As part of a broad initiative to create a portfolio of robust living learning communities at Virginia Tech, the SERVE LLC was established in 2009 to offer students meaningful community-engaged learning experiences. The program connects students with a commitment to social justice in an environment that promotes critical dialogue and reflection.…

Recent research points to a 40% decline in college students' capacity for empathy over the past 4 decades (Konrath, O'Brien, & Hsing, 2011). In this article, the author reflects on undergraduates' reaction to the case study "Toys for Haiti," which the author created and designed to foster empathy in her students. She…

Volunteering is often touted as a method to educate college students about social justice by providing students with an opportunity to apply classroom knowledge in a real-world setting. However, many critics have noted that service does not necessarily lead to social justice outcomes and that some forms of service may reinforce students'…

The purpose of this article is to describe the application of Kram's mentorship principles to the development of a service learning assignment in an undergraduate course. An overview of the (a) assignment and (b) qualitative analysis of student papers is provided. Recommendations for other courses are noted.

A growing body of research has found community service learning to have a positive effect upon participating college students' civic development; however, far less scholarship has considered the impact of particular components of a community service learning program. This article presents two preliminary but promising strategies for enhancing the…

Pluralism and engagement with diverse religious, secular, and spiritual worldviews can contribute significantly to college student growth and civic engagement. But these concepts can be difficult to measure in the framework of student learning. This article describes a process and product undertaken by Elon University, Interfaith Youth Core, and…

This study explores the role that identity and the identity development process play in a short-term, international service-learning experience. Employing narrative inquiry, two of the co-authors, student participants in a 2-week service-learning program in Honduras, describe and interpret their service-learning experience in the context of life…

The Values, Ethics, and Social Action (VESA) minor at Allegheny College has been an academic program since 1999. This article describes the unique strengths of VESA and some of the institutional and conceptual challenges faced by the program and presents details of practices employed to meet these challenges in order to sustain this community…

Despite solid foundations for service-learning at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB), the economic context of higher education in California, and in particular the CSU system, has created significant challenges for service-learning practitioners. This article provides an overview of the institutional foundations in place at CSUMB…

This article articulates a model for the "engaged campus" through academic programs focused on community engagement, broadly construed. Such academic programs--usually coalesced in certificate programs, minors, and majors--provide a complementary vision for the deep institutionalization of civic and community engagement in the academy that can…

Since the early 1990s, Portland State University has furthered its commitment to civic engagement education by adopting an integrated approach to its general education curriculum. As an outgrowth to this initiative, the minor in Civic Leadership was developed in 2004-05. This interdisciplinary minor was designed with the intent to further…

This essay is an excerpt from a keynote speech delivered by Benjamin Barber at the 2nd Annual Summer Research Institute on the "Future of Community Engagement in Higher Education." The speech focuses on six conditions that will impact community service-learning and voluntarism efforts in the years ahead: the ideology of neo-liberalism and…

Educators often treat community service and diversity as distinct areas. The author argues that educators should seize upon the intersection of these two areas in order to strengthen students' capacity to engage with each.

Institutions of higher education have continuously struggled to find ways to keep young adults engaged. In order to do so, they have introduced a number of techniques and programs into the curriculum, but these programs do not necessarily translate to transformational learning for students. This article discusses the transformation of an…

This article analyzes the experience of teaching and learning in a "Literature of Service" course in its attempt to utilize the best of civic learning and faith-based reflection to make sense of social inequality. The language of students' final portfolios for the course suggests a direct connection between their classroom talk about literary…