The Hunger Project: Exercising Civic Leadership with the Community for the Common Good in an Introductory Leadership Course (original) (raw)

To Serve or not to Serve? Student Leaders, Community Service, and Community Service Learning

Regional Conference on Science, Technology and Social Sciences (RCSTSS 2014), 2016

Community partners contribute to fostering and sustaining service-learning partnerships. In the service-learning pedagogy, their leadership roles, although identified as partners and co-collaborator, have been under-investigated in the context of their perceptions and contributions. To contribute to the understanding of partners' collaborative involvement, and leadership strategies, we interviewed four partners from two non-profit agencies that had collaborated on projects with a small liberal arts university for more than six years. The partners described their motivations for committing to the partnership, discussed the perceived benefits of the collaboration, and explained the strategies they implemented to address partnership challenges. We demonstrate that in service-learning collaborations, active community partners exhibit leadership competencies of knowing, being and doing, and they display the five components of leadership success outlined in the Relational Leadership Model: supporting purpose, sustaining process, ensuring ethics, maintaining inclusiveness, and creating empowerment.

Implementing Civic Engagement into Service-Learning Courses: Perspectives from Both Sides of the Fence

Service-learning is a useful tool in graduate education. Utilizing a nonprofit management and leadership course as a case study, presenters argue that servic-elearning promotes student interaction with the community-at-large, while fostering collaboration through continued partnerships that link theory to practice. Such innovative practices are rare and should be replicated in other settings. This session will describe how teaching philosophies and tangible deliverables can be developed to help students beyond their academic program.

How Service Learning Inspired Student Leadership and Sustained Global Engagement

2017

is a graduating senior from Northwestern studying Journalism and Asian American Studies. She hopes to use her degree to tell stories that expand cross-cultural understanding and inspire change. She is currently working on her first documentary about a band of undocumented immigrants from the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago, and looks forward to continuing this type of work. Danielle Elliott graduated from Northwestern University with a double major in journalism and political science and a minor in Spanish. She received a Fulbright grant and will be moving to Madrid, Spain, in September to work at the Universidad Camilo José Cela as an English Teaching Assistant. She will be working in the courses related to Communication, Globalization and Education.

Connecting to Communities: Powerful Pedagogies for Leading for Social Change

New Directions for Student Leadership, 2015

This chapter explores the use of powerful pedagogies such as service-learning, cultural immersion, and community-based research to enhance leadership development. Four key principles are presented that describe how leadership educators can facilitate community-based learning in a way that creates an optimal learning environment for students, while also engaging ethically with individuals and organizations in the community.

From Community Service to Service-Learning Leadership: A Program Perspective

New Horizons in Education, 2009

Background: One of the debates around service-learning is if and what changes can be affected in the short duration of a college course, typically 15 weeks. This study explores how one education program addresses this challenge by taking into consideration students' cognitive and social development and systematically designs a progression of community service and service-learning experiences. Prospective elementary education teachers begin this program by engaging in community service during their sophomore year. In their junior year in a required course in learner diversity, they are students of service-learning. Then, in their senior year, they become teachers of service-learning projects in their elementary classroom placements. Aims: The aim of this investigation is to ascertain whether prospective teachers demonstrate growth in cultural understanding and content knowledge through a credential program which has a community service/service-learning component that develops over three years. Sample: During a three year period, 413 elementary education majors responded to surveys about their service-learning experiences. Method: Students responded to surveys at the conclusion of each of two courses with a service-learning component. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed. Results: Findings from the data reveal that service-learning has broadened students understanding of social issues; helped them to examine their own views and biases; provided them with a greater responsibility to the community; and assisted them in acquiring skills useful in their career. Conclusion: Students gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their community as they experience community service and service-learning at different levels throughout the program. Students who participate in this program not only benefit from a change in their own personal views, but also learn the importance of facilitating changes in attitudes, beliefs, and practices in others. This progression of experiences significantly influences students' abilities to apply what they have learned as teachers in a classroom.

Service Learning: Authentic Experiences that Enhance Civic Engagement

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Written reflection is a tool commonly used by faculty to assess student learning in service-learning courses, which are frequently offered as short-term international experiences. This article discusses a qualitative analysis of students' written reflections on a short-term, international service-learning project that was conducted to determine whether undergraduate students bridged their engagement to the development of civic or social responsibility. Results of the analysis revealed that students demonstrated nominal progress toward civic responsibility when not specifically prompted by assignments. Multiple themes emerged from the analysis related to students' goals, challenges, and lessons learned. Based on the findings, the authors recommend that faculty, to encourage students' development of civic responsibility, be prepared to help students set goals and work through challenges, and to play an active role in supporting and guiding students in processing their experiences in a transformational manner.