Community-University Engagement: From Chasm to Chiasm

Programs aimed at community engagement efforts at X University have been offered since the early 2000's, which aimed at providing engineering students opportunities to use their technical skills with international engagement. While immensely popular with students and marketing pamphlets, a recent concentrated effort within the community-engaged engineering courses has been undertaken to shift away from models that solely focus on delivery of technological solutions. Which often failed to integrate complex contextual elements into the pedagogical course design and resultant student centric design process. Our course design shifted towards holistic and ethical engagement highlighting the programmatic shift from "service learning" to "community engaged learning" and challenging students to reflect on their motivations and positionality as individuals and engineers. This shift aimed to forge international and local partnerships that focus on community engagement and student learning through intensive planning, the establishment of trust, and values-centered relationships. Through utilization of human centered design theory and establishment of long-term partnerships that reposition student centric engagement courses have shifted to partnership structure that acknowledges strengths and limitations and centered value to each stakeholder. While models like this exist across the community development landscape there are challenges on how to integrate this into engineering course dynamics. Numerous researchers and academic folks have identified these challenges, but a critical gap still exists with the application of said "best practices". This paper aims to highlights the success and challenges seen throughout this transition when these concepts are put into practice to build effective partnerships at the local and international level. The overarching aim of this work is to share a proposed process of engagement for others interested in offering community engaged learning opportunities.

Service-learning (SL) and community-engaged learning (CEL) are high-impact practices whose ideological foundations are built upon ideas pioneered by philosophers such as John Dewey and William James. Given that one methodology (CEL) directly branched from the other (SL), these practices are expected to have fundamental underpinnings that differentially influence how projects within these practices are carried out. Stufflebeam and Shinkfield’s Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) model for evaluation was applied to assess these two high-impact practices. This narrative review has two goals: (1) discuss the usage of the CIPP model to evaluate established SL and CEL projects, and (2) assess any differences in evaluation garnered from CIPP model usage that may have stemmed from nuances in SL and CEL ideology. Literature covering either practice had shown, in some cases, to be inconsistent with how the implementation and guiding principles of such projects matched the terminology used by project organizers. This discrepancy has implications for how these projects are carried out and evaluated in the future.

Service-learning (SL), or community-engaged learning, refers to a project-based pedagogical approach that addresses community needs through coursework tied to academic, social/civic and personally impactful learning objectives. Originally emerging from research and practice in U.S. higher education, its inclusion in K-12 education in the US and international contexts has gained traction in recent years. Nevertheless, reports of implementation and effectiveness in international education are lacking. This article presents the impact of a two-week US Department of State-funded service-learning exchange program for 25 EFL teachers from 24 countries spanning the globe. Through academic sessions, site visits, and cultural activities led by an interdisciplinary team at a major Midwestern research university, participants were equipped to use SL in contextually appropriate ways for the teaching of both English and vital 21st century life skills. The authors begin with an overview of SL and a research-based account of its benefits for holistic learning, and especially for its application in English education. Following a description of the exchange program that highlights key aspects of the curriculum, the piece turns to participant reflections on selected aspects of SL in English language education. Finally, the authors suggest implications for the future of SL in a global context.

IntroductionTraditional medical education emphasizes biomedical sciences but often underprepares learners for the challenges of working with medically underserved and excluded populations. An Inclusion Health elective was developed to integrate training in the social determinants of health and the skills necessary to provide high-quality care in low-resource environments.Pedagogical frameworksThe course draws on five complementary frameworks: service learning, problem-based learning, case-based learning, cultural humility, and experiential learning, to deepen students’ understanding of exclusion in health care and to equip them with both clinical and relational skills. Together, these frameworks collectively foster critical reflection, adaptability, and a systems-level perspective.Learning environmentThe elective combines classroom seminars, community-based clinical experiences, and applied learning assignments. Students work alongside outreach teams, healthcare for the homeless clinics, and social service organizations, developing practical skills in environments with limited referral networks and constrained resources.AssessmentEvaluation includes reflective writing, clinical supervision evaluations, faculty and community partner feedback, and concludes with a standardized patient assessment and reflection session, measuring cognitive and affective learning outcomes.DiscussionThe program demonstrates how integrating theory-driven pedagogy with immersive, community-engaged learning can address critical educational gaps, preparing future clinicians to navigate and challenge structural inequities.Acknowledgment of constraintsImplementation faced challenges, including scheduling within the medical curriculum, sustaining community partnerships, and evaluating long-term impacts on student practice patterns.

© 2016 by the board of trustees of the university of ill inois As part of Fall Welcome Week, incoming freshmen at our Midwestern Jesuit university engage in a First-Year Summer Reading program. All new students read the same book and attend small group sessions to discuss their impressions. In the fall of 2013, I led one of these discussion sessions on Fr. Gregory Boyle’s 2011 memoir, Tattoos on the Heart, in which Boyle recounts his work with gang members in Los Angeles. During our discussion, a student pointed out a quote that she found interesting: Gregory writes that “Jesus was not ‘a man for others’; he was one with them” (188; emphasis mine). The student explained that this statement seemed to contrast with our university’s mission of preparing students to become “men and women for others.”1 As a group, we discussed the difference between the two prepositions, and I ended the session by encouraging the student to participate in the First-Year Summer Reading essay contest with a paper on exactly this topic. After leaving the discussion session, I kept thinking about the student’s observation. Our mission as a Jesuit university is admirable in many ways, pushing for academic rigor to educate the “whole person” and to serve those who are in need. Inspired by that incoming student, I started to think more about the for in our motto, which moves our campus community to invest an enormous amount of time and energy into service-learning projects every year. Where is the connection between feminism and service learning? In which ways can they profit from each other? How can we practice service learning at a religious institution that is often skeptical of feminism to bring the movement to our student body? How might this create a more effective form of service? For the purpose of this article, I define service learning as meaningful service in connection with learning, reflection, and civic responsibility toward the strengthening of communities and bringing about lasting social transformation. Jeff Claus and Curtis Ogden propose in their Introduction to Service Learning for Youth Empowerment and Social Change that “service learning can provide powerful opportunities for youth to reflect critically and constructively in their world and to develop skills for facilitating meaningful social change” (3). Ideally, service learning enhances students’ critical thinking skills, Feminist Service Learning: Teaching about Oppression to Work toward Social Change

By Lori E. Kniffin Kansas State University Book Information Publicly Engaged Scholars: Next Generation Engagement and the Future of Higher Education. Edited by Margaret A. Post, Elaine Ward, Nicholas V. Longo, & John Saltmarsh. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. 2016. ISBN: 978-1-62036- 264-8. 286 pp. Paperback, $35. Keywords social justice, social change, higher education, community-engaged scholarship […]

University-community engagement often professes to center the shifting needs and issues that communities face but these are often pushed to the periphery in knowledge creation. The methods of engagement, research agenda, outcomes, as well as the measures of success are typically grounded in the academe and universities can almost always pinpoint immediate benefits for the co-creation of this knowledge. Universities are usually able to secure funding and gain prestige to undertake these engagements and projects are put forth as testaments of universities commitments to social change. Communities often struggle to do the same and many are often not equipped with the resources to translate the new knowledge into practice-based initiatives such as programming, funding applications for staffing, services and service delivery. While there are unquestionable merits in the longstanding histories of university-community engagements, more needs to be done for research to be mutually beneficial for both parties. This article outlines five key principles of social justice and inclusion as a preliminary stage of a conceptualized first step necessary to frame university-community engagement. It reiterates consultations with communities through research as a requirement to develop an actual model of university-community engagement to embody social justice and inclusion for true social change.

This paper explores the identity jolts and professional responses of female leaders of institutionalized university-community engagement in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. Using a feminist narrative approach we explored the disorienting dilemmas, critical events and identity jolts related to women’s participation in the institutional leadership of social change initiatives, in particular university-community engagement (UCE). Themes of disruption, resistance and resilience in the neoliberal institutional cultures and practices in which university-community engagement (UCE) is situated are shared through participants’ stories of praxis. This paper is one of a series exploring sociocultural influences on the institutionalization of university-community engagement and the development of engaged and engagement scholarship as an intellectual domain in higher education.

Service Learning (SL) is a community-based learning approach which is intended to empower student skills and attitudes, foster civic responsibility and contribute to the benefit of the community. It is believed that SL programs can benefit institutions, especially towards social change in society. This study was conducted to explore the impact of SL on the universities and society in Johor. This study utilized a qualitative research design, where interviews were conducted to gather respondents’ feedback. A total number of 18 respondents were selected out of which eight were instructors from Higher Education Institution and ten were people from the community who had participated in a SL program. Content analysis was used to analyze the transcribed data collected through interviews. The findings show that SL played a significant role towards students’ skills development, especially in communication, leadership and other soft skills. Apart from enhancing students’ skills development, SL also helped to increase positive images of the universities and, at the same time, to show the universities’ role as an agent for social change. As for society, the benefits that people could gain from SL were related to technology transfer, expertise and socio-economic improvement.

The definition of community engagement scholarship spans the range of research, teaching, and public service and is expressed across the spectrum of disciplines comprising the modern research university. Much of the literature on community-university engagement focuses on benefits that accrue to the community (Fitzgerald HE, Allen A, Roberts P (2010) Campus-community partnerships: perspectives on engaged research. In Fitzgerald HE, Burack C, Siefer S (eds) Handbook on engaged scholarship: Contemporary landscapes, future directions. Community-campus partnerships, vol. 2. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, pp 5-28, 2010). In fact, engagement scholarship generates enormous benefits for higher education as well. In this chapter, we focus on engagement research and teaching and document how each exemplifies the university’s mission, while simultaneously enhancing opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to embrace the scholarship of integration. Specifically, we document how community-based research and teaching are grounded in engagement scholarship, enrich students’ educational experience, deepen the authenticity of faculty research, create sustainable research opportunities through partnerships, fuel innovations in trans-disciplinary research, and strengthen institutional stewardship. We provide examples of each of these benefits drawing on our experiences at a major public research university.

Character education has become an increasingly relevant and important issue in the 21st century. Social change, technology, and globalization have affected social values and fabrics, underscoring the urgency of character education to address increasingly complex challenges. This article outlines the complexity and importance of character education development in the context of current educational curricula. This article aims to analyze the role and importance of character education in facing the challenges of the 21st century. We discuss the social and technological changes affecting character education and explore the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating character education into the educational curriculum. This research uses in-depth literature review methods and analyses of the relevant scientific literature. We searched and analyzed a variety of studies related to character education, social change, technology, and globalization. Data and findings from these sources were used to support the arguments and analyses of this study. The results of this study reveal key findings that provide important insights into character education in the 21st century. First, character education plays an increasingly important role in shaping the quality of individuals in the 21st century. Character education not only improves moral values, but also shapes an individual's ability to think critically, make wise decisions, and contribute positively to an increasingly complex society. Furthermore, social, technological, and globalization changes have affected the order of individual values, posing challenges in integrating character education that reflects universal and local values. The main challenge in developing character education is to integrate the existing educational curriculum. This requires the development of new learning methods and adjustments to existing curriculum structures. In addition, the roles of teachers and educators in this process are very important, requiring adequate training and support.

This study compared three instruction methods including one teaching centered (TC) and two learner centered: team-based learning (TBL) and service-learning (SL) on student performance, motivation, evaluation of teaching and retention. No significant instruction method differences were noted on student performance, but significant differences existed on motivation, evaluation of teaching and retention. SL students displayed more motivation than TBL students, while retention was highest under TC followed by TBL and SL in that order. Student evaluation of teaching showed that students’ perception of learning was highest under TC, while teaching effectiveness and satisfaction overall, were highest under SL. Possible implications of findings to learners, instructors and college departments are discussed.

“Companion Animals” is a sophomore level elective in the Division of Animal Sciences at the University of Missouri (MU). This class focuses primarily on dogs, cats, and horses. Topics covered include the pet industry, breeds, wellness, management, care, training, zoonotic diseases, evolution and domestication, toxicology, nutrition, reproduction, genetics, human animal interactions, and biomedical research. As this course is designated a biological science course, several non-majors also enroll in the class each year. What makes this course different from other courses taught in the Division is that it is a “service-learning course.” This means that students volunteer 20-35 hours with non-profits and neighborhood organizations, including the local animal shelter and equine therapy services for persons with disabilities. The partnerships are coordinated by the Office of Service Learning at MU. The benefits for the students include 1) development of professional skills and exploration of possible careers, 2) civic engagement, 3) public service leadership, and 4) understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion. Together, the students in the course perform more >850 hours of community service and their engagement creates >$18,500 of positive economic impact in the state of Missouri. Overall, 93% of MU students would recommend their service experience to a friend. Early in the semester, Dr. Rivera, the course coordinator, meets for 15 minutes with each student to learn about the reason they chose their service, invariably the majority answer, “because of the animals.” Also, at the end of the semester Dr. Rivera meets for 15 minutes with each student to learn about their volunteering experience. When asked “what was the best part of the service?” the vast majority of the students respond “the people.” In conclusion, the general life skills, social conscience, and personal growth that the students attain from their service is not attainable in the typical classroom setting.

Ethics training is becoming increasingly common in pre-professional contexts to address ethical misconduct in business, medicine, science, and other disciplines. These courses are often taught by philosophers. The question is whether such ethics training, which involves philosophical reflection, is effective in cultivating ethical behavior. This paper takes a closer look at the goals of teaching ethics and how our current methods are ineffective in achieving the affective and active goals of teaching ethics. This paper then suggests how experiential learning and, specifically, service learning may be one way forward in achieving these goals. While some pre-professional programs have implemented service learning, the ethics courses offered by philosophers also may be improved by giving students more opportunities to engage their communities through service learning.

Teachers and curriculum are components that greatly influence the implementation and achievement of quality education. The role of teachers as implementers of learning in the classroom, greatly requires the role of the curriculum used as a guideline in learning, and vice versa, the curriculum requires the role of professional teachers as implementers of the curriculum in the classroom. The purpose of the community service activities that have been carried out is to strengthen the interrelationship between teachers and the curriculum, so that a strong relationship occurs as an effort towards the implementation of quality ECE. The method of community service activities uses participatory action research (PAR), with the aim of learning in overcoming problems and fulfilling needs in the community. In detail, the implementation of this community service activity is to meet the needs of ECE educators, by providing training through workshops and mentoring activities that are implemented in ECE institutions. Based on the objectives and methods used, this community service activity is to lead teachers and the curriculum in implementing quality ECE learning and development institutions. The implementation of the curriculum supported by professional teachers is capital for institutions in providing quality stimulation and learning services for early childhood. So the stronger the interrelationship between teachers and the curriculum, the easier it will be for ECE institutions to provide quality education services.