2018 Conference

Individual Paper Presentation

            Given the increased interest in experiential learning as a “high-impact practice,” this paper seeks to discover methods for increasing student engagement in service coursework. Most students have a desire to “do good,” but often conceptualize service as a one-way transaction or are unaware of how their own well-being and academic knowledge relate to community issues. This paper presents a continuing case study on how community-based learning (CBL) affects student attitudes toward community and volunteering, analyzing existing scholarship on service pedagogies alongside four years of student data (written reflections, pre- and post-surveys) from my CBL course, “Food, Justice, and U.S. Literature.”

            This phase of the project demonstrates the importance of developing a CBL pedagogy modeled on “solidarity” (instead of “charity”) for enabling students to interconnect social-environmental theories, their own lives, and urgent community issues—connections most students are unable to develop from previous volunteer experience. The paper identifies initial problems with student approaches to service, and describes coursework designed to address them. It next examines outcomes through term-end reflections and surveys, student project artifacts (e.g. a social media campaign created to combat food pantry client stereotypes), and observed course conversations (e.g. one group’s definition of “empathic citizenship” as their engagement ethos).

            Finding gains in empathic capacity and solidarity-mindset, the study further suggests these are skills (rather than qualities) that build mutually, making them essential for teaching justice-based courses. Moreover, when student projects are approached as part of ongoing relationships, they enable a sustainable solidarity with long-term impacts on communities. Finally, I argue that CBL work constitutes a crucial method for environmental studies to become more inclusive (since it brings diverse community perspectives to bear on defining environmental problems and solutions) and, by giving partners access to institutional tools and resources, often increases the perceived legitimacy of community problems.