While service-learning programs have become popular on college campuses across the country, there has been relatively little empirical data about their effects on students. The Comparing Models of Service-Learning research project has gathered data from over 1500 students at 20 colleges adn universities to attempt to answer some of the pressing questions about the value added to students by combining community service and academic study. The study has found that students who choose service-learning differ from those who do not in the target attitudes, skills, values and understanding about social issues. And participation in service-learning has an impact on these outcomes over teh course of a semester.

327 students participating in eight different sections of an undergraduate community service learing course completes surveys at the beginning and end of a semester soncerning their sense of power to impact the world. Contrary to expectation, they reported a lowered sense of power following the experience, with this effect being strongest for particular students and settings. The results are discusses as supporting the positive impact that service-learning experiences can have on undergraduates, and as underscoring the need for continued research to recognize the real complexity of these experiences.

John Dewey's writing is explicit and rich with moral responsibilities of education in a democracy. These moral dimensions provide a framework for identifying characteristics of good undergraduate education that are consistant with recent reports and the pedagogy of sevice-learning. Articulation of these characteristics supports the value of service-learning within the academy, which is critical if service-learning is to receive wider institutional support.

Although sme work has begun to explore issues related to expanding, sustaining, and institutionalizing service-learning, there is little understnading of the dynamic relationship between organizational factors related to service-learning and actual levels of institutional commitment. Each institution must develop its own understanding of its academic priorities, including the role of service as an aspect of mission, and set clear goals for a level of commitment that matches those priorities. A matrix that links organizational factors to levels of commitment to service is proposed as one possible approach to setting institutional goals, realistically assessing current conditions, and monitoring progress toward the desired level of implementation of service learning.

This study focuses on service-learning projects conducted by 255 student teachers from three midwestern teacher education programs. The student teachers and their cooperating teachers designed and carried out projects focused on intergenerational, environmental, or other community issues with school-age service-learners. Drawing upon bith survey and case study data, we found that classroom-based service-learning projects, if structured carefully, can contribute to student teacher empowerment and enhanced relatioships between student teachers and cooperating teachers.

The reflection journals of 27 later-adolescent college students engaged in service-learning were content-analyzed. The themes of the personal fable ot hero syndrome, guilt and anger, and greater awareness of the complexity of issues of social oppression emerged as major issues. It is proposed that exposure to, and the discussion of, the themes, and the critical reflections of previous service-learners, will be useful to students and to persons working with students who are in training for service-learning assignments.

Faculty development in the pedagogy of academic service-learning is essential to the knowledgeable and sustained implementation of combining service with curriculum. While short-term efforts have been described as providing cognitive change in faculty participants, long-term development activities provide both cognitive and affective changes in faculty. A semester long seminar of Faculty Fellows using small group interaction is described.

This paper proposes that the metaphors "border crossing" and "borderlands," drawn from a critical postmodern perspective, are new and powerful lenses for viewing the often contradictory and conflictive experiences of university students engaged in service-learning. The border crossing metephor serves as a starting point for understanding the ambiguity and conflicts inherent in service-learning opportunities for the development of new modes of thought and bridging differences across current boundaries of class and culture. Extending these metaphors, we identify key elements of a border pedagogy for service-learning, which has the potential to transform service-learning into an active rather than passive space for critical reflection, creation of oppositional knowledge, and the development of a radical democracy.

EPICS- Engineering Projects in Community Serive- was founded in Purdue University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Fall of 1995. EPICS significantly broadens the education of engineering students via an extended service-learning experience that is integrated into the engineering curriculum. At the same time, it provides local community service organizations with access to technical expertise and assistance that might otherwise be out of their reach.

When college students do read aloud activities with children as service-learning in their English class, both groups benefit from the service. When the stories emphasize multicultural themes, ans when the children come from diverse backgrounds, college students can better appreciate classroom discussions of cultural diversity, and the children get the message that reading is fun, important, and can tell them something about themselves.

Student interactions and experiences during a community service project can have both a positive and negative impact upon the intended educational goals as well as the overall experience for the students. This article reports on a project in which eleven college students participated in conflict resolution activities at a middle school. The students' reactions to the experience varied due to their different motivations for participation. Training and close supervision, partially accomplished through meetings and reading weekly journals, is paramount for negatiating conflicts, addressing problems, and enhancing the overall experience.

This article describes the design and development of a service-learning project which addressed a crucial need for school-age child care within the community. While engaging in the experience of creating and implementing the Curious Minds After-school Program, students had to take on responsibility for their decisions and actions, worl together to solve problems and delegate tasks, and develop a true sense of leadership and self-effacy. The result was a completely integrated course where all class work was embedded in an experiential service-learning project resulting n tremendous enthusiasm, empowerment, and a more profound learning experience for students.

This article describes a theory and practice for using service-learning as a framework for teaching leadership development. The philosophical premises for merging te two fields of service-learning and leadership is informed by the work of Freire, Horton, and Dewey, as well as the best practices of experientail education and organizational behavior. Out of these philosophies is drawn a curriculum for introducing students to non-tradional leadership styles, including those that are not based on power, authority, and hierarchy.

This article describes the efforts of a small group of faculty members to make an ongoing community service program in the economically distressed City of East St. Loius, Illinois a "taken-for-granted" component of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's public service mission and program. The article presents a comprehensive strategy pursued by the participating faculty to institutionalize this community service learning program within the organizational structure of the University.

John Saltmarsh,
Northeastern University

This paper describes the contours of a history of community service in the United States. It argues that it is a modern concept emerging out of the collision of capitalism and democracy at the turn of the century. This collision generated a crisis of community and a profound rethinking of the meaning and practice of charity, which resulted in the definition of three "paths" of service: the nonprofit human service organization; a strong federal government and active citizenship supported by democratic education; and the creation of alternative communities which reject many of the values of capitalism and democracy in favor of more humane or spiritual calues. These paths are explored through the work of Jane Addams, John Dewey, and Dorothy Day.

Last Updated March 01, 2001