Successful Service-Learning Programs: New Models of Excellence in Higher Education

Successful service-learning programs offer college students valuable hands-on learning experiences as they partner with their communities in cooperative service efforts. In this inspiring collection of essays written by prominent leaders of service-learning programs, each chapter provides concrete examples of how successful service-learning programs can foster lifelong student commitments to community service and learning.

By profiling ten successful service-learning programs―including those based at the University of Pennsylvania, Portland State University, Santa Clara University, and Bentley College―the contributors illustrate the power of service-learning to enrich campuses and renew communities. The profiles collectively form a picture of the common and pressing issues affecting service-learning programs across the United States. Each profile contains

• A detailed history of the program's development
• An overview of the basic internal operations of the program
• A review of important community collaborations
• An analysis of the defining dimension of the program's identity
• Concluding insights on challenges faced by the program and remarks on its future

Successful Service-Learning Programs presents a compelling concept of what teaching and learning look like when colleges and universities commit to intellectual, social, and moral engagement. Through the authors’ shared experiences, readers of this book will gain practical insight on ways in which to promote service-learning on their campuses.

EDWARD ZLOTKOWSKI received his B.A. in English and his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Yale University. He is Professor of English at Bentley College and in 1990 founded the Bentley Service-Learning Project, an institution-wide program that involves all of the college’s undergraduate academic departments, more than a quarter of its full-time faculty, and several thousand students. Zlotkowski has lectured and written on a variety of service-learning topics. He has consulted to Campus Compact and the Massachusetts Commission on Community Services as well as to individual colleges and universities across the country. As a Senior Associate at the American Association for Higher Education, he serves as general editor of a new monograph series exploring the relationship between service-learning and individual academic disciplines.