Students as Colleagues:
Developing Student Leadership and
Building Capacity for Service-Learning
Nicholas Longo & Erin Bowley
April 29, 2008
Arriving Where We Began…
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Why “Students as Colleagues”
Historical:
Cycle of Service-Learning
New generation: the Millennials
Instrumental:
Students as enablers
Inspirational:
Student voice as foundation for
Democratic engagement
Better epistemology
Good pedagogy
A Brief History of Student Role
1980s: response to “me” generation and creation of COOL and Campus Compact
1990s: institutional resources and academic service-learning
Creation of Corporation for National and Community Service and growth of Campus Compact
Focus on disciplines: Zlotkowski, E., (Series Editor) 1997-2004, Service-Learning in the
Disciplines, 20 monograph series
2000s: Engaged university and return to promise of student leadership
2001: Wingspread Conference on Student Civic Engagement leading to New Student Politics
2002: Raise Your Voice campaign launched
2007: Millennials Talk Politics (CIRCLE)
See especially, Goodwin Liu (1996), Origins, evolutions, and progress: Reflections on a movement. Metropolitan
Universities: An International Forum 7(1), 25-38.
New Generation
Millennials (born after 1985): more civically engaged,
with interest in deliberation and experience doing
community service
See especially
Longo, N. and Meyer, R., College Students and Politics:
A Literature Review (CIRCLE Working Paper, 2006)
www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/WorkingPapers/WP46Longo
Meyer.pdf
Millennials Talk Politics (CIRCLE Report, 2007)
www.civicyouth.org/?page_id=250
Instrumental: Students as enablers
Taking service-learning to next level on
campuses requires new resources and
infrastructure, which are unlikely to come
in the form of new staff
Connecting academic and student affairs:
development of “whole person”
Inspirational: Democracy,
Epistemology, & Pedagogy
Student Voice As Core Component of Civic Engagement
“We declare that it is our responsibility to become an engaged
generation with the support of our political leaders, education
institutions, and society…The mission of our state higher
education institutions should be to educate future citizens about
their civic as well as professional duties. We urge our institutions
to prioritize and implement civic education in the classroom, in
research, and in services to the community.”
- Oklahoma Students’ Civic Engagement Resolution, 2003
www.actionforchange.org/getinformed/student_ink/student_inkOK.html
Student Voice Leads To New Ways of Knowing and Learning
Promising Practices

Identifying Student Leaders: Scholarship
Programs

Training Students

Students As Staff

Student / Faculty Partnerships

Students As Academic Entrepreneurs
Identifying Students
Service Scholarship programs: offering scholarship funds
to bring students with service experience to campus
and then making them key components of servicelearning infrastructure

DePaul University’s Steans Center

Bentley’s Service-Learning Scholarship Program

IUPUI’s Sam H. Jones Community Service
Scholarship Program
Training Students
Preparation for campus and community
work using cascading leadership
Monterey Bay’s Student Leadership in
Service Learning program– course and
then 4 week summer training
Students as Staff Resource:
Federal Work-Study

Created in 1964 as part-time employment for
low-income students

Purpose: work for the institution or “work in the
public interest” with an academic connection

“Community service” is broadly defined

As of 2000, 7% must be spent on community
service positions

National average is 15% (2006)
Federal Work-Study continued

In 2006, FWS supported 128,000 students
engaged in service on 3,300 campuses

Students provide direct service
(e.g. tutoring, various roles at non-profits)

Students provide coordination
(e.g. site liaisons, service-learning assistants,
“issue area” coordinators)
FWS Principles of Best Practice
1. Integrate CSWS into the institution’s overall civic
engagement mission and programs.
4. Offer a range of community service positions that are
challenging, developmentally appropriate, and
contribute to the common good.
6. Ensure students receive a thorough orientation, are
properly trained for their positions, and have
opportunities for reflection and connections to
academic study.
www.compact.org/fws
Students as Staff
Lessons from Josh Young, Center for
Community Involvement, Miami Dade
College
Student Ambassador program
www.mdc.edu/cci
Questions
Time for Questions
Student-Faculty Partnerships
Lessons from Angela VanHorn, Miami
University Wilks Scholar
www.muohio.edu/wilks
Acting Locally “think tank” in American
Studies, 2 years of courses with 23
students and 6 faculty partnering on
community engagement projects in SW
Ohio
Students as Entrepreneurs: Campus
and Community-Based
Students teaching courses, doing engaged
research, and creating community
partnerships
Lessons from Danyel Addes, former
student in University of MassachusettsAmherst’s UMass Alliance for
Community Transformation (UACT)
program
Entrepreneurial Use of Work-Study
Students choosing community sites
(institution then creates a contract with
the site)
Students developing community projects
(based on their interest and community
partner’s input)
Making Choices
Challenges

Need to be deliberate about trade-offs—
Example: challenge of sustainability with
autonomous student model

Unequal power relations: “it is disingenuous to pretend
we are all equal”

Faculty ownership of the curriculum

Time it takes for student voice with students’ changing
schedules and conflicting demands
Beyond Tactical Service-Learning:
Recommendations

Regional student/faculty-staff teams
developing the practices

Service Scholarship programs—like sports
scholarships

Ongoing training and mentoring

Part of an engaged university
Parker Palmer Quote
The education of the new professional will offer
students realtime chances to translate feelings
into knowledge and action by questioning and
helping to develop the program they are in. I
am not imagining a student uprising but rather
an academic culture that invites students to
find their voices about the program itself, gives
them forums for speaking up, rewards rather
than penalizes them for doing so, and
encourages faculty and administrative
responsiveness to student concerns.
- Parker Palmer, 2007
Resources
Students as Colleagues:
Expanding the Circle of Service-Learning Leadership
www.compact.org/publications/detail/students_as_colleagues
Earn, Learn, and Serve:
Getting the Most from Community Service Federal Work-Study
www.compact.org/fws
Contacts:
Erin Bowley, Erin Bowley & Assoc. LLC, erin@erinb.org
Kevin Michael Days, Corporation for National & Community Service, kdays@cns.gov
Nicholas V. Longo, Miami University, longonv@muohio.edu
Julie Plaut, Campus Compact, jplaut@compact.org