding for the old CS3 has been split between the new offices, and that because the majority of the funding for CS3 had been used for service, the CCLA has the larger budget, compared to the CSSJ.

However, the creation of CCLA was funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For CommServ and Service Trips, two programs that CCLA runs, funding comes from Student Senate. Kirk explained that “the remainder of the CCLA budget comes from grant funds, support from Academic Affairs, and student wage funding from community Federal Work-Study placements.” Kirk continued that students are fundraising for “additional funds to support our programs, especially Service Trips, through events like the Color Rush on November 9th.”