Global Scholarship: From Service Learning to Community Engagement
Daniel J. Paracka, Amy M. Buddie, and Dawyn S. Dumas, Kennesaw State University This article traces Kennesaw State University’s (KSU) intentional growth and transformation of traditional service learning abroad activities into meaningful community engagement both locally and abroad through the incentive of the global learning scholarship. It discusses how our thinking related to service learning has changed over time and uses specific examples to illustrate this change. It examines best practices in the field and shares lessons learned. Over the past 10 years, KSU has experienced rapid growth in education abroad. In 1998, KSU had 103 students study abroad, whereas…
The Wisconsin Idea: What does global service learning have to do with it?
Eric Mlyn, Duke University Amanda Moore McBride, Washington University in St. Louis I didn’t really mean that… It would be funny if it were not so transparently sad and misguided. Earlier this week, it was announced that Governor Scott Walker was abandoning the “Wisconsin Idea,” which dates back to 1904 and among other things articulates the “public mission” of the University of Wisconsin. Somewhere in the drafting process for the new budget, this public mission was replaced with the notion that the state University system should be focused on meeting “the state’s workforce needs.” Later in the week, in the face…
Framing the Photo Contest: Aid Agencies & Photography
In preparation for our upcoming photo contest, we are gathering insights from around the world. Today, we share veteran international relief and development expert Saundra Schimmelpfennig’s reflections from a blog entry for USAID and the Center for International Disaster Information. Her insights challenge aid donors to look beyond typical “starving child” images and ask why it’s important to “present aid recipients as people with dignity and ability” rather than powerless and forsaken individuals. To avoid cultivation of aid dependency, aid donors should support agencies that provide skills, training, and knowledge needed for recipients to be self-sufficient. Stay tuned by…
Photography & Global Service: A Perfect Ethical Storm?
Physicians Will Bynum, Jeffrey Kinard, and Jessica Evert, in a presentation with the American Academy of Family Physicians, wonder whether we are in the midst of a perfect ethical storm thanks to: Increasing opportunities to do humanitarian work A camera in every pocket Increasing outlets for publication The ability for widespread and rapid dissemination of images The ability to digitally manipulate images Lack of guiding ethical and legal principles To consider the physicians’ extraordinarily thorough, full presentation, visit The Ethics of Photographing Human Suffering on our Google drive. Be sure to view it in the presentation mode. It offers critique, insights, and…
Ethical Volunteer Service? Ethical Photography: A Contest
We engage service across cultures because we wish to make a positive difference. Yet as many of the resources gathered here demonstrate, that is not simple. Service across cultures is fraught with peril, such as when pre-professional students provide medical services in low resource environments, or when children are trafficked to provide volunteer experiences through orphanage tourism. I have just mentioned some of the worst cases in international service. There is also the more subtle challenge of portraying an appropriate global service experience with respect and dignity. To encourage appropriate use of photography and social media during cross-cultural service experiences,…
Critical Service-Learning with International Students in the United States
Julie Miller, Northeastern University and Sunshine Oey, UC Berkeley Setting the Scene…. The United States is hosting a record number of international students who speak English as a non-native language. This means that facilitators of service-learning and community partners need to act collaboratively and creatively in order to sustain mutually-beneficial partnerships. This blog post introduces critical service-learning theory as a stepping stone for those implementing (or wanting to implement) mutually-beneficial community engagement practices with international students. To begin, let’s start with some background about international students in The United States. Globalization continues to change the composition of college campuses worldwide. Universities…
Engaging Conferences? Participatory & Inclusive Format for Upcoming Duke Conference
How do we re-imagine conferences to ensure they maximize opportunities to learn from one another, contribute, and build new networks and alliances? Many of the conveners behind the upcoming International Service-Learning Summit at Duke have been working on just that. By Patrick Eccles and Paul Arnston, Northwestern University Building on the success of highly participative breakout sessions at our previous summit at Northwestern, the ISL Summit at Duke will include two case study sessions that will provide an applied setting for attendees to share their knowledge, experience and perspectives with one another as they engage in critical conversations about student learning…
Good Intentions & Tangible Harms: One Cambodian's Story
Last June I had the privilege of attending a global meeting of the Better Volunteering, Better Care Network, an interagency initiative dedicated to raising awareness about the harms of orphanage tourism while promoting ethical alternatives. At this small gathering I was fortunate to meet Rebecca Nhep, a Field Coach for ACC International Relief, a Christian organization advancing principles of justice and equality around the world. I learned a great deal from Rebecca through her extensive understanding of child rights, human rights, and deinstitutionalization of orphanages in favor of family and community-based care networks. When she shared her foster son’s story with me, I immediately…
Global Service Learning: Concerns from a Community of Practice
Benjamin Lough, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Cynthia Toms, Westmont College If you are reading this post, then you may be one of the growing numbers of higher educational professionals, researchers or practitioners that collectively feel an exciting stir and building momentum within the field of global service-learning (GSL). From discussions of benefits and ethical impacts to best practices built on newly emerging research methods to building a deeper awareness and understanding of the power of partnerships and student engagement, there is no question that global service-learning is on the rise and bursting with potential. Yet with any movement, crossroads…
Funded Opportunity for 1st Generation or MSIs to Participate in Duke Conference, Multi-Institutional Research on Global Learning
Do you represent a first-generation or minority-serving institution (MSI)? Are you working to advance intercultural competence, civic engagement, and/or global learning through summer 2015 programming? Would you like to be able to compare your students’ global learning outcomes with other institutions? Would you like to participate in a community of practice dedicated to developing best practices at the nexus of global learning, cooperative development, and community-university partnership? Would you like access to online tools to enhance narrative storytelling in coursework and campus-community partnership? Through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation, globalsl.org is excited to announce a funded…
Partner and Sponsor Opportunities: globalsl.org
globalsl.org grew into its role as a field-building space after the 2nd International Service-Learning Summit. It brings together several disparate fields of scholarship and practice, at the nexus of global learning, cooperative development, & community-university partnership. The network behind globalsl.org is keenly aware of the considerable risks involved with attempting community-driven development across cultures (See 1, 2, or 3). Institutional commitments to the website as a field-building space grow out of deep desire to ensure that all institutions thoughtfully and ethically engage with the challenging issues of power and privilege that are inexorably intertwined with this work. All network members, whether at…
Measuring Global Learning across Institutions: Opportunity to Participate
By Eric Hartman The 2013 International Service-Learning Summit at Northwestern University featured a vibrant community of researchers and practitioners dedicated to global service-learning (GSL; See global / international terminology discussion in Hartman & Kiely, 2014). Among other documented discussions (Lough & Toms, 2015), participants called for clear, credible, and accessible evaluations that can help support an emerging community of practice. This desire developed from institution-specific interest in continuous improvement as well as field-level interests in considering the power of systematic learning interventions across populations and institutional contexts. In response to this challenge, an interdisciplinary team of researchers considered the framing…
Part-Time Social Media Director Wanted: Globalsl.org
globalsl.org – a site dedicated to advancing global learning and cooperative development through community-university partnership – is hiring immediately for a part-time (10 hours / week) Social Media Director position. (More about the site here). Responsibilities can be fulfilled online / remotely. The position will continue indefinitely based upon performance and sponsor support. The Social Media Director will spend ten hours per week engaged in activities relating to ongoing interaction with followers, readers, and allies via Facebook and Twitter. The individual who fills the position must therefore be adept with social media, engaged in national / international conversations on service across cultures, and committed to…
Former Peace Corps Director who is also a College President: Keynote at March International Service-Learning Summit
Organizers of the 3rd International Service-Learning Summit recently announced that Mark Gearan, president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, will be the summit’s keynote speaker. The gathering will take place in Durham, North Carolina, from March 4 – 6. While Gearan has served as President of Hobart and William Smith since 1999, he also has extensive credentials in public policy and service, having served as the Director of the Peace Corps, and at the White House as Assistant to the President, Director of Communications, and Deputy Chief of Staff. President Gearan is Chair of the Talloires Network Steering Committee, an…
What are they really learning over there? The holes in our curriculum
“Looking at archival program reflections and conducting a series of interviews advanced our understanding of what our students learned during, and retained years removed, from their experience. The past students interviewed have all since graduated and had been involved in team-based, global service-learning experiences in Mexico, Kenya, South Africa, and Botswana.” By Trisha Gott and Chance Lee Understanding how a global service-learning experience moves learners through transformative processes can advance our work as educators and participants in service-learning abroad. Anecdotal evidence too-often fuels conversations about the learning, the growth, and the transformation, that we suspect might occur in any…
From Doorstep to Planet: The Domestic-International Nexus in Global Learning
Slimbach & Wu, of Azusa Pacific University, challenge all of us to deepen our thinking on Global Learning: Wu, S.F. & Slimbach, R. (2014,October). From doorstep to planet: The domestic-international nexus in global learning. Presented at AAC&U: Global Learning in College: Cross-Cutting Capacities for 21st Century Students, Minneapolis, MN. Retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/sites/default/files/files/Global/CS4_FromDoorsteptoPlanet.pdf
From Orphanage Volunteering to Ethical Volunteering
A guest blog from Next Generation Nepal (NGN) Country Director, Martin Punaks During my student years, a couple of my friends and I saved up our money and went backpacking across South America. I called on a favor from a friend who knew someone who ran an orphanage in Peru, and we managed to arrange a one-month volunteering placement. The elderly lady who ran the orphanage cleared some of the children out of one of the rooms so we had beds to sleep in, and we spent our days hanging out with the kids, trying to teach them English, and…
The Ripple Effects of Global Service Learning: Creating Local and Global Waves of Impact
By Aileen Hale Lessons Learned through 25 Years of Global Service Learning Ripples are created when one force exerts energy toward another, spreading the impact, creating a wave. Through a vision for inquiry-driven, sustainable and responsible global service learning (Wilhelm, J., Douglas, W., & Fry, S. , in press), this reflective essay shares the ripple effects of students and teachers engaged in global service-learning; the extension of the wave, and insights into the key factors contributing to these ripples. It is designed for service-learning practitioners seeking to develop sustainable international service-learning experiences, which enhance the development of global citizenship, while…
The Changing Face of Study Abroad: Students’ Personal Beliefs And Motivations When Participating in Alternative Break Programs
Megan Francis, Assistant Dean of International Programs at Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, draws on her research to reveal some challenges in the contemporary discourse framing global service-learning practice. Specifically, structures of recruitment and university mission dialogue may encourage students’ embrace of personal rather than community benefit. A provocative piece for what, for me, has become a pressing concern. Enjoy. – E.H. By Megan Francis The field of study abroad is as old as the United States. Originally seen as a means for the wealthy to gain a European education, today, study abroad ranges from the traditional…
Art, the Moral Imagination, and the University
A few days ago I wondered how individuals use art to expand the moral imagination. Today, I share my effort at an answer here. I’d love to see your thoughts on the question.
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