In this forum response essay, the author proposes that the largest challenge "and" benefit of Communication Activism Pedagogy (CAP) is bound up in a small but significant word in Frey and Palmer's (2014) definition of Communication Activism Pedagogy: "with." Working "with oppressed community members" challenges the…

Offering examples from her own experiences, the author advises community-engaged scholars (and those mentors and institutions that support them) to always question assumptions with respect to the communities in which they are engaged. She notes that as they work to unfold research programs, they should be sure to listen carefully to the…

Service-learning and community engagement (SLCE) practitioner-scholars--meaning all who do the work of SLCE with a commitment to integrating practice and study--find avenues to this work in a variety of ways. Through custom-made pathways, graduate students are forced to articulate and define their place in the academy, which can enhance voice,…

In this interview, Paula Mathieu explores the rhetorical tactics and contemplative practices necessary to cultivate hope in a period of political tumult. Drawing on her scholarship on the "public turn" in Composition Studies, a term she gave us in her vital "Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in English Composition," Mathieu…

New England's long winter and seemingly interminable wait for spring has this author thinking about what colleges could do with their campuses during the summer. The options are almost infinite, although the cost-benefit analysis clearly varies. For some students, being on campus in the summer is preferable to going home, where the environments…

In a September 2013 interview, Thomas Ehrlich and Ernestine Fu--whose passion for public service is manifested in differing ways and from two dramatically different generational standpoints--discussed insights from their co-authored book, "Civic Work, Civic Lessons: Two Generations Reflect on Public Service (2013)." Septuagenarian Tom…

This "Conversation Currents" features JoBeth Allen and Valerie Kinloch discussing their thoughts and experiences working with families and communities. Allen bases her comments on the belief that programs have to be adaptable to many different constituencies and demographics, and so must be recreated every year with every teacher and…

In this paper, I suggest that community-based learning can act as a "public space" for the exchange of religious and non-religious identities. By providing a space for the collaboration between religiously-affiliated Universities and non-religiously affiliated community partners, community-based learning offers the opportunity for the negotiation…

Tomoko Masuzawa and a number of other contemporary scholars have recently problematized the categories of "religion" and "world religions" and, in some cases, called for its abandonment altogether as a discipline of scholarly study. In this collaborative essay, we respond to this critique by highlighting three attempts to teach…

This article, which forms part of the policy booklet "Lessons from the Front" written by participants and Ambassadors of the Teach First scheme, argues that educational outcomes are often adversely affected by the size and structure of many urban complex schools. Rather than multiplying the efforts of teachers, too often the…

Many school library media specialists, especially in elementary schools, establish library clubs and library monitor programs. In most cases, these clubs and programs are limited to students assisting with clerical duties in the library such as shelving books and manning the circulation desk under supervision. The library media specialist assigns…

"Service-learning" has been adopted by many colleges and universities as a way of instilling in students an ethic of community service. Its advocates typically distinguish it from simple volunteering, which lacks an academic component, and from internships, in which students acquire practical skills. The author argues that the rationales for…

In this article, the author states his belief that community based learning among adults can be a powerful force for encouraging personal development and for strengthening democracy in this multicultural, globally interdependent, battered world. To do so, however, it needs to pervade all the curricula, degree programs, learning contracts, and…

This paper claims that community service-learning (CSL) projects in schools and universities, if done well, might very well take us--all of us--to important new places. Under the conception of community service and democratic education more generally, CSL projects in schools and universities can take us to "the" most important place: a…

When students use classroom skills to build a wheelchair ramp, or teach their peers CPR, or grow vegetables for a food bank, or create children's books for preschoolers, or research and share local history, or educate the community about healthy living, or build and maintain nature trails, they are engaged in service learning (and are called…