What Kinds of Evidence Will Be Needed to Show Success?

Service-learning's future both nationally and at individual institutions demands both assessment and research that validate it as a valuable pedagogy and high-impact practice. Happily, there is an expanding body of research that affirms service-learning's benefits to students, communities, and institutions. As service-learning continues to grow and evolve, there is also a growing and evolving assessment and research agenda that will guide its future. Assessment of service-learning from the perspective of all participants and stakeholders is an essential pillar of a strong program. While national and other broad studies are important in demonstrating the value of service-learning, campus administrators will want to know about the impacts of service-learning on their own students, communities, and institutional priorities (Furco & Holland, 2009).

Furco and Holland emphasize that securing and sustaining the support of campus leaders for service-learning requires “Evidence above passion” (italics and capitalization in original): “Regardless of the prominence and importance of the institutional priority(ies) to which service-learning is connected, long-term institutional support depends on demonstrating the initiative's effectiveness through convincing evidence” (2009, p. 60). It is clear that when administrators must make difficult decisions, they are more likely to give favorable consideration to initiatives and programs “that have in place a comprehensive assessment plan that measures the program's costs, benefits, and impacts in the context of broad, overarching institutional concerns” (Furco & Holland, 2009, p. 60).

In addition to assessment of its benefits, assessment of institutional commitment to service-learning is also essential to secure its future. Since its inception, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's prestigious Community Engagement Elective Classification has served as a comprehensive framework for institutional assessment of community engagement, to which service-learning is central. I believe that the documentation framework required by the Carnegie Foundation for consideration for this classification serves as an effective guide to the kinds of self-assessment that will provide concrete evidence of institutional commitment (or lack of commitment) to service-learning. Foundational indicators of institutional commitment to community engagement include how it is reflected in institutional identity and culture, infrastructure, resource allocation, faculty reward systems, and campus-wide assessment of impact on students, faculty, institution, and community.

More specifically for service-learning in the curriculum, Carnegie asks for—in addition to the definitions, numbers and percentages, and course designation process—campus-wide as well as departmental or disciplinary learning outcomes for service-learning courses, together with strategies and mechanisms that assure ongoing, systematic assessment of the degree to which students achieve them (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2013b). In regard to curricular integration, they ask whether service-learning is institutionalized through graduate studies, core courses, capstone courses, first-year experiences, general education, majors, and minors (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2013b).

The Carnegie Foundation's classification protocol also emphasizes assessment from the community perspective. Besides specific information about individual partnerships, the protocol asks for a description of specific institutional strategies that ensure attention to mutuality and reciprocity (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2013b). Carnegie also asks for detail about mechanisms to “systematically collect and share feedback and assessment findings regarding partnerships, reciprocity and mutual benefit, both from community partners to the institution and from the institution to the community” (2013b, p. 15). I am grateful to the Carnegie Foundation for providing the inspiration and guidance for the kinds of institutional- and community-focused assessment that I believe are critical to inform our current and future practice of service-learning.

Assessment is necessary, but not sufficient, to demonstrate the value of service-learning and to steer our efforts to improve it. Evaluation and assessment are generally descriptive, but not generalizable, because they produce data that are specific to an initiative or situation. According to Bringle, Clayton, and Hatcher, assessment “asks questions about what is happening in a particular context; research, on the other hand, inquires into why it is happening and the conditions under which it does and does not happen” (2013, p. 10). High-quality research is essential but challenging. When a group of researchers, educators, foundation and government officials, and students met in 1991 to establish an initial research agenda for service-learning, they lamented “a scarcity of replicable qualitative and quantitative research on the effects of service-learning on student learning and development, the communities in which students serve, on educational institutions, and on society” (Giles, Porter-Honnet, & Migliori, p. 5). Since then, the field has made remarkable progress, and research on service-learning has grown in quantity, quality, and depth. The Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, frequently cited in this volume, is a rigorously juried publication that features excellent research. A growing number of journals feature research on service-learning and other forms of community engagement, including the Journal of College and Character, Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, and Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning and Community Engagement. Started in 2005 and incorporated in 2007, the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) promotes research and discussion by sponsoring annual conferences and publishing their proceedings. In 2013, IARSLCE launched a peer-reviewed research journal, the International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. In addition, Patti H. Clayton, Robert G. Bringle, and Julie A. Hatcher organize and edit the IUPUI Series on Service Learning Research. These volumes “establish a solid research agenda based on theory and building on prior work in order to improve the quality of subsequent research” (2011, vol. 1, p. 4). Disciplinary association journals also increasingly publish research on service-learning.

There is no doubt that additional rigorous research on service-learning is needed. The four critical dimensions of high-quality service-learning research are theory, measurement, design, and practice (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013). With the exception of qualitative research designed to generate theory, research is most beneficial to service-learning when it is guided by theory and when the information gained is used to test, refine, and revise theories (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013). There is a symbiotic connection between theory and measurement, because “procedures for measuring quantitative or qualitative aspects of attributes do not stand alone, and their meaningfulness is often a function of how solidly they are situated in theory” (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013, p. 13). Measurement needs to be both meaningful and practical (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013).

Research design encompasses the procedures that are used to collect and analyze data. Selection of a research design should be situated in the context of one or more theories as well as a set of research questions (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013). “It is the research design, whether quantitative or qualitative or mixed, that determines the integrity with which inferences can be made or conclusions generated based on the information or evidence collected” (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013, p. 15). Practice incorporates how we apply research results in developing and improving all aspects of service-learning. In this vein, Clayton, Bringle, and Hatcher paraphrase Kurt Lewin: “There is nothing more practical than a good theory” (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013, p. 16). Theory, research, and practice are thus intertwined: “theorists should strive to create theories that can be used to solve social or practical problems, and practitioners and researchers should make use of available theory” (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013, p. 17). In addition to the four critical dimensions, high-quality research must be replicable and generalizable across studies and open to collegial inquiry and critique.

Research on service-learning presents challenges other than the usual rigors of research. Service-learning has multiple participants, takes place in many settings, and involves many different tasks and desired outcomes. Causality is difficult to determine, and only extensive longitudinal studies can truly measure change over time. Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the value-added of service-learning, many unanswered questions need to be addressed: “For a field that engenders so much passion in practitioners and that we believe transforms students by engaging their hearts as well as their minds, there is remarkably little evidence about the kinds of practices that lead to the effects we desire” (Eyler, 2002).

We have made substantial progress identifying, framing, and investigating many questions about the kinds of practices and what it is about those practices that leads to desired effects for students, communities, institutions, and other participants and stakeholders. However, the exceedingly thoughtful Research Agenda for Combining Service and Learning in the 1990s (Giles, Porter-Honnet, & Migliore, 1991) continues to challenge us to continue to seek answers to its five categories of research questions about service-learning and its effects. A summary of this agenda is found in Exhibit 9.1.

I am inspired by the current scholarship on all aspects of service-learning featured in the two volumes of Research on Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Assessment (Clayton, Bringle, & Hatcher, 2013), the proceedings of the IARSLCE conferences, the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, and other sources mentioned earlier in this section. I urge you to join me in revisiting the 1991 NSEE Research Agenda, using research findings as appropriate to your practice, and ruminating on the implications for future research offered in many studies of service-learning. However, reading and even using research are necessary but not sufficient. The future of service-learning depends on us as service-learning educators, advocates, and supporters to conduct and report research that validates and interrogates service-learning's principles and practices.

Is Institutionalization Necessary?

What Is the Role of the Academic Department in Institutionalizing Service-Learning?

Service-learning leaders and advocates have long and vigorously believed that service-learning must be fully integrated into the mission, policies, practices, and budgets of colleges and universities in order to be viable and sustainable. We have created strong, comprehensive models that define the institutionalization of service-learning (Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Furco, 2002; Gelmon, Holland, Driscoll, Spring, & Kerrigan, 2001; Holland, 1997; Hollander, Saltmarsh, & Zlotkowski, 2001). These models provide assessment tools for use by institutions in determining the degree to which service-learning is institutionalized. The institutionalization of service-learning was robustly supported by the federal government through the Corporation for National and Community Service's Learn and Serve America: Higher Education grant program from its creation in 1993 to its demise in 2012.

Despite thoughtful challenges from some service-learning scholars that are addressed in 8.7, most service-learning proponents, including this one, believe that institutionalization is critical if service-learning is to continue to grow over time. Even in a volume devoted to “disturbing normalizations of service-learning” (Butin, 2005c, p. vii), the concluding chapter by Matthew Hartley, Ira Harkavy, and Lee Benson discusses the challenges of institutionalization without questioning whether it is the right thing to do. I believe firmly that it is indeed the right thing to do. If service-learning is a stand-alone initiative existing in a marginal organizational location, it is all too easy to consider it to be just another educational fad and eliminate it without adversely affecting institutional priorities and practices. In addition, if service-learning is marginal and proponents are busy fighting for its survival, it is difficult to develop and sustain high-quality courses and cocurricular experiences. From the community perspective, it is irresponsible for the institution to encourage or even permit its personnel to establish community partnerships for service-learning without institutionalizing the infrastructures necessary to sustain these partnerships responsibly and over time.

Colleges and universities tend to adopt various educational policies, programs, and practices that are intended to improve and even transform them for the better. Some of these practices are fully adopted and remain in place over time, while others (Remember new math? Total quality management?) are deemed fads and disappear quickly, leaving behind little or nothing of value. In his study of group and individual responses to innovations in higher education practice, Arthur Levine demonstrated that, based on the organizational response, educational trends will be diffused across the institution, marginalized and encapsulated, revised so as to diminish their impact, or terminated (1980). Most innovations in higher education fail because they are construed as separate programs, receive little political or financial support, are not prominent or viewed as closely related to core issues, or are compartmentalized (Levine, 1980). Undoubtedly, questions about the long-term viability of service-learning exist in the minds of administrative decision-makers and faculty. Thus, the criteria that define the institutionalization of service-learning found in Exhibits 6.2 and 6.3 are essential for sustainable, high-quality service-learning. When service-learning is not institutionalized, it runs a strong risk of becoming viewed as an add-on, a frivolous extra, or a luxury for a few who have spare time or special funding.

Integration within academic departments and with institutional priorities are fundamental elements of institutionalization and of the survival of academic innovations (Furco & Holland, 2009; Kecskes, 2013). Edward Zlotkowski and John Saltmarsh observe that the task of developing engaged departments is one of the most critical and one of the most challenging for securing the future of service-learning. Nonetheless, they state that “like other academic initiatives before it, the future of service-learning will depend to a large extent on its ability to access and to win over the power at the heart of contemporary higher education: the academic department” (2006, p. 278). They further wonder: “Will individual faculty interest seeping up from below and administrative encouragement trickling down from above finally reach each other at the level of departmental culture or will they instead encounter an impermeable membrane?” (Zlotkowski & Saltmarsh, 2006, p. 278). Service-learning advocates should surely make the academic department a primary focus of institutionalization efforts. The engaged academic department is the topic of 4.13.

Acknowledging that it is a lengthy and challenging process, what should we aspire to and work toward in terms of institutionalization? When service-learning is prominent within the institution and closely aligned with its priorities, the process of institutionalization actually reaches a tipping point as the final stage of institutionalization begins: “At this stage, the service-learning institutionalization work needs to shift away from supporting and promoting service-learning for its own sake to supporting and promoting broader, campus-wide initiatives that can be advanced by service-learning” (Furco & Holland, 2009, p. 57). In the advanced stage of institutionalization, the institution owns service-learning as fundamental to its culture, mission, and infrastructure. However, there will always be centers and individuals who do the work. It is heartening that more institutions are seeking endowments to ensure that funding for these centers and individuals is perpetual.

How Can We Engage More Junior Faculty in Service-Learning?

As discussed in 4.12, one of the most critical factors in securing the future of service-learning and other forms of community-engaged work is its recognition in the faculty reward system. Kelly Ward aptly states, “Faculty members, in their roles as arbiters of the curriculum, teachers, knowledge producers, and citizens, hold a prominent role in realizing the goal of making higher education more responsible to community and public welfare. For faculty to claim, own, and foster institutional efforts to connect the campus more meaningfully with society calls for reward structures that clearly define and reward this type of work” (2005, p. 217). Evidence from institutional applications for the Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement suggests that faculty reward policies should focus their attention on three key areas: defining community-engaged scholarship and creating clear and specific criteria for the evidence faculty members need to provide to demonstrate their work; constructing polices that reward community engagement to recognize research activity integrated with teaching and service as connected scholarly activity; and “operationalize[ing] the norms of reciprocity in criteria for evaluating community-engaged scholarship, reconceptualizing what is considered as a ‘publication' and who constitutes a ‘peer' in the peer review process” (Saltmarsh, Giles, Ward, & Buglione, 2009, p. 34). In addition, Bringle, Hatcher, and Clayton specify that faculty scholarship about service-learning is also scholarly work worthy of recognition through the reward system: “When the faculty member's work and research on service-learning provides for informing others about designing and implementing service-learning courses or increases the understanding of teaching and learning in the discipline or campus-community partnerships, then it has the potential to be viewed as scholarship (i.e., scholarship of teaching and learning)” (2006, p. 265; cited in Sandmann, 2009).

Until institutions value engaged teaching and scholarship, many junior faculty members on the tenure track, particularly those at research universities, will continue to find that their mentors strongly advise them not to become involved in service-learning or community-engaged scholarship until they have achieved tenure. Particularly in such environments, junior faculty are discouraged from service-learning teaching because it is more time-consuming than “regular” teaching and may take precious time away from research. In a traditional research culture, “‘pure,' ‘objective,' and/or theoretical research with broad implications is prized within the discipline-driven culture over practical, ‘applied' research with a local, community-based focus” (Nyden, 2003, p. 214). Further, faculty members who focus on community-oriented service activities outside typical academic domains, such as editorships or reviewing for academic journals, can be viewed as not valuing “serious” research. As a result, many junior faculty members with interest in community-based work shun service-learning and engaged scholarship until they receive tenure by choosing more traditional forms of teaching, research, and service. This unfortunate phenomenon deprives students and potential community partners of the opportunity to work with young faculty who have energy, bring fresh ideas, and desire to explore ways to pursue their teaching and scholarship in community contexts.

On the other hand, it is fortunate that there is increasing support from national organizations for both institutional recognition of faculty engagement in service-learning, engaged scholarship, and other forms of community engagement and for individual faculty members seeking recognition. Organizations providing substantive resources and assistance to faculty members and reviewers in this regard are rapidly expanding and include the Engaged Scholarship Consortium, Imagining America, Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, Campus Compact, The Research University Civic Engagement Network, International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement, and the National Collaborative for the Study of University Engagement. In addition, the number of disciplinary associations in a wide variety of fields that have embraced engaged scholarship and service-learning is growing. Their publications, websites, and conference agendas provide venues for faculty members to share their research both in their disciplines and related to their teaching of service-learning courses. The Campus Compact website citation below offers a list of publishing outlets for service-learning and community-based research.

Building on the work of these organizations and of individual faculty members who are doing engaged scholarship, Lorilee R. Sandmann makes several recommendations to institutions seeking to encourage this work. First, it is important to provide professional development opportunities for faculty, department heads, committees that mentor early-career faculty, and promotion-and-tenure committees to develop an understanding of how to define community engagement and how to frame service-learning and community engagement in terms of teaching, research, and service. She also recommends creating both institutional and discipline-based groups to define terms, develop the rationale for adopting a broader conceptualization of scholarship that includes community engagement, rewarding practice that reflects it, and studying models from other institutions or disciplines. In addition, it is important to provide mentoring to early-career faculty and to encourage senior faculty and administrators to participate in academic leadership development programs that explicitly include community engagement as part of institutional strategic planning (2009).

I would add to Sandmann's recommendations one of my own. I believe that academic departments, disciplinary associations, and graduate schools should provide encouragement and support to graduate students interested in engaged scholarship and teaching through service-learning, especially those who wish to enter the professoriate. I am happy to highlight here a couple of promising model programs. The University of Georgia Graduate Portfolio in Community Engagement is a voluntary, non-credit professional development program and recognition for graduate and professional students from a wide range of disciplines. The program is designed to help graduate and professional students develop and document their competencies in community-engaged research, teaching, public service, and outreach. It also includes preparation for careers as community-engaged scholars; learning about best practices in engaged teaching, research, and service; and opportunities to practice, reflect on, and document community engagement experiences (University of Georgia, 2014). Michigan State University offers Graduate Certification in Community Engagement that requires students to complete a sixty-hour mentored community engagement experience and prepare and present an engagement portfolio. Students who fulfill all requirements receive letters of congratulations from the Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement, notation on their academic transcripts, and certificates of completion (Michigan State University, 2014). I hope that research universities that take their mission of preparing the professoriate of the future seriously will take note of and replicate versions of these outstanding models.

How Can Service-Learning Partnerships Serve as a Catalyst for Broader and Deeper Community Engagement?

How Can service-learning foster economic development? What Are engaged learning economies, and how Can service-learning contribute?

What Is the role of service-learning in anchor institutions?

Should All service-learning partnerships seek to Be transformative?

I observed in the preface to Building Partnerships for Service-Learning that “service-learning is all about partnerships” (Jacoby, 2003c, p. xvii). According to Lawrence N. Bailis, “You can take service-learning to the next level by taking partnerships to the next level” (2000, p. 3). I believe these precepts to be as true today as when they were written.

I have become more certain over the years that a critical aspect of securing the future of campus-community partnerships for service-learning is the issue of defining what we mean by community. Among the lessons learned from the first wave of institutions to receive the Carnegie Community Engagement Elective Classification is “campuses wanting to support and effect change in communities should begin with conversations that address how community will be defined” (Beere, 2009, p. 59, italics original). Communities are defined in many ways, such as by geography (e.g., proximity to the campus), by social characteristics (e.g., recent immigrants from Latin America), organizationally (e.g., a particular community-based organization), and by shared interests and concerns (e.g., poverty, educational inequity, environmental sustainability). While most campus partnerships are local, some have state-wide, regional, national, or international focus (Beere, 2009). Local can also mean different things, depending on whether the institution is urban, suburban, or rural. Beere emphasizes the importance of how we define community in these terms: “The way in which campuses define community determines the kinds of partnerships it seeks” (2009, p. 59).

In 3.1, I offer definitions of partnership and describe the principles and types of campus-community partnerships for service-learning. Examining how we view partnerships within the context of service-learning and how to enhance their benefits to all parties continues to be a priority area of focus for service-learning scholars and practitioners. Bringle and Clayton state that the literature on service-learning generally casts partnerships in terms of institutions and communities, hence the “coin of the realm” term campus-community partnerships (2013). With an eye to the future of partnerships, they propose the SOFAR (Students, staff of Organizations in the community, Faculty, Administrators on the campus, and Residents in the community) Model as a structural framework for differentiating and analyzing the wide range of interactions in which these five categories of service-learning participants engage (Bringle & Clayton, 2013). They differentiate community into organization staff and residents, recognizing their potentially different interests and perspectives, as noted in 3.5. They add that residents and organization staff have relationships with one another and that there is also the potential for multiple differences within each of these groups (Bringle & Clayton, 2013). Similarly, they differentiate campus participants into students, faculty, and administrators and stress that there are multiple within-group differences for each of these constituencies (Bringle & Clayton, 2013). The distinctions afforded by the SOFAR Model increase our capacity and opportunities for research on service-learning partnerships that I believe will yield important implications for practice. We can also apply the SOFAR Model directly to implementation by using its distinctions to recognize and negotiate the complexities of relationships within partnering institutions and among service-learning participants.

The concept and practice of boundary spanning lend themselves well to the within-group distinctions of the SOFAR Model. Although boundary spanning is not a new idea, Sandmann and her colleagues have recently applied it to service-learning and community engagement with great promise. Boundary spanners in this context are individuals who are well connected both internally within their own organizations and externally as critical links between two or more groups of people who are based in different locations, fulfill different roles and functions, or are at different levels of hierarchy within their organizations. Within higher education institutions, boundary spanners include institutional leaders who promote service-learning and community engagement in a variety of external settings, both local and global; individuals who develop structures and capacities to facilitate internal partnerships; faculty and staff members who work with community partners; and technical experts who support this work and solve problems. Boundary spanners within communities external to higher education include elected officials who serve as community champions; community organization leaders and staff, community members, and neighborhood leaders who seek to partner with higher education institutions; organizers who garner resources for community enhancement; and advocates of connected knowing, shared goals, and building partnerships (Sandmann, Jordan, Mull, David, & Farner, 2013).

The concept and practice of boundary spanning has many implications for the future of service-learning. Boundary spanners primarily based in a college or university can be physically located at a community partner site or in a campus- or community-owned building off campus. Individuals in the community who are boundary spanners may have space on campus where they spend some of their time. Co-located boundary spanners have offices or desks both on campus and in the community. An innovative example of boundary spanning is the Providence College/Smith Street Annex, which is a space that Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, leases in the community for the “deceptively simple purpose of … fostering conversation between members of the campus and community, which we expect will result in increased mutual understanding and opportunities for collaboration” (Providence College, 2013). Priority for use of the space is given to uses that grow out of, or have the potential to become, long-term partnerships. Students can excel as boundary spanners, and we can provide opportunities for them to do so. Living Democracy, an inventive, year-long program at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, places students in towns across the state each summer for ten weeks, during which they immerse themselves in the local community and complete projects their communities choose (Auburn University, 2013). These examples indicate that boundary spanning has great potential to develop and sustain reciprocal service-learning partnerships. Research that builds on that of Sandmann, Jordan, Mull, David, and Farner is necessary to enable service-learning advocates to learn more about what makes boundary spanners successful and what possibilities their work opens up for service-learning and community engagement.

One of the most profound outcomes of the widespread growth and institutionalization of service-learning in higher education is that service-learning has served, and is continuing to serve, as the catalyst for broader, deeper, and more sustained community engagement. This is a reciprocal benefit, because institutionalized community engagement also supports and advances service-learning. Although there is a long history of economic development initiatives by colleges and universities, there has recently been a clearer and more concerted focus on creating effective campus-community partnerships that move beyond short-term fixes to long-term economic change (Wittman & Crews, 2012). Economic development efforts by higher education institutions encompass direct economic support through employment of community members, purchasing local products, jointly undertaking construction and enhancement projects, and sharing resources; human capital development through educating and training community members, campus staff, and students; knowledge transfer, through applying scholarship to enhance communities and promote economic health and resilience; and stimulating venture capital projects to spur knowledge-based economic growth (Wittman & Crews, 2012). Because most higher education institutions are deeply embedded in their communities and rich in human, intellectual, and physical resources, if not financial ones, they are uniquely poised to serve as anchors for their communities. The Anchor Institutions Task Force, launched at the University of Pennsylvania and housed by Marga Inc., was created to leverage the resources of institutions as anchors solidly rooted in their localities to address community needs and provide much-needed stability to counteract the capital flight that numerous communities have experienced (Marga Inc., 2013). More and more institutions are creating offices of community engagement that elevate and centralize this work.

Further, new initiatives intentionally integrating economic development with civic and community engagement efforts, including service-learning, “in strategic and holistic ways can create engaged learning economies that have the ability to foster positive civic and economic change. … civic engagement is the mechanism that connects economic outreach and democratic education” (Wittman & Crews, 2012, p. 2). Engaged learning economies are based on principles that are strongly linked to the principles of reciprocal service-learning partnerships: commitment to democratic partnerships that balance power among institutions and communities; alignment of goals, policies, and practices to ensure sustainable development; and capacity building that expands the capacities of both institutions and communities to flourish and continue to support one another (Torres, 2000; Wittman & Crews, 2012).

The potential of service-learning to stimulate and enrich engaged learning economies is profound. For example, as students become more aware of the potential impact of university investments in their communities, they can seek to leverage administrative action to promote the kinds of community investment that would most benefit residents and local businesses. The voices of service-learners could also enrich the national conversations of networks such as the Anchor Institutions Task Force, the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (Guinan, McKinley, & Yi, 2013).

Question 3.9 explains the differences between transactional and transformative partnerships for service-learning. Essentially, the partners in transactional relationships work together because each has something the other needs, while transformative partnerships are open to transforming individuals, organizations, institutions, and communities for the better (Enos & Morton, 2003). My observation about the transformative potential of partnerships in the conclusion of Building Partnerships for Service-Learning remains on target today and will hold for the foreseeable future: “Partnerships for service-learning, although they may begin with well-delineated boundaries, a small number of participants, and finite goals, need set no limits on future growth in duration, place, or scope. In fact, their virtually limitless potential may go untapped for years until its unpredictable benefits are realized” (Jacoby, 2003a, p. 333). However, it is equally important to note that there is also a place in service-learning's future for mutually beneficial partnerships between faculty members, students, or campus departments with community organizations within the limited scope of a specific course or program. Service-learning will continue to benefit from partnerships, both transactional and transformative, that are grounded in reciprocity and operate based on the principles of partnership that are enumerated in Exhibits 3.1 and 3.2.

What Might Be the Effects of Future Developments in Technology on Service-Learning?

As described in 4.9, e-service-learning is growing across higher education. It goes without saying that it is impossible to predict what opportunities for service and learning will emerge through future developments in technology. Many questions come to mind. How can e-service-learning incorporate high-impact educational experiences like problem-based learning, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, and collaborative projects? How can it facilitate community-based research? What models might ensue for online or virtual service? What possibilities for reflection will be available through forms of social media that do not even exist yet?

“Extreme e-service learning,” in which the instruction and service are exclusively online, is a relatively new and unstudied practice (Waldner, McGorry, & Widener, 2012, p. 133). Leora S. Waldner, Sue Y. McGorry, and Murray C. Widener are enthusiastic about its benefits and also cognizant of its challenges, which include failures in hardware or software; the importance of training faculty members, community partners, and students in the use of the required technology; the need for instructional design and instructional technology support; gaps in technological capacity on the part of students, community partners, or faculty; and the absence of face-to-face communication, which is most effective in troubleshooting and problem solving (2012). Research to better understand how well e-service-learning achieves outcomes for all participants, funding for e-service-learning development and research, and e-service-learning fellows programs for faculty are among the ways to advance e-service-learning pedagogy.

I believe that e-service-learning has a bright future. It will undoubtedly grow and thrive as new technologies appear that will support and facilitate the delivery of service and the process of critical reflection. Technologies with great potential for online service-learning include electronic portfolios, digital badges, gaming, learning analytics, and open content (Briggs, 2013). As more students are pursuing higher education online, service-learning must take advantage of these technological advances if it is to remain relevant in our rapidly evolving educational climate and for the increasing diversity of college students. In addition, I firmly believe that service-learning has much to contribute to address some of the biggest issues faced by online education: the challenges of sustaining engagement in large-scale online courses and the isolation of learners from one another in the online environment.

What Role Should Service-Learning in Higher Education Take in Improving Service-Learning in Schools?

Those of us interested in the future of service-learning should be concerned about the relationship between K–12 schools and higher education for several reasons. A steady stream of reports and the popular press bemoan the state of K–12 education in the United States, particularly when compared with schools abroad. The statistics on at-risk children and youth are overwhelming, teachers are restricted by having to “teach to the test,” high-school graduation rates are low, truancy is endemic, differences in schools and education quality by social class abound, funding for enrichment and after-school programs has largely evaporated, and girls do better than boys academically, but still too few of them enter the STEM disciplines. Institutions across the spectrum of higher education seek a student body that is racially, ethnically, and economically diverse, yet too many students from lower-income families do not see college in the picture for them, and even high-achievers rarely apply to the most selective colleges. Given these and other concerns, together with the fact that most college service-learners prefer to work with children and youth, K–12 schools are perhaps the most logical setting for college students doing service-learning in a wide variety of disciplines and programs. Tutoring, academic enrichment, and mentoring are activities that service-learners seek and can do effectively with proper training. The very presence of college students offers role models for youth from families in which college is not a known commodity. One of many notable examples is the University of Oregon's service-learning seminar on K–12 education. Open to all undergraduates, students do service in public schools as they consider the cultural history of the American school system, develop an understanding of its social and political contexts, learn about current issues and problems, and develop their own voices to contribute meaningfully to public discourse about issues related to education (University of Oregon, 2013).

As stated in 3.9 and 9.5, service-learning can be a catalyst for broader and deeper community engagement on the institutional level. An inspiring example is the university-assisted community school model developed by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania. University-assisted community schools focus on the school as the core institution, or the hub for “community engagement and democratic development,” “engaging youth as deliverers, not simply recipients, of service” (Netter Center for Community Partnerships, n.d., no page number). The more than 160 academically based community-service courses at Penn that are supported by the Netter Center are the “building block” for the university-assisted community schools and serve as “the most critical component of this model … [in] that the work is integrated into both the public school's and the university's curricula, creating a collaborative problem solving approach through multiple levels of schooling—K–12 and higher education” (Netter Center for Community Partnerships, n.d., no page number). In addition, the Netter Center is working to advance the university-assisted community school model nationally and internationally by providing assistance and funding for local collaborations of schools, communities, and universities.

Another issue related to the future of service-learning in college is that each year, more schools, districts, and municipalities are integrating service-learning into the elementary curriculum and requiring it for high school graduation. Students who have positive precollege service-learning experiences will likely seek more service-learning opportunities in college. On the other hand, students who do not feel their precollege experiences were worthwhile or believe that they were extraneous to their education are likely to shun service-learning at the college level. Service-learning proponents have much to gain and much to lose based on students' positive or negative perceptions of service-learning. As more high-quality service-learning is integrated into the curriculum of K–12 schools, the numbers of students who seek service-learning as part of their college educational experience will grow.

What can higher education do to enhance service-learning in K–12 schools? Colleges of education can partner with service-learning center staff to embed the concept and practice of service-learning into teacher education, provide guidance and support to pre-service teachers to integrate service-learning into their teaching, and engage them in service-learning and reflection as service-learners. Research has found that when pre-service teachers engage in service-learning, they are likely to be more sensitive to students' developmental needs, understand emotional learning, and develop a more realistic view of the teaching profession, which can help them to adjust and stay within the profession when they become teachers (Chambers & Lavery, 2012). Schools of education can also offer training for in-service teachers, the vast majority of whom were not exposed to service-learning in their pre-service education, on how service-learning that is embedded in the curriculum can motivate students and increase their learning.

An additional reason that service-learning educators on the college level should be concerned about K–12 education is that there is general agreement that civic learning and engagement must begin in elementary schools: “Schools are not the only venues for civic development, but they are vital. They alone reach everyone, including disadvantaged students and students who would not be inclined to volunteer or participate in civic projects” (Levine, 2007, p. 119). Given all the challenges and distractions that K–12 educators face, service-learning can play an important role in supporting civic engagement in schools. College service-learners can engage with younger students in service-learning activities and reflection. Through after-school enrichment activities, service-learners can also teach civic knowledge and skills to youth as they reinforce their own knowledge and skills.

In short, the ongoing success of service-learning in higher education depends on how well K–12 education prepares students for it. Collegiate service-learning, along with the broader community, has a responsibility to partner with elementary and secondary education in this regard. As Levine observes: “In general, we see … education as a specialized task to be measured by experts. Success then boils down to passing tests. But education should be a community-wide function, the process by which a whole community chooses and transmits to the next generation appropriate values, traditions, skills, practices, and cultural norms. Civic engagement at its best crosses the lines between schools or colleges and communities and reflects a more inclusive definition of community” (2013, pp. 20–21, italics original).

Is Social Entrepreneurship the “New” Service-Learning?

Social entrepreneurship as a field of study within entrepreneurship in business schools has evolved since the late 1990s. As is the case for service-learning, there are multiple definitions of social entrepreneurship. A broad definition encompasses ventures to address large-scale social problems that may occur across nonprofit, business, or government sectors (Calvert, 2011). Most definitions focus on describing individual social entrepreneurs and include creating new opportunities for organizations to carry out social missions, viewing actions as not limited by resources, continuous innovating in a relentless pursuit of success, creating new value, and engaging in concrete efforts to ensure accountability to both investors and the community (Calvert, 2011). While social entrepreneurship has been construed as occurring within the nonprofit sector, most business schools also embrace it within the corporate sector as a way to create social value by pursuing income-generating activities that produce beneficial social impacts.

Social entrepreneurship has much to gain from allying with service-learning. The values and characteristics of successful social entrepreneurs closely mirror some of the desired outcomes of service-learning: strong belief in the capacity of all people to contribute to social and economic development, the ability to view problems as opportunities, the passion and determination to implement innovative solutions to social problems, a healthy impatience about waiting for things to happen, and a practical vision of what it will take to improve people's lives and communities (Wessel & Godshalk, 2004). It is clear that social entrepreneurs need to understand the root causes of social problems, as well as how they affect individuals and communities, as a requisite to being able to address them through innovative solutions. In addition, the concept and practice of sustainable innovation eschews the better-faster-cheaper paradigm of innovation and takes a long view of value in pursuing sustainable practices and economies (Simanis & Hart, 2009). Sustainable innovation “opens new horizons of opportunity for both companies and society. Seizing these new opportunities will require a new corporate practice and competence based on dialogue and facilitation, on openness to learning and experimentation, and a constant exercise of humility” (Simanis & Hart, 2009, p. 96). These qualities are also among service-learning's desired outcomes, and, as a result, “service-learning is the preferred teaching method to enhance the learning of social entrepreneurship” and to educate future entrepreneurs about the importance of sustainability (Wessel & Godshalk, 2004, p. 29).

Proponents of social entrepreneurship can also benefit from reflecting on the emphasis of critical service-learning on dismantling the systems and structures that perpetuate social and economic inequality. Social entrepreneurship has been criticized for choosing to work around rather than change such systems and laws: “Social enterprise too often starts from the premise that capitalism and free markets … work and that most social problems emanate from people not being able to compete adequately” (Dolgon, 2014). Thus, social entrepreneurs have created microfinancing and food and health-care delivery systems, for example, that do not address the root causes of the need for these innovations. Social entrepreneurship “doesn't even want to deal with them [root causes] nor do most entrepreneurs think we need to. Worst of all, our students who partake in these projects sometimes … believe their efficacy changes the big picture” (Dolgon, 2014).

Service-learning also has much to gain from aligning with social entrepreneurship. As mentioned in 8.1, many more women than men participate in most collegiate service-learning experiences, as well as in volunteer activities in general. While the reasons for this difference are not completely clear, I wonder whether calling service-learning experiences, when appropriate, social entrepreneurship or innovation may attract more men as well as more students in STEM fields. Social entrepreneurs are highly sought after by nonprofit organizations and by businesses that believe that their capabilities as organizational leaders will drive both their economic growth and their corporate social responsibility.

Happily, there are examples of how universities are embracing the unique potential for synergy between service-learning and social entrepreneurship (Jones, Warner, & Kiser, 2010, p. 8). Belmont University has a Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Service-Learning that “seeks to empower and engage students, faculty, staff, and community partners through various programming including training, service-learning, assessment, and research activities to impact social change through innovative approaches and projects” (2013). Elon University's Social Entrepreneurship Scholars Program is a three-year program that focuses on “merging scholarship and service-learning to respond to needs in the local community” (2013). Sophomore scholars learn about social issues facing communities across the United States and innovative ways that social entrepreneurs work to effect social change. They work in teams on projects in the local community. As juniors and seniors, the scholars work with students entering the program as mentors and consultants to ensure sustainability of their efforts.

While service-learning and social entrepreneurship are distinct approaches to social change, both make substantial contributions to enhancing community development and meeting social needs. To enhance and perpetuate both approaches, each has much to gain from the other. Social entrepreneurship can benefit from service-learning's emphasis on student learning, growth, and transformation as well as its valuing of reciprocal, mutually beneficial community partnerships. Service-learning has much to gain in return, because its focus does not necessarily include teaching the knowledge and skills of entrepreneurship. In addition, service-learning's pairing with social entrepreneurship in business schools has potential mutual benefit in seeking gifts to support the education of future social entrepreneurs and socially responsible leaders in all fields.