The State of CSL in Canada: A Call to Action

10 October, 2009 International Research Conference on Service Learning and Community Engagement Ottawa, Canada

Presenters

Larry Gemmel

Director, Canadian Alliance for Community Service-Learning

Kate Connolly

Director, Laurier Centre for Community Service-Learning

Barbara Harrison

Graduate Student, Brock University

Tania Smith

Professor, University of Calgary

Community service-learning (CSL) and other forms of community engagement (CE) activities are growing in Canada, but we lack concrete evidence about the scope, extent, and quality of this work. The Canadian Alliance for Community Service Learning would like to create several new research initiatives to define and measure CSL and CE activity at the post-secondary level, and is seeking to create a more comprehensive and integrated research agenda for service-learning and community engagement in Canada. This interactive workshop will explore the challenges of creating and supporting a research agenda that addresses our needs.

Events are present and operative anyway; what concerns us is their meaning.

John Dewey,

Experience and Education

(1938) I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. Albert Einstein

Canadian Alliance for Community Service-Learning

• An alliance of individuals and institutions interested in promoting and enhancing Community Service-Learning in Canada • Active network of 435 individuals and more than two dozen colleges and universities • Primarily focussed on post-secondary education at this time

Our Hypothesis

Community Service-Learning effectively mobilizes the intellectual and human resources of post-secondary educational institutions to address significant social, economic, environmental and health challenges at the community level. It does this in ways which are connected to and consistent with the core academic mission of universities and colleges.

Key Stakeholders

• Universities and Colleges – Administrators – Faculty • Students • Communities – Community Partners – Community Members

Potential Outcomes of CSL • Institutions

– Effective experiential learning pedagogy – contributes to learning outcomes – Linking theory to practice – Connecting to community – creating relationships – Creates research opportunities (and vice versa) – Enhances institutional reputation – Fulfills institutional mission or mandate for service to community – Brings knowledge to the institution from the community

• Students

– Enhanced learning – Engagement in the broader community – New skills and competencies – Career development

• Community Partners

– Knowledge and Expertise – Human Resources – Research Capacity

Potential Outcomes of CSL

• Institutions – Effective Experiential Learning Pedagogy – Linking Theory to Practice – Connecting to Community – Creating relationships – Creates Research Opportunities (and vice versa) – Enhances Institutional Reputation – Fulfills Institutional Mandate for service to community –

Change the world!

• Students – Enhanced Learning – Engagement in the broader community – New skills and competencies – Career Development –

Change the world!

• Community Partners – Knowledge – Human Resources – Research Capacity –

Change the world!

My audience

• University Leadership • Education Policy Makers • Faculty • Students / Prospective Students • Voluntary and Non-Profit Sector Leaders • Potential Funders – Government – Federal, Provincial, Municipal – Foundations – Corporations – Private Philanthropists

What I Need

• Profiles of post-secondary CSL programmes from across Canada • Case studies of community-university partnership projects • Detailed information about the impacts and outcomes of CSL and CBR projects • “Metrics” – We need some numbers to describe the scope of this work to policy makers and potential funders

Examples of Research Products

• “Scan” of CSL in Canada (last one in 2006) • Directory of CSL Programs and practitioners with descriptive profiles • Research summaries to describe more detailed research which demonstrates the impact and outcomes of CSL projects from a community perspective. • Overview of CSL activities in Canada

Examples of “Metrics”

Quantitative: • # of programs • # of students participating / % participation • # of courses / faculty members • # of communities • # of projects • # of community partners • $ of support (admin budgets)

Examples of “Metrics”

Qualitative: • Increased retention rates or academic scores of high school students as a result of mentoring or tutoring by CSL students • Increased access and entry of students from “disadvantaged” backgrounds and communities to higher education • Increase in employment opportunities resulting from a community economic development project • Increase in locally grown food supplies available • Awareness of career opportunities in the community sector

Community Impact

• Can we link CSL projects to specific kinds of community impacts?

• Classification of activities by issue/sector: – Social – Economic – Environmental – Health • Case studies describing outcomes (they don’t all have to be positive!)

Models and Frameworks

• I am constantly being asked for comprehensive models or frameworks to help establish Community Service Learning programs in post-secondary educational institutions.

• Voluntary and Non-Profit Sector leaders do not understand CSL clearly as a mode of mobilizing resources to the community aspirations. – we need visual descriptions to explain the model • In addition to learning outcomes, students also achieve significant outcomes in terms of skill development, workplace experience, understanding of non-profit management and governance, career development opportunities, and fulfillment of their “change the world”

Creating a Research Agenda

“Turning the challenges we face as practitioners into questions for scholarly inquiry” Patti H. Clayton

Canadian Alliance for Community Service Learning (CACSL) Mandate of the Research Working Group: • Monitoring CSL research on an international basis and providing updates to CACSL members on relevant publications and activities through the email network, website, and invitation newsletter • Encouraging collaborative research activity on CSL in Canada • Identifying ways in which CACSL can work collaboratively with IARSLCE, CBR Canada, ANSER, and other research organizations and initiatives • Identifying CSL research topics and opportunities for funding

Bronfenbrenner (1979) Macro-system

Federal Funding Agencies

Meso-system

CACSL

Micro-system

University/Institutional

Micro-system • University/institutional • Balancing institutional needs vs. national needs (Alternative Reading Week, International experience, CSL for 1st year students, risk mgt policies, student surveys, Institutional CSL outcomes)

Meso-system

(CACSL)

•What is a Canadian-specific research agenda?

•Theory building? Knowledge creation? Best practices?

•Understanding of relevant theory-who has it?

•Are we “doing” research or just disseminating it?

•If “doing”, who has time?

Macro-system

Federal Funding Agencies

•CSL not well understood in Canada •What research would put CSL on the map?

•Do not have substantive, content-focused CVs to secure Federal grants

Macro-system

Federal Funding Agencies

Vision Meso-system

CACSL

epistemology Micro-system

University/Institutional

Local community issues Pedagogy Informed by Saltmarsh (October 9, 2009)