NSCAD University is a visual arts university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, that houses the NSCAD-TD Centre for Community Service Learning (the Centre). The Centre's purpose is to manage and promote community partnership requests with the institution. While community service learning and community--university partnership approaches necessarily…

The paper commences with a theoretical exposition of the current UK government's policy commitment to the idealised notion of the Big Society and the social capital currency underpinning its formation. The paper positions this debate in relation to the rural and adopts an ethnographically-informed methodological approach to provide an in-depth…

Given their positions in communities across the United States, Extension educators are poised to have meaningful partnerships with the communities they serve. This article presents a case for the use of participatory research, which is a departure from more conventional forms of research based on objectivity, researcher distance, and social…

School-based health centers (SBHCs) are an innovative and effective way to address California's severe health care access problem among children. By providing critical health care services to kids in school, SBHCs ensure children get the medical, mental health, and dental care they need to be healthy and safe, and to support their ability to…

Researchers agree that a needs assessment is a critical first step in designing a full-service school, but the large task of orchestrating the necessary community collaboration for such projects has occupied most of the literature to date. This study examines the process of planning and implementing a needs assessment for a rural school serving…

The job of a teacher these days seems to stretch beyond the walls of a classroom, especially in primary and secondary schools in high-poverty communities. There are stories of teachers purchasing food for hungry students, going door to door in neighborhoods to boost parent involvement in school, and referring students and families to health…

The purpose of this paper is to share my experiences as the instructor of a full-time, single semester, service-learning capstone course. In this innovative course students already volunteering in the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) organization work in teams to identify community needs and address them using their business skills and knowledge…

Due to the closing of the GM Manufacturing Plants, Grand Rapids, Michigan area experienced an extreme loss of jobs, which led to low-socioeconomic hardships such as "food insecurity" that was witnessed in the needs of the many students who attend the Grand Rapid Public Schools. This case provides insight into how educational leader…

In this article the authors draw from culturally responsive teaching and multicultural education to describe performance poetry as an effective strategy for validating secondary aged Latino youths' lived experiences. Supported by teacher modeling and the incorporation of community poets, students created and shared their own powerful poems that…

The centrality of engagement is critical to the success of higher education in the future. Engagement is essential to most effectively achieving the overall purpose of the university, which is focused on the knowledge enterprise. Today's engagement is scholarly, is an aspect of learning and discovery, and enhances society and higher education.…

The corollary of the concept of the "ivory tower", as reflected in the writings of Plato and Newman amongst others, was, paradoxically, the vital importance of the university for wider society. Nevertheless from the mid-twentieth century, the esteem in which a "liberal" university education was held was diminished by rising…

The community college is an excellent place for the creation of a special, more empowering learning context. Unlike the university, where students are supposed to adjust to the world of scholarly erudition, the community college is the crazy academic brother that has the freedom to be different and to liberate students to build upon their own…

Educating and nurturing the next generation is a collective responsibility. When schools, families, community members, private organizations, public agencies, and civic entities work together, learners tend to be more successful and everyone benefits. As a response to new stakeholders' demands, a more rigorous and updated curriculum,…

How can a teacher carve out a deeper sense of community in an inexpensive way? Across the nation, many schools have managed to craft creative and inexpensive community-building projects. Perhaps the three projects featured here will spark some new ideas for your own school: (1) The Hunger Games Come to Texas; (2) Tough Mudders in Macungie; and (3)…

Gone are the days of squishy grass and pothole-laden school fields: artificial turf fields are becoming an increasingly popular option for districts nationwide for their ease of use and cost-effective maintenance. When considering installing an artificial turf field in a district, administrators must consider funding, sustainability, potential…