Service Learning: Community Engagement and Partnership for Integrating Teaching, Research, and Service

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

CM Albert Schweitzer

Although at times not well defined, service remains one of the three core missions in higher education, along with teaching and research. In developing this special issue on servicelearning, we were cognizant that service in higher education is defined by many parameters, not all of them meriting similar academic recognition and reward. However, all play important parts in the role that higher education institutions play in our society. Faculty service to their professional organizations and disciplines is one such key measure. Another is leadership service to the campus community, which often affords recognition to faculty, students, and staff. General community and public service that mobilizes faculty, students, and staff resources at colleges and universities into volunteer activities is often referred to as academic charity and may be also be a critical component of the cocurricular, or outside the classroom, experience at most colleges and universities. All of these concepts of service have benefits to both recipients and providers, as well as to campus and community, broadly defined.

The role of higher education, including our research universities, in developing responsible citizens and promoting civic engagement has long been, and continues to be, an important debate in America, as well as around the world (Arthur and Bohlin, 2005; Benson & Harkavy, 2000; Bok, 1982; Checkoway, 1997; Fisher, Fabricant, & Simmons, 2004). The connection between the rise of urban society and the growth and development of the university, especially in America with its public and land grant universities, is another rich topic of debate and one of rising importance given the growth of universities as economic engines in their communities (Bender, 1988; Freeland, 2008; Kellogg Commission, 1999; Maurrasse, 2001; Ross, 2002; Vey, 2003).The National and Community Service Act of 1993 was a significant milestone in the history of service learning that created several avenues for service learning in the country (Casey et al., 2006).This civic and citizenship concept of service underscores the Presidents' Statement of Principles for Campus Compact (1996), which now involves over 1,100 institutions in fulfilling higher education's civic mission. These Presidents' Principles also advance service learning for providing faculty and students the opportunity to integrate academic work with service through responsible and reflective community engagement. With U.S. News and World Report providing a ranking of colleges and universities by service learning and civic engagement since 2003, this lesser mission of higher education seems to have gained, at least in market relevance. To advance the practice of service learning and community engagement, practitioners of service learning have formed the International Association of Research in Service Learning and Community Engagement, which organizes an annual service learning conference to disseminate advances in this field.

DEFINING SERVICE LEARNING AND ANCILLARY CONCEPTS AND CONTEXT

Service learning remains an essential pedagogy for building connections between campus and community, while enriching learning for students (Sullivan, 2000; Zlutkowski, 1996). For this special issue, the editors have looked to the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse for Learn and Serve America, a component of the Corporation for National and Community Service and a strong federal driving force for civic engagement and service learning in higher education. They defined service learning as “teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities” (Learn and Serve America; National Service-Learning Clearing House, 1993). As a further note to readers, we have chosen not to editorially address the often confusing distinction between the use of the term service learning as opposed to service-learning as used by our contributing authors in their own context—although generally we recognize service learning as a noun and service-learning as an adjective—however, these terms are often used interchangeably.

In addition to this widely accepted concept of service learning, we also wanted this special issue to advance and explore the concept of research service learning (RSL) exemplified by work such as that of the Hart Leadership Program at Duke University (2009). RSL connects traditional service learning with the research mission of universities to develop new and sustainable knowledge that, like traditional service learning, has mutual benefits to university and community partners.

Similarly, our parameters of service learning/RSL also brought the construct of community-based participatory research (CBPR) into our orbit of interest, as many schools and disciplines have developed service-learning courses and university–community partnerships around an engaged research agenda in the community that befits the research mission of their institution, as well as the needs of the community. As advanced by the Campus–Community Partnership for Health and others, CBPR is a growing campus–community endeavor.

When the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching formally initiated an elective Community Engagement Classification in 2006, it gave recognition to an abiding concern of its long-time president, Ernst Boyer, with the priorities of the academy that favored higher education's research mission over its missions of teaching and, especially, service (Boyer, 1990). Not that Boyer was downplaying the primacy of the scholarship of discovery (Boyer, 1990) in higher education, but he was lamenting a perceived failure to encourage greater academic creativity through integrating these tripartite missions in ways unique to individual institutional missions and their connections to the larger community. The new elective, Community Engagement Classification, affords options for curricular engagement and outreach and partnership as well as a joint option. This special issue on service learning focuses on these connections among research, teaching, and service, as well as the concept of community engagement that has gained strategic importance in higher education today.

In a previous special issue of the Journal of Community Practice, “University–Community Partnerships: Universities in Civic Engagement” (2004), the editors sought to call attention to the importance of this connection and how such partnerships benefit both campus and community. The growth of service learning as a driving force in university–community partnerships was, at best, cursory in that earlier issue. Thus, the editorial board of this journal felt that service learning and its companions—RSL and CBPR—merited a more intensive treatment. Given the tremendous response to this special issue's call for abstracts—over 150 proposals submitted—we have, no doubt, struck a nerve among educators, researchers, and practitioners across a range of higher education institutions, diverse professions and academic disciplines, and a host of settings from local to national and international. Although the Journal of Community Practice, sponsoring the Association for Community Organization and Social Administration, draws substantially from the social work profession, the Journal of Community Practice and this special issue seeks a more interdisciplinary base of contributors and readership from among the many disciplines involved in community and organizational practice.

THE SCOPE OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE

The initial response to our call for paper proposals brought well over 150 abstracts/proposals submitted. The editors invited 27 manuscripts, from which we laboriously culled down to this final group of 13 articles. As editors, we are grateful for the patience and follow-through of our authors and others, whose manuscripts, although not included in this collection, may yet add to the literature on service learning in other companion journals focused on this important pedagogy and on engaged scholarship. This task took longer than we had envisioned, but we are hopeful this final product merits the effort on everyone's part in bringing this task to conclusion.

Although service learning is the overarching theme for this special issue, we have worked to organize this double-issue around articles that help address several subthemes within this broader topic, including: (a) the conceptualization of service learning and service-learning pedagogy and the nature and challenges of campus–community partnership that derives from service learning and CBPR; (b) the applications, benefits, and challenges of service learning and CBPR for faculty, students, and community; and (c) the opportunity to address cultural diversity and international perspectives in this work. Thus, Service Learning: Community Engagement and Partnership for Integrating Teaching, Research, and Service, is an appropriate and timely title for special issue.

In the first section of this special issue, we've included several articles that provide both a framework for and a questioning of the traditional pedagogy of service learning and that expand the focus and impact of this work to community and institutional development and change. Swords and Kiely, in Beyond pedagogy: Service learning as movement building in higher education challenge the overemphasis of service learning on student learning and enrichment. Comparing case studies from national and international service-learning programs, they discuss challenges for developing, implementing and sustaining service-learning approaches that, although addressing traditional learning pedagogy, strive to advance social movement learning and institutional change.

With Norris-Tirrell, Lambert-Pennington, and Hyland's article, Embedding service learning in engaged scholarship at research institutions to revitalize metropolitan neighborhoods, the authors address service learning as integral to engaged scholarship at Memphis University. Using their university and its Strengthening Communities Initiative as a case study, they trace the evolution of service learning to community partnership building and institutional level change that also reflects on building a critical mass of faculty and student engagement toward meaningful social movement and sustainable cultural and philosophical change in institutions of higher education. Chupp and Joseph provide another challenging discussion on how service learning has been measured and treated in the literature. They propose a more intentional model with more intentional impacts on students, institutions, and community, and they discuss lessons learning in implementing such a model in their School of Social Work at Case Western Reserve University.

Finally, in a Notes From the Field article, Rosing and Hofman's Service learning and the development of multidisciplinary community-based research initiatives helps establish the importance of community-based research in service-learning pedagogy. Their case study of the DePaul University's Community-Based Action Research initiative in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood shows the link of community-based research to service learning and addresses the challenges faculty face most in developing and maintaining a multidisciplinary community-based research partnership. Their case study underscores the importance of institutional investment and capacity building support for such service-learning activities, as well as the impact of this work on building student social consciousness and awareness of the need for social change around critical community issues.

Our substantial second section focuses on a series of articles that address the state of service-learning initiatives as they involve student learning, community partnerships, interdisciplinary engagement, and/or community-based and participatory research. In Service learning's impact on college students' commitment to future civic engagement, self-efficacy, and social empowerment, Knapp, Fisher, and Levesque-Bristol examine survey results on these key areas of impact. The argue that as community, political, and institutional leaders challenge higher education to do more to build civic and political engagement among students, service-learning pedagogy is critical to increasing community involvement in today's college students in order to strengthen the social fabric of society.

Petracchi, Weaver, Engel, Kolivoski, and Das present An assessment of service learning in a university living-learning community: Implications for community engagement to underscore how a social work service-learning course can provide students in such a living-learning setting with heightened opportunities for community service and engagement in the urban community surrounding the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to enhancing student retention—a goal of living-learning communities—this service-learning experience enables students from many disciplines to expand their community boundaries beyond campus, gain valuable exposure to community leaders and organizations, and enhance their image of and comfort with the larger urban landscape that makes the city is their campus. Kolomer, Quinn, and Steele, through Interdisciplinary health fairs for older adults and the value of interprofessional service learning, prepare future allied health professionals to work together to address community needs. Their cross disciplinary and institutional work with both nursing and social work students from two universities provide a service-learning experience that benefits student learning, especially across allied disciplines, and promotes community wellness, while also affording an opportunity to view service-learning projects as a teaching methodology.

CBPR has become a strong complement of service-learning pedagogy at colleges and universities. In Can community-based research guide service learning, Stoecker, Loving, Reddy, and Bollig raise a critical question with the purpose of service learning—whether we are using communities to serve students or engaging our students to effectively serve communities? The authors discuss their experience with implementing an alternative service-learning model focused on building community development along with community-based research practices, which engaged faculty, student and community stakeholders in maximizing community outcomes. However, they also share the lessons learned from failing to overcome the weakness of service learning within a narrow higher education structure and culture. Another participatory RSL project described by Johnson in Teaching macro practice through service learning using participatory photography strives to teach macro practice concepts and knowledge by partnering with a county maternal and child health program to help first-time mothers of low income. Students used the participatory photography to link mothers' voices to macro concerns, including programs and policies. The authors also discuss the use of participatory photography for future service-learning efforts.

In this Notes From the Field article, Learning cultural humility through critical incidents and central challenges in community-based participatory research, Ross addresses the power differentials based on race, income, and education that community development and planning graduate students often encounter in community-based research activities. The author describes a two-course sequence that integrates continuous student reflection and self-assessment on issues of racism and privilege with community-based research that can help foster cultural humility among students in their community practice.

The final section examines international and multicultural dimensions and practices in service learning and community-based research. In Howard, Rao, and Desmond's Borrowing from the East to strengthen the West: Merging public health case studies of community-based service-learning practices from India and the United States, the authors recount case studies of classroom pedagogy using service-learning practicum experiences that promote public health. The authors also note that such service-learning experience in community-based participatory practices require both objectivity and cultural immersion that create a dilemma of balance, which the authors note may be addressed through reflective and mindful activities that connect their work to larger social justice concerns and discussions of ethics and equity, a lesson that public health educators can draw from social work practice. Austin's Confronting environmental challenges on the US–Mexico border: Long-term community-based research and community service learning in a binational partnership is concerned with the gap in addressing the intersection among service learning, community-based research and community-university partnerships. In examining how a partnership has evolved that engages four higher education institutions with a cross-border, binational partnership on environmental health, the author shows how community-based research and community service learning are vital mechanisms for fostering partnership and engaging peoples across communities and national borders.

In our final Notes From the Field, Brokering service learning between a rural community and large undergraduate class: Insights from a case study, authors, Hill, Loney, and Reid, share a Canadian case study on a service-learning partnership between an urban university's Environmental Studies/Science course and a rural community water festival event. The authors share lessons learned regarding the challenges of rural service learning, equity in university-community partnerships and including service learning in a large class setting.

CONCLUSION

We hope that these articles contribute to the literature of service learning within the context of community and organizational practice that our Journal of Community Practice addresses. We appreciate the time and energies in both conducting these efforts and in crafting the engaged scholarship that have made them part of this special issue. The courses, projects, and programs represented in these articles show that these authors have all recognized the importance of connecting service to teaching and research, and, in their own academic work have sought and found how to serve.

ACKNOWELDGMENT

As editors for this special issue, we offer our thanks and appreciation to many people who have made this issue possible. Of course, the support and guidance of the other members of the Journal of Community Practice editorial team, especially Alice Butterfield and Louise Simmons, as well as Scott Harding, whose work on past special issues helped guide us in this one. Our thanks to all of the contributors to this issue, notably the published authors, and Dr. Barbara Holland for her outstanding Preface to this special issue, as well as the authors of the more than 150 proposals we received, but, especially, to those contributors who worked with us on 2nd and 3rd revisions to make the best articles possible. Also, for those whose manuscripts were referred elsewhere or not finally selected, we appreciated your efforts to work with us and our reviewers. Also, to our reviewers whose names are listed following this editorial, we appreciated your thorough work and excellent feedback to the authors, as well as your willingness in some cases, to work with us in helping with a few manuscripts. Of course, we want to thank our editorial support staff at Taylor & Francis, who tried to keep us on track and on time and whose patience we greatly appreciated during this long task. Most of all, we want to thank our JCP Managing Editor, Ana Santiago, whose attention to detail and all of the production work and liaison with authors, publisher, and fellow editors makes this journal as worthwhile for us as we often make it challenging for her. And, finally, to you our JCP readers and Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA) members who will use this new knowledge to continue to grow our community practice field and to work on this important area of service learning.

In recognition of reviewers for Service Learning: Community Engagement and Partnership for Integrating Teaching, Research, and Service: Mahasweta Banerjee, Elizabeth Beck, Errol Bolden, Carl Brun, Denys Candy, Patty Carlson, Emma Lucas-Darby, Lina Dostilio, Cynthia Edmonds-Cady, David Feehan, Robert Fisher, Sondra Fogel, Jessica Friedrichs, Lorraine Gutiérrez, Judith Hallinen, Barbara Holland, Michele Kelley, Andrea Kriska, Virginia “Ginny” Majewski, Meredith Minkler, Meryl Nadel, Mary Ohmer, Shari L. Payne, Loretta Pyles, Roy Rodenhiser, Daniel Rosen, Paul Sather, Michael Yonas. Thanks for your work and support with this special issue.

Tracy M. Soska

School of Social Work

University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Marilyn Sullivan-Cosetti

Social Work Program

Seton Hill University

Greensburg, Pennsylvania

Sudershan Pasupuleti

Social Work Department

The University of Toledo

Toledo, Ohio