Service Learning Commons^™

Structurally Framing Service Learning As Teaching Excellence: An Examination Of Collaborative Efforts Between Community Engagement And Faculty Development Centers, James Morgan Lewing, Lisa Bunkowski

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This study explores collaborations between faculty development centers and service learning and community engagement structures at public institutions awarded the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement. Utilizing semi-structured interviews with five chief academic officers, none of the respondents stated intentional collaborations were present at their respective institutions. The study underscores the need for strategic alignment to institutionalize community engagement, avoiding siloing and enhancing sustainability through faculty development initiatives that promote teaching excellence.

Carry On: A Multi-Campus Faculty Perspective On The Barriers And Facilitators To Implementing Service Learning Curriculum During A Global Pandemic, Adrianne Widaman, Kirsten Leisses Tuck

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Service learning (SL) faculty faced substantial and unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to explore SL faculty perspectives during the crisis. Higher education faculty who taught SL designated courses during 2020/2021 identified and prioritized challenges and strategies to teaching SL courses without direct person contact. A total of 144 unique responses were collected from 16 faculty from 5 universities using the nominal group technique, a qualitative and quantitative method. Highly ranked themes included the emotional burden felt by the faculty, decreased student learning, a lack of faculty time, the need for alternative assignments, and …

Promoting Healthy Aging Through An Intergenerational Service-Learning Course, Tricia Pierce, Eric Hubbard, Shalini Persaud

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This case study examines combining service-learning (SL) with an intergenerational exercise program using undergraduate kinesiology students. The purpose was to explore how SL increases confidence, social responsibility, and leadership growth while addressing community needs. Students led biweekly exercise sessions for older adults over six weeks. Reflections demonstrated mutual benefits, including improved activity levels, reduced social isolation, and strengthened community connections.

Enhancing Undergraduate Education Through Social Innovation Projects: The Experience Of A Young University In Singapore, Intan Azura Mokhtar, Yong Lim Foo

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In this paper, social innovation is used as a catch-all phrase for projects and initiatives by higher education institutions (HEIs) related to community engagement, community-based learning, and service-learning. This paper explores the concept and application of social innovation in higher education, followed by a case study of implementing social innovation projects in a young, applied learning university in Singapore, a discussion of lessons learned, and plans for the near future in enhancing and strengthening its implementation.

Navigating The Academic Terrain: Examining The Challenges And Success Factors Of Student Veterans In Higher Education Institutions, Katherine Reyes, Corey Idleburg

Education Division Scholarship

This study investigates the academic experiences of student veterans, addressing specific challenges they face in higher education. Using Schlossberg’s adult transition theory, it explores the effects of invisible barriers, enrollment trends, and institutional factors on veteran student success, leveraging the VA’s GI Bill Comparison tool to examine public versus private school support. Findings underscore the need for targeted resources, faculty training, and institutional awareness to foster a supportive and inclusive environment that enhances veteran students' academic success and sense of belonging.

Reimagining The Faculty Role In Community Engagement, Nadine Dolby

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In this Forum commentary, I discuss my experience as a faculty member starting a community-based nonprofit organization, Animal Advocates of Greater Lafayette. Since founding the organization in 2019, I have moved between the roles of faculty and organization president, finding ways to create new pedagogical spaces that lead to community-based social change. I suggest that establishing nonprofit organizations are one avenue for faculty community engagement to address social injustices and inequities

Exploring The Impact Of Community-Engaged Programs On Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes Toward Intellectual Disability, Jennifer L. Jones, Kami L. Gallus, Amber Manning-Ouellette

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Positive outcomes for students have motivated educators to identify effective strategies for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in people with intellectual disability (ID), a minoritized population often excluded from DEI efforts. The current study investigated undergraduate student attitudes toward ID and compared changes in attitudes following participation in one of two community-engaged programs alongside adults with ID. Findings indicate both programs were effective in changing all three components of students’ attitudes: affect, cognition, and behaviors.

Learning With Maryland’S Immigrant Communities: Digital Storytelling As Community Engagement, Thania Muñoz Davaslioglu, Tania Lizarazo

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In this article, we explore digital storytelling as a community-engaged pedagogy to create students’ immigration stories in Maryland as part of the project “Intercultural Tales: Learning with Maryland’s Immigrant Communities.” Stories highlight students’ lived experiences of immigration, language, and identity. By envisioning themselves and their classmates as community members, students and their stories challenge the assumption that the university is disconnected from local communities. In turn, this process of collaborative storytelling shapes teaching and learning as student-centered practices where it is possible to learn about immigration from inside and outside the classroom.

Institutionalizing Community Engagement: A Quantitative Approach To Identifying Patterns Of Engagement Based On Institutional Characteristics, Natasha Hutson, Travis York, Daesang Kim, Jamie L. Workman

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Community engagement is recognized as a high-impact practice in higher education. However, while best practices in engagement have been broadly accepted, standard metrics for engagement across institutions have not yet been established. The purpose of this research study was to explore the relationship between community engagement and a variety of institutional characteristics among higher education institutions in a Southeastern state. Findings indicated that a pattern of engagement existed among the 48 participating institutions.

Lessons Learned From Faculty Service-Learning Mentoring, Elizabeth A. Robinson, Debra A. Harkins

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Service-learning that targets issues of injustice within a community shares the goal with institutions of higher education of helping students become transformational citizens who deeply question and try to change unjust and ineffective social systems. Unfortunately, challenges to growing and sustaining service-learning pedagogy at institutions of higher education are many. This project discusses challenges and makes recommendations based on a pilot mentoring program at an urban, four-year university in the Northeast for faculty interested in integrating service- learning into their curriculum.

Pursuing Reciprocity In Engaged Scholarship Partnerships Using Community Sustainability Certification Programs, Elyzabeth W. Engle, Michele W. Halsell

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of sustainability certification programs at the local, state, and national level to highlight the use of policies, programs, and infrastructure to achieve sustainable development outcomes within communities. In this paper, we use examples from Penn State’s Sustainable Communities Collaborative to demonstrate how institutions with community-engaged scholarship programs can use these certification programs to enhance program operation and reciprocity by identifying projects, engaging new disciplines, and improving relevance.

University-Community Civic Collaboration: Reaching For Social Justice In University Partnership, Jessica T. Shiller

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

A community partnership between the Collins Academy, Jefferson, Texas, and the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, developed a plan to manage the 38-acre Port Jefferson History and Nature Center, located on Big Cypress Bayou. Students used knowledge of the resources, GPS (global positioning systems), ArcGIS 10.4, presentations, and posters to complete the project. The reflection and feedback with the community partners continued throughout the project and as guidance for future work. This partnership instilled in participating students the value of incorporating service learning into development of professional relationships for continued cooperation …

Researcher-Practitioner Collaborations: Applying Developmental Science To Understand Sport Participation And Positive Youth Development, Andrea Vest Ettekal, Lily S. Konowitz, Jennifer P. Agans, Richard M. Lerner

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

We report data from the first year of a three-year collaboration between a sport-based youth development program, Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), and a university-based research institute. The theory of change of PCA was tested with youth athletes, representing multiple sport types (e.g., individual/team) and seasons (e.g., fall/winter), who completed self-report surveys indexing a key facet of positive youth development—character. Noting assets and challenges of such researcher-practitioner collaborations, we discuss the results of the first year of data derived from this collaboration and differences in their use to the researchers and practitioners. Using this collaboration as a sample case, we discuss …

Building Resilient Higher Education Communities: Lessons Learned From Pandemic Teaching, Christian Williams, Carmen Veloria, Debra Harkins

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many educators grappling with uncertainties about the future of higher education while feeling exhausted from the stress and pressure to deliver quality education in unprecedented ways. While learning to incorporate new technology into remote, hybrid, and flipped classrooms, educators also find themselves responding to the psychosocial needs of students more than ever before. Yet the lack of established promising practices coupled with limited training and support on how to support students’ emotional well-being creates confusion and self-doubt. This conceptual article explores teacher experiences of teaching during a pandemic, missed opportunities, and highlights the need to …

Volunteer Programs & Service Learning Annual Report 2021-2022, Office Of Volunteer Programs & Service Learning

News, Magazines and Reports

Early in the fall semester, we welcomed Colin Petramale to the VP&SL team as the new Coordinator for Community Partnerships, Faith and Justice! Colin manages the frst year Pioneer Service Grant program, in addition to building and maintaining the relationships with our of-campus community partners.

We strengthened the commitment to our partners by on boarding with GivePulse, our community engagement tracking sofware. Nonproft organizations receive free access through their afliation with SHU, allowing them to publicize partnership opportunities; SHU students, staff and faculty can connect with these partners by searching and signing up for upcoming activities. It’s a win-win situation! …

Service-Learning Community Partner Impact Assessment Report, 2021, Rebecca Hoppe, Katie Elliott, Lynn E. Pelco

Division of Community Engagement Resources

In 2021, the Service-Learning Office at VCU conducted an assessment of the impact of service-learning on community partner organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The assessment aimed to collect actionable feedback to inform and improve upon current service-learning course practices. Partners (N = 18) were prompted with questions to assess the following topics: operational capacity, economic functioning, social environment, and partnership quality, both prior to and in concurrent with the COVID-19 pandemic. Quantitative findings suggested an overall improvement in scores from the 2017 assessment. Qualitative findings indicated the importance of relationships, concluding that adaptation, communication, and involvement were key factors …

Transforming Higher Education: Responding To The Coronavirus And Other Looming Crises, Michael Mascolo

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

Higher education is being deeply challenged by the coronavirus. The immediate threats of the coronavirus come at the heels of an existing panoply of problems that already threaten higher education as we know it. These include, of course, the looming enrollment crisis, the high cost of higher education, intractable student debt, the corporatization of education, limited learning on campus, and a general loss of faith in higher education among many sectors of the nation. How are colleges and universities to respond to these challenges? This paper calls upon colleges and universities to consider the need for structural transformation in order …

Shifting Views: How Experiential Learning Shapes University Students’ Sense Of Civic Engagement And Solidarity On Migration, Karen Larke

Master's Theses

Higher education institutions have put more weight on the use of experiential learning to provide students with opportunities to grow intellectually and develop as engaged citizens. Many recent studies have looked at the quality and educational impacts of a variety of experiential and service learning experiences, yet few have explored what other ideological impacts may result from specific non-curricular experiential learning experiences. This study measured the impact of experiential learning, in the form of week-long migration-themed trips, on undergraduate student’s self-reported levels of solidarity, and related measures of civic engagement and political engagement and activism around migration issues. This study …

Mindful Practices To Interrupt White Supremacy In Higher Education: Opportunities For Educators In Service Learning And Community Engagement, Jennifer F. Steinfeld

Mindfulness Studies Theses

This thesis proposes reflective practices for educators to interrupt white supremacy in higher education service learning programs. It is relevant today as higher education institutions look more closely at their history, often upholding or benefiting from slavery, racism, indigenous removal, and other forms of race-based exploitation. Other work on this topic demonstrates the power of reflectivity and mindfulness practices in reducing the impact of racial biases. The heart of this creative thesis is a research-based curriculum for a learning community of educators to develop capacity to incorporate reflectivity, meditation, and liberatory pedagogies into their classrooms. This curriculum is designed for …

“I Can’T Believe I’M In Charge”: How Zlotkoswki’S “Students As Colleagues” Model Prepares Bentley University Service-Learning Students For Civic Leadership, Brian Shea

Community Engagement Student Work

Business schools exhibit a remarkable ability to produce graduates who are exceptionally analytical; however, these students have been shown to lack sensitivity to the impact of actions taken in the workplace, in communities, and in society. Service-learning is a method that has been proven to instill stronger ethics in business students. Bentley University, a business school in Waltham, Massachusetts, models its Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Center after the “Students as Colleagues” framework championed by its founding Director, Dr. Edward Zlotkowski (2006). By employing this approach, Bentley positions its undergraduate students as leaders in social impact initiatives, thereby preparing these students …

In Our Time: Advancing Interfaith Studies Curricula At Catholic Colleges And Universities, Eboo Patel, Noah Silverman, Kristi Del Vecchio

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

People who orient around religion differently are interacting with greater frequency than ever before. These interactions, especially in the context of college and university campuses, require young people to grapple with their own identities in ways that previous generations could more easily avoid. Conversations about religious diversity have become elevated at colleges and universities, which has led Drs. Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen to claim that religion is “no longer invisible” in the context of American higher education.

As an organization that works with hundreds of American colleges and universities every year, Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) believes that Catholic …

Building Stronger Communities: The Reciprocity Between University, Student, And Community Through Service-Learning, Jennifer Ellen Goff

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

This three-paper format dissertation explored the impact of service-learning on three key constituents: the university, university students conducting the service, and the community receiving the service. Paper one quantitatively explored the impact of service-learning on university students’ perspective through the use of end of year service-learning course evaluations. Students self-reported their outcomes due to participation as it related to professional skills, communication skills, academic learning, values clarification, citizenship skills, and quality indicators of their service-learning program. Paper one also explored if there was a difference between two types of service, direct (e.g., participate directly with the community) and indirect (e.g., …

Journey Into Shame: Implications For Justice Pedagogies, Roger C. Bergman

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

Being formed for justice can be a painful experience. Sometimes that pain takes the form of shame and contributes to the formation and exercise of conscience. But shame in other forms can be opposed to human flourishing and social justice. Psychologist James Fowler provides a spectrum of two forms of healthy shame and four forms of unhealthy shame, to which the author adds four other varieties, strategic shame and spiritual shame, at one end of the spectrum, and murderous shame and genocidal shame, at the other. Various experiences of shame are dramatically illustrated in Black Like Me, John Howard …

An Exploration Of Volunteer Experiences For Third Level Students In Ireland From A Student Volunteer And Volunteer Manager Perspective., Caitriona Mcgrattan

Dissertations

Since the establishment of Campus Engage in 2007, student volunteering and student-led activities have received more attention on a national scale. Despite this, the area remains under researched; to date there has been no nationwide review of student volunteerism. This research aimed to explore the volunteer experiences of third level students across in a number of Higher Education Institutions in Ireland. For this qualitative study, in-depth interviews were carried out with five student volunteers and three volunteer managers across a spectrum of voluntary activity. The participants were asked to discuss their personal experiences and perceptions of student volunteering. The findings …

The Changing Role Of Higher Education: Learning To Deal With Wicked Problems, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

The role of higher education is changing in today’s world because the world itself is changing, and complex problems confront us daily. This essay will explore the role of an emerging group of individuals who can serve as a bridge between the academic community and the world at large. These administrators, faculty members, staff, students, and community members can help create new opportunities for different disciplines to work together and for all parts of a campus community and members of the broader society to form new working relationships to address the complex problems of today’s world. What role will these …

Reading The Community: Helping Students Learn The Process, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

Colleges and universities in the 21st century will thrive through extensive collaborations with other higher education institutions and with communities with which they have special affinities. These relationships will create an educational environment that promotes deeper learning and student success, while generating knowledge that can be put to good use in improving the sustainability of local and global communities, and the diversity and strength of the economy. This paper will explore ways to engage students in the life of their communities while they take an active role in addressing challenges that affect local culture, health, economic stability and the environment. …

Thriving In The 21st Century By Tackling Wicked Problems, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

More than 20 years ago, I was a member of a leadership roundtable in Portland, Oregon, that was working on achieving the ambitious goal of 100 percent graduation rate from high school. In the course of our deliberations, we finally asked ourselves why young people were dropping out of school. After listening to a number of experts talk about retention, we thought to ask ourselves, “What would the young people themselves say?” To find out, we invited a group of young high school dropouts and high school student leaders to an afternoon conversation. The experts had talked about various strategies …

How Disruptive Is Information Technology Really?, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

In an administrative career lasting over thirty years, first as a provost and then through three presidencies and a stint at the National Science Foundation, I have watched while changes in technology have reshaped the nature and character of discovery, the gathering and interpretation of increasingly complex observations whose patterns would be completely opaque if we did not have high-speed computing to sort them out, and the integration and use of knowledge in ways that would have been impossible when I went to college in the early 1960s. I went from having to learn the purpose of each of the …

Seeking More High-Quality Undergraduate Degrees: Conditions For More Effectively Working With Policy Makers, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

Our nation’s colleges and universities have always sought to prepare their graduates for life and work in their own era. The pressures we face today, both from outside the academy and within the higher education community, are complex, interlocking, and hard to manage. Some of these challenges require us to rethink what it means to be educated in today’s world and to explore ways to provide a coherent and meaningful educational experience in the face of the turbulence, uncertainty, and fragmentation that characterizes much of higher education today.

Enhancing The Team Experience In Service Learning Courses, Audrey Falk

Education Faculty Publications

Service learning is pervasive in higher education today, with 31 percent of students at Campus Compact member schools engaging in service activities (Campus Compact, 2009) and universities’ missions and strategic planning documents increasingly aimed at developing engaged citizens. Service learning has many potential benefits for college students; among those benefits is the opportunity to develop and practice teamwork skills. The present paper describes the strategies used in a team-based service learning course to support positive team experiences for students.