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IDEAS Program > Report
How Higher Education is Integrating
Diversity and Service Learning:
Findings from Four Case Studies
Lori J. Vogelgesang, Ph.D
with research support from Marcy Drummond and Shannon K. Gilmartin
Funded by The James Irvine Foundation
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BACKGROUND FINDINGS |
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California Campus Compact would like to acknowledge and thank the many individuals who contributed to various phases of this project. We are most grateful to Dr. Lori J. Vogelgesang who, with assistance from researchers Marcy Drummond and Shannon K. Gilmartin, conducted the research study and wrote the research report. We would also like to thank the faculty members, academic administrators, students and staff who not only assisted us in coordinating the campus visits and interviews, but also participated in the interviews. Special thanks to the following service-learning administrators who provided valuable feedback on the needs of independent colleges during the planning phases: Richard Cone (retired from the University of Southern California), Brad Dudley (Pepperdine University), Tom Manley (formerly with Pitzer College), Jack McLean (University of San Francisco), Mark McMurchie (Azusa Pacific University), Judy Rauner (retired from the University of San Diego), and Leslie Townsend (Mills College). Jeannie Kim-Han provided valuable contributions as a special consultant to California Campus Compact at the early stages of the development of this project. We are grateful to David Nakashima for providing advice and facilitation services to us throughout the project. Additionally, we would like to acknowledge and thank our representatives from the six campuses that participated in the year-long IDEAS project (Bertram Chatham, Elaine Elliott, Judy Hutchinson, Raymond Jones, Silva Karayan, Jonathan Lew, Ajuan Mance, Heather Mayne, L. Reuben Mitchell, Chris Nayve, Juanita Pryor, Judy Rauner, Emily Samose). Finally, we would like to thank The James Irvine Foundation whose financial assistance made this project possible. We are especially thankful to Robert Shireman, Hilda Hernandez-Gravelle, and Rosa Armendáriz of The James Irvine Foundation for their support. |
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As California struggles to address the complex issues of diversity in this state - race, economics, gender, religion, and sexual orientation, to name a few - it is critical that the education system in the state prepare students to be conscientious, aware, and engaged citizens. In recent years, both service-learning and multicultural education have been seen as effective ways to achieve this goal. While many have noted the strong link between the two fields, rarely have academicians and practitioners in either field focused on establishing strong collaborative partnerships between the two. It is important to note that in implementing service learning, diversity exists "within and between higher education cultures and grassroots community cultures" (Langseth, 2000 p. 252). Service-learning programs operate within complex, diverse environments. This is the underlying assumption in the importance of addressing the connections between service learning and diversity. Students matriculate to colleges from all over the state and nation, increasing the likelihood that the student body population may be quite different from the communities these institutions work with. This makes exploring the issue of diversity between campus and community even more relevant and important (Cone, 2001). With funding from The James Irvine Foundation, California Campus Compact (CACC) designed the Community/University Initiative on Diversity, Equity, and Service (IDEAS) program, focusing on the integration of diversity and service learning in higher education. The goal of this program was to encourage collaborative efforts between and across institutions around diversity and service learning. Through this goal we hoped to: 1) build the capacity of the independent sector of California higher education to increase focus on and integration of diversity and service-learning education, and 2) prepare all students for participation and leadership in a diverse society. One major component of this project was a research study designed to examine issues of collaboration and how service learning and diversity work might be more closely connected from an institutional perspective. Although this research project concentrated on four independent colleges and universities in California, we believe that the information gleaned from this study will be informative for a variety of institutions. We hope you enjoy reading this study and that you find the information helpful for your institution.
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This study was undertaken as part of a larger project called Community/University IDEAS: Initiatives on Diversity, Equity and Service, which targets California independent colleges and universities and their students, faculty and communities. IDEAS is sponsored by the California Campus Compact and funded by The James Irvine Foundation. The goal of the IDEAS project is to support collaborative partnerships between diversity and service efforts in higher education. The research reported here aims to inform the work of a gathering of higher education administrators and faculty around the issue of collaboration between those who work with diversity initiatives on campus and those who use service learning in both curricular and co-curricular endeavors. The overall research question, as posed by the project sponsor, is “How is higher education integrating diversity and service learning?” This study examines the research question by constructing case studies of the work at four independent institutions in California. |
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Defining |
For the purposes of this study, we let participants use the vocabulary they were most comfortable with around these issues; we didn't ask them to define terms. As we report the findings, though, it is necessary to balance the use of different terms with writing that is clear and somewhat consistent. So we spend just a moment here to address this particular language issue. A good deal of the work around diversity issues on campus is understood in the context of multicultural education, and offices of multicultural education are commonly the administrative home for diversity programs. Although the word “diversity” and “multiculturalism” are not synonymous, they are used somewhat interchangeably when discussing learning outcomes and campus climate. Similarly, we use them in this report in interchangeable contexts. The term “service learning” likewise holds different meanings for people, and some resist even using the word “service.” Some would prefer the term “community-based learning,” others argue for a broader language such as “civic engagement.” Here we mostly use the term “service learning” and are referring to course-based community work done by students. Clearly, the principles, supports, and challenges to this work are applicable to broader work as well, and we want to focus on these broader issues. |
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"Service learning is not a word most people here... like or use. They like community-based learning or community-based issues better." |
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History of |
Both the service learning and diversity movements challenge the traditional curriculum and way of doing things in higher education. In other words, both are potentially transformative approaches because they call for radical change in the way we think about learning and teaching. It is apparent that both service learning and multiculturalism are often marginalized on campus. However, there are some differences in how this marginalization gets enacted, and a brief look at the history of these movements can help us understand why. Multiculturalism emerges from the civil rights movement of the 1960s (O'Grady, 2001); service learning, by comparison, draws from the work of Dewey, experiential education and community action programs of the 1960s and 1970s (Stanton, Giles & Cruz, 1999). Neither movement is monolithic, but both have at least some roots in social justice issues. Indeed, as is discussed in this report, social justice concerns can be the focus of work when diversity and service learning efforts are coordinated. Certainly among service-learning practitioners, there is not general agreement on social justice as the primary outcome of the practice. There is much evidence that other outcomes (enhanced learning for students, for instance) have been the aim of mainstream practitioners. Likewise, some proponents of diversity work focus on the ways in which diversity enhances learning for all students, while others place more emphasis on social justice issues of inequity in educational access and outcomes for different groups. Although both movements have roots in the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, service learning enjoys a great deal of visible federal support - both financial and verbal - and has grown dramatically in the last decade. By contrast, notes O'Grady, multicultural education with its focus on oppression has received less support and has been viewed by many as “too radical or as divisive” (2001, p. 13). This reality has implications for collaborations between the two fields, and some of this study's findings can be better understood in light of this history. |
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"Diversity is such a blobby... it's worse than intercultural understanding. It's a fuzz affective, cognitive mix." "What you'll find is that people are interested in the complete person... is going to influence profoundly what we do in the classroom and with others." |
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Theoretical |
The literature on intersections between multiculturalism and service learning discusses how both can enhance student learning and contribute to a greater social good. The focus is on student learning, in the context of supporting students' intellectual and social development as they engage in service learning - both the classroom and the community elements. Understanding the pedagogical implications of this work is essential, but what is missing is the organizational perspective on how one integrates the two bodies of work administratively. This study and the larger IDEAS project are designed to explore issues of how service learning and diversity work might be more closely connected from an institutional perspective. Thus, in collecting data for these case studies, we sought to carefully hear and understand how organizational factors such as the leadership, the academic culture, and institutional values work to shape the environment in which both diversity and service-learning work happens. We also heard about the ways in which external forces (e.g. funding) play a catalytic role in these collaborations. |
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"Diversity efforts are sometimes perceived as add-on, separate from other work of the university." |
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Methodology |
In order to frame the issues from an organizational perspective, we employ a case study method of inquiry. In November and December of 2001, we visited four independent institutions in California, gathering documentation and interviewing faculty, administrators, and students who were engaged in the work of service learning, multicultural education, or both. Three of the universities are Catholic institutions, and the fourth is not religiously affiliated. All are located in racially, socioeconomically and otherwise diverse urban communities. For the purposes of masking specific institutional identities, we refer to all institutions as universities. Our institutional contact at each university was recommended by the Executive Director of the California Campus Compact. In turn, the institutional contact suggested the people with whom we should meet, and in some cases coordinated our interview schedule. At two institutions the contact was the administrator responsible for the service-learning office, at another it was a vice-president for external affairs, and at the remaining institution it was the academic dean. Thus, this study examines issues from the perspectives of highly involved faculty and administrators and, to a lesser extent, students and community partners. |
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"I don't see how you can talk about service learning and cultural studies apart from each other." |
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As might be expected, we heard faculty and staff discuss some issues that appeared to be common across all four institutions. These issues have to do with challenges facing those attempting to facilitate organizational change in general such as resistance to change and limited resources. Other issues raised more narrowly address the fields of service and diversity, such as language and politics around the appropriateness and efficacy of investing in such efforts in higher education. But we also heard numerous examples of collaborations and barriers to collaborations that seem to be a result of the specific institutional culture or individuals on a particular campus. After examining organizational factors in general, we present some promising practices that emerged from one or more institutions visited. Clearly, combining service and diversity work happens outside of collaborations between the offices that coordinate such work. This common-sense observation was confirmed by our site visits. For instance, one service-learning center has always had a social justice focus, and included training and other reflections that incorporate issues of diversity, but this work hasn't historically involved the diversity office on that campus. Similarly, a good number of faculty we spoke with either are or were incorporating service and diversity into their courses without direct support from either office. One might legitimately ask if there is indeed any unique benefit to strengthening collaborations at the organizational level between service learning and diversity. This study examines the relationship between these informal means of incorporating diversity and service learning and the more formal organizational collaborations between offices. In this section, we examine diversity and service work on these four campuses from several perspectives of the educational organization, including institutional mission, leadership, academic culture, and structural organization. We then discuss findings around issues of collaborations and partnerships, external funding, and assessment before presenting some promising practices. |
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"How does the conversation get started here? With a creat shout from the Dean... or the President, or a grant" |
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Institutional Mission |
In general, the missions of all four institutions support engaging in both diversity and community-based work. This was framed as working for a socially just world, cultivating responsible citizens, or educating students to provide leadership in a more interdependent world. At one institution the mission statement was revised right before we visited. The changes in mission statement were crafted under the direction of a new president. The new mission statement notes that the university aims to be a “diverse, socially responsible learning community of high quality scholarship and academic rigor...” The same statement includes the university value: “a culture of service that respects and promotes the dignity of every person.” It would be interesting to visit this school again in five years to see if staff, students and faculty find that changes in the mission and values statements lead to stronger support for work that integrates diversity and service. In comparison, another institution's mission statement does not address diversity and curricular service so directly. Indeed, one person noted that the (recently revised) mission statement of the university actually does not employ vocabulary that supports the notion of community work for social justice. Nonetheless, notes the participant, faculty engaged in community-based work seem to assume the mission includes a social justice goal, because it is a Catholic institution and social justice is part of that church's teachings. Zlotkowski reminds us that successful (service-learning) programs “draw upon the institution's own understanding of its fundamental mission” (1998; p. 9). In this case, then, faculty understanding of the fundamental mission appeared to go beyond the actual words written in the mission. |
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"... the whole thing is about who is in charge of the academy and the curriculum, whether it's a Eurocentric kind of theory-based, not applied scholarship or is about these other ways of learning, of cultural perspectives... because they are politicized. |
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Leadership |
At all four universities, we heard administrators and faculty members discuss the critical role that support from top leadership has played in the success they have experienced. Whether this support came in the form of verbal recognition, financial support for grant initiatives as the grant closed out, or a president or provost really being a source of inspiration and passion for these efforts, participants in this study articulated the importance of the institution's formal leadership in making a place for their work in the surrounding community. Where there are separate offices for service learning and diversity, the importance of support from “the top” was expressed more directly by those in service learning than by those doing diversity work. It is not so much that the latter group experienced less support (though some did). Rather, they tempered their remarks with comments about how much work still remains to be done, and how very difficult it is for the campus community to have open dialogue – much less visible action – around diversity initiatives. As one participant wryly remarked about the campus, “Diversity is separate from everything.” This supports O'Grady's (2001) observation that diversity issues may be more contested and thus more politically sensitive than are those around service learning. Although there was widespread agreement that more needs to be done, there were also examples where the institutional leaders strived to incorporate diversity into not only service experiences, but to make diversity meaningful across the curriculum and indeed the institution. At one institution this was done in part through revising the mission statement. At another there was a strategic reorganization of the institution to align itself with the institutional values. Here the service-learning and diversity offices both fall under the supervision of a high ranking academic administrator who has inspired and supported the staff in both offices, and been a critical force in increasing the number of faculty members who include a community-based opportunity for students in their classes. One participant in the study noted that there is a certain “plateau” that has been reached at the institution; the diversity initiatives so far are seen as successful, but deeper cultural change is not something that university administrators have been trained to lead. Since there was widespread agreement on the importance of top administrators supporting this work, this observation raises some important issues about the possibilities for further cultural changes at the university. How do proponents of these change efforts push the boundaries of institutional culture when leaders do not have the skills to facilitate these difficult discussions and indeed, institutional “soul-searching”? Is there a fundamental difference when the change effort is conceived of by “the middle” – the service-learning director or diversity director or both – and supported by top administrators versus a top administrator (e.g. provost or president) envisioning the change and moving the institution in that direction?
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"Support came from the top, but the framework emerged from the middle." |
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Academic Culture: Curriculum Integration |
The real test of success for any change in higher education is the extent to which it is reflected in the curriculum. Although this project focuses on organizational collaborations between campus offices, it necessarily aims to influence the curricular learning environment for students. Given that the curriculum in higher education remains the domain of the faculty, support in the faculty reward/tenure/promotion (RTP) process is important for integrating service learning and diversity in the curriculum. The academic culture of the institution, as evidenced by the tenure and promotion process, varies in the degree of support it offers to faculty engaged in multicultural work and community-based work. Among the faculty we interviewed, a good number said they would be incorporating service learning and diversity into their courses even if they did not have institutional support; it just made sense to them. Others give credit to their service-learning office for sharing with them the potential of community-based experiences. These faculty were already aware of the importance of creating a learning environment that supported diverse learners, but one reflected that there are many faculty who need training to deal with diverse perspectives in general, and specific training to facilitate the conversations around diversity that arise when students are working in the community and bringing their reflections on those experiences to the classroom. At one institution, we heard several faculty members say they came to the institution specifically because of that school's reputation of expecting and rewarding faculty involvement in community-based work with students. Recently, that institution's “...promotion and tenure committee voted to make service to the community one of the four main constructs. We always had service to the community, but it had always meant service to the [university] community...but they specifically re-articulated that to mean doing work, connecting your class to community.” That institution's mission had been parleyed into a critical mass of faculty doing service learning and other community-based work, with an emphasis on the diverse cultures in the community. Several junior faculty members at another institution said they were brought on board with the expectation of working with their students in the community, and are confident their work is valued in the department. In other cases, however, faculty were more cautious, noting that their work in the community reflected their passion - they would be doing it regardless of the reward system, and indeed felt the university's faculty reward system needed to be changed to recognize the importance of this work. At the same time, however, these faculty members noted the importance of institutional support mechanisms such as small grants to redesign syllabi and the administrative assistance of the service-learning office to facilitate community partnerships, provide information to students about service opportunities, coordinate placements, etc. At one institution where there is no service-learning office in the traditional sense, faculty have been responsible for their own partnerships with community agencies or representatives. Here professors acknowledge that this places a great burden on them, but they also feel closely connected with their colleagues/partners based in the community. The faculty we met in this situation did not speak of wishing for an administrative unit to facilitate the logistics of their work, but rather spoke about desiring more rewards (in the tenure and review process) and increased resources (such as money for student transportation) for this kind of work. Indeed several noted that resources and rewards would have to be in place to get more widespread participation by faculty. |
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"... we are starting
to ... put emphasis on curriculum development or at least having
this partnership with them. We're realizing it's important to create
programs around courses rather than create programs and sell them
to the courses." |
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University Structure |
A number of people we spoke with felt the programs and funding coming through service learning and diversity were generally perceived as “add-on” instead of part of the “way we do things” on their campuses. For instance, they noted that some faculty members seem to feel they must choose between initiatives in which to get involved. Should they choose the workshop to help them incorporate diversity into their courses, or the one on service learning? Such divisions, noted one professor, make it difficult to see the institution's priorities clearly, and can set up a competition for resources and faculty attention. When such work isn't rewarded in the faculty tenure and promotion process anyway, one has to have a strong personal commitment to take this on. When the service-learning office and the multicultural office report through different channels (i.e. one through student affairs and one through academic affairs), there are fewer opportunities to interact and creatively think about collaborations. As one administrator acknowledged, representatives from each group just “weren't at the table” when the issues of one another's office were being discussed. This is the historical student affairs versus academic affairs dilemma, but also points to differences in how the work of each office gets defined. An office viewed as the point-place for diversity issues may have neither mandate nor resources to provide training or advice to faculty on syllabi development. Rather, the diversity/multicultural office in several cases seemed to be more oriented toward campus dialogues and issues of structural diversity on campus. At several institutions, the key people have a history of working together in other capacities, which might mitigate the structural challenge. |
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"We've made a commitment to a site, and it's not a 'one-shot-deal' where students come and go. They know that I'm always here." |
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Framing Diversity |
Several institutions' service-learning centers combine diversity and service learning by framing their work around campus and/or community partnerships. We only saw one diversity office framing its vision around partnerships, although at an additional institution the diversity office provided a framework for cultural competency that the service-learning office employs. We describe the service-learning partnerships first, followed by the approach of the diversity office. There is, in several cases, a core set of community partners with whom the service-learning office has formed partnerships. These offices have a group of community representatives who function as part of an advisory board, and this is part of a commitment to long-term partnerships with these agencies. In this way, according to administrators, the relationships formed between the institution and the community move in the direction of being more authentically reciprocal. At the same time, moreover, the community partners are committed to working with the university to see that issues of diversity are addressed in appropriate ways, through giving feedback on course materials, providing orientations or training, or working with the service-learning center to make long-term plans. One service-learning office identified the neighborhood adjacent to the campus as a place where the institution should have a visible presence. By having clear goals of cultivating the relationships here, the office has created a “niche” and is able to speak clearly to what is working and what the goals for the future of the partnership are. The community task force, initiated by some external funding several years ago, continues to be a critical part of planning. At another institution the geographic area served is more broadly defined, but the service-learning office maintains a set of core partnerships that reflect long-term commitments. In both cases, though, community representatives play important roles in decision-making by the service-learning office. In contrast, another institution has a structure much more typical in higher education. The service-learning officer here serves more as a broker of information for faculty and students, as well as the coordinating body for faculty workshops. The language here, then, appears to be based on providing resources to faculty and students to enhance their work. Typically the diversity office work was focused on recruiting and supporting students and faculty of color, and facilitating campus dialogues around diversity issues. We only saw one case where the diversity office included community service in its vision statements. Here there was a formal connection to the service-learning office and community as partners in addressing issues of multiculturalism. One of the functions of the partnership is to disperse grant monies associated with a campus-wide initiative to enhance multiculturalism. The self-evaluation of this model was positive, but there is concern expressed that the committee is viewed by the campus community primarily as a source of funding for programs. Nonetheless, this is an example of a diversity office creating an organizational link to a service-learning office. |
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"We always had service
to the community, but it had always meant service to the [university]
community... but they specifically rearticulated that to mean doing
work, connecting your class to community." |
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External Funding |
External funding has served an important role in the work of several of the universities we visited. We heard mixed reviews of whether programs started with grant money were subsequently institutionalized by the university, but this appeared to be happening at least some of the time. Not surprisingly these participants talked about James Irvine Foundation grants, but other sources were mentioned as well, especially by staff in service-learning offices. James Irvine Foundation grants targeting diversity initiatives provided opportunities for collaboration between community-based work and diversity work on several campuses. In turn, these collaborations have provided some models for how diversity and service work might be combined. Ultimately, focusing on the institution as community citizen, or approaching community involvement from a social justice perspective appear to be strong models for sustaining relationships between diversity work and service work. One aspect of external funding that appears to be important is when a foundation is willing to fund successive efforts at the same institution, and fund the institution generously enough to put in place a position or some substantial programs that can make a noticeable impact. Several programs are funded by generous endowments, allowing the offices to make long-term plans and commitments. Although no one indicated they felt they had “enough” money to do the work they wanted to do, offices that were now institutionally funded or secured by an endowment didn't express the uncertainty of even being around, much less worrying about specific programs. Funding successive efforts, as the James Irvine Foundation has done, also seemed to be effective in that it allowed for a learning curve at the institutional level. The second or third grants that institutions are implementing have characteristics of working on institutional change. At one university, for instance, the process of writing the proposal to the James Irvine Foundation changed dramatically after the first grant, and several people we spoke with noted it went from a rather “patchwork” approach of funding a variety of institutional programs to a clear plan of how each initiative proposed across campus fit with an overall goal. The subsequent funding, then, enabled the university to reflect on what worked and where the institution was headed, and then to get funding to implement the next steps. One person we spoke with raised some interesting questions about the “agenda” that gets defined by the funding agency. To what extent, he wondered, does the money drive how the institution defines these partnerships, defines diversity? Is it just racial / ethnic diversity? Or is there space for broader conceptualizations and programs to meet a variety of needs? Interestingly, the offices of diversity tend to be defined around creating inclusive climates on campus, but much of their work can be around recruiting and supporting non-white faculty and students. In this case diversity gets defined narrowly. But from a curricular perspective, a number of faculty and administrators noted the impossibility of untangling one aspect from the complexity of the whole person.
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"We are using a service-learning
instrument... but now we need assistance with analyzing the data
[from an unbiased person]... but that means we'd have to pay someone
to do it and we don't have the money." |
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Assessment of |
There was no one we spoke with who appeared satisfied with the amount and quality of assessment efforts regarding student learning or the programs. Discussing assessment brings up numerous issues. It highlights the lack of consensus around what “diversity” and “service” mean and whether they are appropriate terms. In other words, how do you decide what to measure? It also highlights the ways in which education is contested in general by asking such questions as: What should students be learning? How should they be learning (what methods work best)? What is the role of education in social change? The participants in this study were passionate and eloquent when discussing their hopes for education as a vehicle for social change and why they do what they do. They know these viewpoints are not mainstream faculty perspectives, and that the majority of their colleagues do not engage in their approach to learning. One faculty member we spoke with also explored the dilemma of the risk faculty take to teach a course dealing with service and diversity, when faculty rewards are based on evaluation of their teaching. How can an institution make it safe to try this sometimes difficult approach? What happens when a faculty member tries something and it doesn't work so well? Assessment of a partnership - from an organizational perspective -was apparent only in one case where an external source was funding the work of the diversity office. Here the diversity office undertook some partnership evaluation, albeit fairly informal, and reported findings as part of the grant report. Discussions on assessment also bring up issues of funding and institutional support. It is expensive and time consuming to do assessment well, and these programs struggle with the issue. Several people told us that assessment was what needed most attention, in large part to document the efficacy of these marginalized ways of teaching. |
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"We've been at this
a little longer than other places, and you learn by screwing up." |
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Promising Practices |
In this section we summarize some of the practices we heard about that have the potential to be models for other institutions engaged in integrating diversity work with service learning. Each institution we visited has some promising practices which are a function of that individual institution, but also have elements that might be translated to other institutions: * Use community-centered partnership language to pull in a multicultural perspective more readily. When the partnership is the focus, it's easier to .make sense of' the necessity of understanding community needs, which must address socioeconomic and cultural differences. * Work to ensure that offices doing diversity and service-learning work report to (the same) high ranking academic officers, centering the collaborations around enhancing diversity and service learning in the curriculum and deepening faculty commitment to this issue. * Create a structure that brings together the offices of diversity and service learning. A formal partnership to accomplish certain goals can strengthen collaborative efforts and serve to define collaborations. * Develop a diversity office that has a broad mandate to influence curricular aspects of diversity - broadly defined - as well as the structural aspects such as recruitment and retention of students and faculty of color. * Connect the work of both offices closely and clearly with the institutional mission. This is necessary but not sufficient, as it appears that the role of support from top administrators is also critical. However, support can come most strongly from the top when initiatives are clearly seen as doing the work the university sees as core to its mission. |
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A Few Remaining |
A focus on community partnerships can provide a vehicle for integrating diversity and service, but such a focus did not guarantee that the office for diversity / multicultural issues was directly engaged in the partnership. An issue worth examining in light of community partnerships, information brokering, and all functions of a service-learning office is the implication that efforts at integrating service and diversity have for the organization. To what extent is it beneficial or necessary for organizational structures (i.e. diversity and service-learning offices) to collaborate? Could the objective of integrating multicultural perspectives in a service-learning experience be accomplished without the support of the office that coordinates diversity efforts? These issues will need to be addressed as institutional representatives tackle them on each campus. The case studies shed light on a variety of ways in which higher education institutions are trying to understand how to be responsible community members. The diverse organizational arrangements and histories mean different challenges and opportunities for collaboration, and differences in the goals and perspectives of the service-learning and diversity offices. Issues of language and the extent to which the work of the offices is seen as too “political” or too “radical” vary, depending on the programs and also on the institutional culture. The collaborations between offices (where separate offices exist) often depend on individuals and, to a certain extent, leadership, as organizational structures in place might actually support or work against strong collaborations. External funding can play a catalyst role in developing such relationships as well as provide an opportunity to try new ideas. It does appear that when faculty and administrators can focus their work around issues of social justice, community engagement and community partnerships, the language they embrace seems to support the development of opportunities for enhanced collaboration. Faculty and staff at the sites we visited were committed to this kind of work. This commitment will have to be translated to an organizational commitment to service and diversity as integral components of student learning. Without such an institutional commitment, efforts to integrate diversity and service learning will depend on who is interested in the issue at that moment. Mission statements are an important anchor for this work, but including such goals in the mission statement is no guarantee that support will be provided to fund such efforts. |
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"There is also too many initiatives - there's diversity, there's internationalizing the curriculum, there's peace and justice, there's ethics, there's just too many things going on..." |
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Cone, R. (2001). Personal communication. Langseth, M. (2000). Maximizing impact, minimizing harm: Why service-learning must more fully integrate multicultural education. In C.R. O'Grady (Ed.), Integrating service learning and multicultural education in colleges and universities. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. O'Grady, C. R. (2000). Integrating Service Learning and Multicultural Education in Colleges and Universities. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Stanton, T. K., Giles, D. G., & Cruz, N. (1999). Service Learning: A Movement's Pioneers Reflect on Its Origins, Practice and Future.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Zlotkowski, E. (Ed.) (1998). Successful Service-Learning Programs: New Models of Excellence for Higher Education. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Co. |
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