Crossing Boundaries: Tension and Transformation in International Service-Learning

Are there better ways to address community challenges than expending funds on international service-learning?

In attempting to wed learning and service, are we are exploiting the “other” for new, or recycled, aims?

As these questions attest, of all types of service-learning, international service-learning (ISL) most starkly illuminates the tensions between the liberatory and oppressive potentials of practice.

This book explores the ramifications of realizing a new age of service-learning that pushes beyond single episodic course-based projects to rebalance student learning and community outcome priorities, and provides insight into what it looks like in its execution.

In describing eleven international programs designed to achieve reciprocal, sustained relationships in which learning is co-created, the contributors reveal their struggles to change the balance of power relationships and move to a more transformative practice. Common themes are the developmental nature of this work; the recognition that it takes multiple attempts, often over years, for an individual or an institution to get this work even nearly right; that resolving the challenges of unequal resources, power, and privilege can never be completely erased; and that attention has to be given to the micro-level details.

What emerge are seven guiding principles that define the nature of partnerships in liberatory practice, and that apply to all forms of service learning. They must be: strategic--linked to the mission and expertise of the institution; long-term; multifaceted--allowing both partners to play a multiplicity of roles; developmental in building capacities; contextualized in historic and cultural understanding; fully reciprocal; and create the potential for community-driven change.

In addressing the problematic nature of ISL, and of service-learning in general, this book interrogates whether its experiences create the necessary conditions for the formation of individual values, convictions, and action; and whether their pivotal teaching and learning moments are indeed replicable and transferable across individual, institutional and even cultural contexts. Its conclusions and insights will be of intense interest to administrators and practitioners alike.

Patrick M. Green has served as the Director of the Center for Experiential Learning at Loyola University Chicago since its inception in August 2007. The Center for Experiential Learning houses five university-wide programs, including service-learning, academic internships, student employment / community-based federal work study, undergraduate research, and the electronic portfolio program. As a Clinical Instructor of Experiential Learning, Dr. Green teaches a variety of general elective experiential learning courses, engaging students in service-learning, community-based research, internship experiences, and undergraduate research.Dr. Green’s research includes the impact of experiential learning programs on skill development and career development (funded by the National Association of Colleges and Employers Research Foundation Grant), the meaning-making processes of reflection in service-learning/experiential learning, and the use of electronic portfolios in experiential learning (Inter/national Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research).Dr. Green was chosen as an Engaged Scholar for National Campus Compact, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSCLE).

Mathew Johnson is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies, and Director of Academic Community Engagement (ACE), at Siena College, having been tenured faculty in the University of Maine System and serving as a Department Chair at West Virginia Wesleyan. He is the founding director of ACE including the Siena VISTA Fellows Program, the Siena Bonner Service Leaders Program, the Academic Service Learning/ Community Based Research Program, the Academic AmeriCorps Program, and International Service Internship Program that, combined, have brought more than 3 million dollars of state, federal, and private investments in community development partnerships throughout New York’s Capital Region annually. Dr. Johnson has been honored by Campus Compact as a National Engaged Scholar and has won several competitive federal and foundation grants to support the ongoing integration of academic service learning and community engagement into the institutional life of Siena College. He served on the National Educational Roundtable that resulted in the AACU “Crucible Moment” report, and was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to serve on the New York State Commission on National and Community Service.Dr. Johnson is the co-founder of the National Assessment of Service and Community Engagement and has been a co-author on the last two New York Civic Health Index reports of the National Council on Citizenship, and is the co-coordinator of the national High-Impact Initiative, a partnership between the Bonner Foundation and AAC&U to build a national learning community around linking high impact learning practices and high impact community engagement practices.Dr. Johnson’s teaching and research foci are on issues of civic health and participation, community development and democracy, community and environmental sustainability, and higher education. He serves as an executive officer on the Board of Directors several non-profits in the Capital Region.

Robert G.Bringle is Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Psychology and PhilanthropicStudies and Senior Scholar in the Center for Service and Learning at IndianaUniversity Purdue University Indianapolis. From 2012-2015, he was theKulynych/Cline Visiting Distinguished Professor of Psychology at AppalachianState University. He was the Executive Director of the Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis Center for Service and Learning from 1994-2012.Dr. Bringle was awarded the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service Learning,the IUPUI Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Legacy ofService Award from Indiana Campus Compact. In 2004, he was recognized at the4th Annual International Service-Learning Research Conference for hisoutstanding contributions to the service-learning research field. TheUniversity of the Free State, South Africa, awarded him an honorary doctoratefor his scholarly work on civic engagement and service learning.