Forging University Social Responsibility Through Community Engagement at Higher Education

2022 ◽  
pp. 902-916
Author(s):  
Ndwakhulu Stephen Tshishonga
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Transformational Change ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Reliable Knowledge

This chapter interrogates the notion of community engagement or service learning. The chapter argues that universities pay lip service to community engagement to the detriment of teaching and research functionaries. Most prestige universities operate on the belief that it is only research that matters; hence, research is prioritized. Universities and their staff have adopted an ‘ivory tower' attitude. This modus operandi negates the reality that reliable knowledge could be produced through responsible community engagement and can become the source of empirical data that can be used for teaching and shared through publications. For universities to impact transformational change within and in their surroundings, community engagement should be elevated to equal teaching and learning.

Forging University Social Responsibility Through Community Engagement at Higher Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 96-115
Author(s):  
Ndwakhulu Stephen Tshishonga
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Transformational Change ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Reliable Knowledge

This chapter interrogates the notion of community engagement or service learning. The chapter argues that universities pay lip service to community engagement to the detriment of teaching and research functionaries. Most prestige universities operate on the belief that it is only research that matters; hence, research is prioritized. Universities and their staff have adopted an ‘ivory tower' attitude. This modus operandi negates the reality that reliable knowledge could be produced through responsible community engagement and can become the source of empirical data that can be used for teaching and shared through publications. For universities to impact transformational change within and in their surroundings, community engagement should be elevated to equal teaching and learning.

scholarly journals An analytical review on rethinking service-learning as critical transformative paradigm in higher education

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-334
Author(s):  
Muhammad Saeed ◽  
Iqbal Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Transformative Pedagogy ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Traditional Mode ◽  
Analytical Review

In recent times, service-learning has emerged as a popular community-based instructional pedagogy. However, scholars have a sharp contention about the role of service-learning as a community engagement paradigm in higher education. Furthermore, limited studies exist on service-learning as a transformative instructional pedagogy in higher education. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by presenting an analytical review on the potential of service-learning as a transformative pedagogy in higher education. A traditional narrative review method was used to survey on the theme of the study to establish a theoretical framework and draw conclusions. An extensive survey of existing literature was conducted on the role of service-learning as transformative pedagogy in higher education. This research may help answer the following two critical questions: What are internal and external limits to service-learning in higher education? To what extent can service-learning replace the traditional mode of teaching and learning in higher education successfully? The review shows that service-learning is a critical transformative pedagogy that helps achieve the boarder goals of higher education in a more effective way. The review further informs that service-learning is a community engagement approach that can also be used as a teaching method for achieving specific civic and democratic goals of higher education.

1. The Neoliberal Logic of Service-Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Snider Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Community Based ◽  
University Partnerships ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Relationship

<?page nr="1"?>Abstract This article investigates the ways in which service-learning manifests within our neoliberal clime, suggesting that service-learning amounts to a foil for neoliberalism, allowing neoliberal political and economic changes while masking their damaging effects. Neoliberalism shifts the relationship between the public and the private, structures higher education, and promotes a façade of community-based university partnerships while facilitating a pervasive regime of control. This article demonstrates that service-learning amounts to an enigma of neoliberalism, making possible the privatization of the public and the individualizing of social problems while masking evidence of market-based societal control. Neoliberal service-learning distances service from teaching and learning, allows market forces to shape university-community partnerships, and privatizes the public through dispossession by accumulation.

Teaching Interreligious Encounter

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Gustafson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Guest Speakers

This chapter offers instructors in higher education some basic tools and elements of course design for interreligious encounter in the undergraduate classroom. Aiming at practice over theory, it provides practical suggestions for fostering interreligious understanding from the first day of class through the end of the semester. These suggestions include the use of guest speakers, interdisciplinary case studies, in-class reflections, and interreligious community engagement (i.e., “service learning”), among others. Further, it provides a concise bibliography of basic introductory texts for both students and instructors in the areas of comparative theology, theologies of religions and religious pluralisms, and interreligious studies and dialogue.

scholarly journals What makes or breaks higher education community engagement in the South African rural school context: A multiple-partner perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Gabriel Machimana ◽  
Maximus Monaheng Sefotho ◽  
Liesel Ebersöhn
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
School Context ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Rural School ◽  
Multiple Partner ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Education Community ◽  
Wide Range

The purpose of this study is to inform global citizenship practice as a higher education agenda by comparing the retrospective experiences of a range of community engagement partners and including often silent voices of non-researcher partners. Higher education–community engagement aims to contribute to social justice as it constructs and transfers new knowledge from the perspectives of a wide range of community engagement partners. This qualitative secondary analysis study was framed theoretically by the transformative–emancipatory paradigm. Existing case data, generated on retrospective experiences of community engagement partners in a long-term community engagement partnership, were conveniently sampled to analyse and compare a range of community engagement experiences ( parents of student clients ( n = 12: females 10, males 2), teachers from the partner rural school ( n = 18: females 12, males 6), student-educational psychology clients ( n = 31: females 14, males 17), Academic Service-Learning ( ASL) students ( n = 20: females 17, males 3) and researchers ( n = 12: females 11, males 1). Following thematic in-case and cross-case analysis, it emerged that all higher education–community engagement partners experienced that socio-economic challenges (defined as rural school adversities, include financial, geographic and social challenges) are addressed when an higher education–community engagement partnership exists, but that particular operational challenges (communication barriers, time constraints, workload and unclear scope, inconsistent feedback, as well as conflicting expectations) hamper higher education–community engagement partnership. A significant insight from this study is that a range of community engagement partners experience similar challenges when a university and rural school partner. All community engagement partners experienced that higher education–community engagement is challenged by the structural disparity between the rural context and operational miscommunication.

Setting the Vision for Campus Outreach and Engagement

2021 ◽  
pp. 274-284
Author(s):  
David M. Deggs
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
College And University ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
University Leaders ◽  
Student Benefits

Outreach and engagement are essential functions of American higher education. Despite having historical commitment and missions aligned to community engagement, many colleges and universities struggle to prioritize community engagement efforts within and across institutions. Community engagement is often viewed as a lesser priority behind teaching and research and is thus an afterthought. This chapter explores the development of community engagement in American higher education in the 20th century and key initiatives that underscore its importance to fulfilling college and university missions and goals. Motivation and rewards for faculty along with student benefits are also explored. Finally, actions that should be taken by college and university leaders to ensure that community engagement is prioritized are discussed.

scholarly journals Community engagement as the organic link with the street: Creating a learning community between the academy and homeless people in Tshwane

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico Botha
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Church History ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Context Analysis ◽  
Current Form

Does the current community engagement project, of the Department of Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology at the University of South Africa (UNISA), respond to the conceptual discourse on community engagement? Informed by this question this article’s objective is two-pronged. Firstly, an attempt is made to locate the project’s beginning in a proper historical perspective by engaging the initial ministry of the Department with homeless people. The narrative about the work of a Mennonite couple is told by structuring it around the dimensions of agency (identification or insertion), context analysis, strategies for mission and theological reflection or in simple terms, the reading of the Bible. Secondly, this article proceeds by subjecting both the initial ministry with homeless people and the community engagement project, in its current form, to the scrutiny of three high ranking publications from the Higher Education Quality Committee in collaboration with JET Education Services, the Council on Higher Education and a handbook on service learning in South Africa on the conceptual clarification of service learning and community engagement. As the documents reveal some difference of opinion amongst the experts, the bottom-line is that unless the interaction between the academy and the community (homeless people) is a consistent, sustainable, reciprocal and mutual process aimed at creating a genuine learning community, the project is called into question. A further issue is that the engagement between the parties must find reflection in what is taught – students or learners are to benefit from this – and researched.

Exploring the “Three Ps” of Service-Learning: Practice, Partnering, and Pressures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer S. Leigh ◽  
Amy Kenworthy
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Group Process ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Management Education ◽  
Institutional Pressures ◽  
Course Content ◽  
College Age ◽  
Higher Education Journals

Over the last three decades, service-learning has become a well-known experiential learning pedagogy in both management education and higher education more broadly. This popularity is observed in the increasing number of peer-reviewed publications on service-learning in management and business education journals, and on management education topics within higher education journals focused on civic engagement and community-based teaching and learning. In this field of study, it is known that service-learning can result in positive outcomes for students, faculty, and community members. In particular, for students, positive results are related to mastery of course content and group process skills like teamwork and communication, leadership, and diversity awareness. Despite the rise in scholarship, service-learning instructors still face several challenges in the area of best practice standards, fostering deep and cohesive partnerships, and managing institutional pressures that disincentivize engaged teaching practices. With constantly evolving challenges in management education, continued research is needed to understand a variety of service-learning facets such as platforms (face-to-face, hybrid, and virtual learning), populations (graduate vs. undergraduate populations and adult vs. traditional college-age learners), measurement (how to assess university-community partnerships and faculty instruction), and which institutional policies and procedures can enable and reward community-engaged teaching and learning approach.

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