In the last several decades, service-learning has become a key feature of higher education. In this article, I argue that the work of Christian feminists Letty M. Russell and Sharon D. Welch enriches current scholarship on service-learning by drawing attention to foundational ethical issues. The first section of the article provides background on…

Interfaith America's 2023 Landscape Analysis explores the purpose, range of desired outcomes, promising models, challenges, and opportunities of bridgebuilding efforts across U.S. higher education. This article articulates the importance of bridgebuilding for the sector and summarizes key findings from the Landscape Analysis. It highlights…

The existing literature offers little insight into the participation of commuter, adult, and part-time students in the myriad civic engagement initiatives of higher education institutions. The landscape related to both the foci of this article has become more complex over time, and the issues have become more acute. This article describes the…

The literature on civic engagement in higher education is rich with examples of courses and programs that promote the development of students as engaged citizens in our democracy. However, few of them involve the arts. This fact is unfortunate because all forms of engagement with the arts is an important and effective means of achieving our civic…

The University of Colorado Boulder recently created a new undergraduate major in leadership and community engagement. This article describes the design process, key features, and challenges that have been involved with this initiative. The program is designed to offer a unique model of education for leadership through a reciprocal, community-based…

In this retrospective account of their scholarly work over the past 45 years, Alexander and Helen Astin show how the struggle to achieve greater equity in American higher education is intimately connected to issues of character development, leadership, civic responsibility, and spirituality. While shedding some light on a variety of questions…

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.

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.

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…

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…

This article explores a student's expectations and the lived realities of a two-week service learning trip to Honduras. Originally, her expectations were critical and cynical. But through a series of journal entries she made during the program, she shows how her expectations were transformed by the actual experience and how she achieved her own…

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…

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.…

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…

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…