Higher education outreach and engagement often occurs through student volunteering. Student organizations are one understudied and undertapped mechanism that facilitates such connections. We examined the experience of student leaders of student organizations that promoted volunteerism among their members. The mixed-methods study included a survey…

The contribution of community engagement towards shaping leadership development in students is an area that is not well explored in research. A study was conducted to establish the type of leadership skills and values that were acquired by a group of students from an established private school in Johannesburg, South Africa, while they served an…

In 2014-2015, a total of 88 university students enrolled in a course entitled "Service Leadership through Serving Children and Families with Special Needs". To evaluate the effectiveness of this course, students were asked to complete a subjective evaluation form at the end of the course. Consistent with prior findings, students…

Students participating in sustained community service at an urban Catholic and Marianist university were volunteer informants in this qualitative exploration of the meaning they make of their service experiences. A PhD student research team (nine members) interviewed fourteen undergraduate students (10 of whom were seniors). Findings were…

The study described in this article highlights the complexity of service-learning efforts and community engagement pursuits. It is based on 6.5 months of qualitative fieldwork in International Baccalaureate international schools in Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa. The article unpacks the understandings and skills involved in service-learning…

Researchers have discovered that service learning affects students' academic, personal, and social development. However, currently there is a gap in literature analyzing ways in which service learning affects students' perceived leadership skills. This study examined the effectiveness of service learning on the perceived leadership skills of 74…

Leadership educators seek to understand how they can better develop leadership among their students through formal and informal course experiences. The purpose of this study was to understand how undergraduate students perceive reasons for changes in their leadership practices, after completing a personal leadership education course. The course…

First year learning community (LC) freshmen entering as education majors participated in year-long activities related to service learning and leadership development. Activities included fall cohort classes with shared content, a common read, and a spring seminar that included leadership learning, fund raising, and a short-term service project in…

Each year, millions of people around the world are affected by natural disasters. Following these disasters, many students from colleges and universities arrive to support the affected areas. These seamless leadership learning opportunities engage students by allowing them to implement the concepts they learned in a classroom. Humanitarian relief…

Several years ago, Elon University set out to better understand experiential learning on campus. At the time, there was a pragmatic need to collect data that would inform revisions to the core curriculum, including an experiential-learning requirement (ELR) that had been in place since 1994. The question was whether it made sense to raise the…

This paper outlines a study of an alternate approach to educating Year 9 students in a residential setting. The School for Student Leadership (SSL) in Victoria, Australia, provides a nine-week program focusing on leadership, relationship-building and self-awareness. The philosophy of the school, which has continually evolved since its inception in…

Over the past few decades, service-learning has surged in popularity. Although most programs are implemented in high school and college classrooms, service-learning has the potential for great impact in middle school. The present article evaluates a pilot service-learning program for fifth- and seventh-grade (N = 86) children in a large, urban,…

This article explores how 12 classroom teachers, enrolled in one of the author's graduate social studies methods course, used service-learning as an instructional tool to help students practice active participation in their community and beyond, while also recognizing the relevance of academic coursework as they applied their knowledge and skills…

A summit in Boise (Idaho) aimed to help 130 youth develop leadership skills and connect to service learning opportunities. Participants identified tolerance and substance abuse as issues of concern and generated action plans for addressing these problems. Profiles several participants and addresses the role of the community in developing healthy…

This report explores the impact, through themes that emerged in interviews with 59 participating adolescents, of the Mentor/Advisor Program on students with or at risk of emotional disturbance. The Mentor/Advisor Program is implemented as part of the existing regular education high school curriculum and is designed to promote resiliency and school…