Crossing+Boundaries+-+Tension+and+Transformation+in+International+Service-Learning

**Crossing boundaries: Tension and transformation in international service-learning** Patrick Green, Director of Experiential Learning, Clinical Instructor of Experiential Learning, Loyola University Chicago pgreen@luc.edu] Mathew Johnson, Director of Academic Community Engagement, Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies, Siena College mjohnson@siena.edu] Lori Gardenier, Associate Academic Specialist, Northeastern University Eric Hartman, Lecturer, Arizona State University Richard Kiely, Associate Director, Center for Teaching Excellence, Cornell University Paul Kollman, Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame Paula Mellom, Research Scientist, Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education, University of Georgia Rachel Tomas Morgan, Assistant Director, Center for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame **Keywords:** International, global, cross-cultural, service-learning

**Track:** International impact and development

**Format:** Conversation hour

**Date & time:** Friday 9:30-10:40 **Location:** Crystal Room

**Summary:** This session will engage participants in conversation with a panel of editors and authors of the forthcoming volume // Crossing Boundaries: Tension and Transformation in International Service-Learning // (Stylus Publishing). The volume explores the powerful potential and equally powerful challenge and problematic nature of international service-learning as a pivotal, developmental aspect of undergraduate education.

One of the key tensions and challenges of international service-learning is the issue of creating models that build deep, reciprocal, sustained community partnerships. Research on service-learning has renewed a focus on academic rigor and achieving learning goals of an academic course. More recently, service-learning literature has emphasized community impact as a key consideration for effective and ethical service-learning. This tension between the needs of the academy and the needs of the community presents an important dialectical challenge for all forms of service-learning. International service-learning also faces the challenges of cross-cultural context, resource and power inequalities, and the dangers of becoming consumerist service tourism. We will have the opportunity to explore how these tensions between learning and attending to community need sit at the core of the service-learning movement and intersect with other educational movements, such as global citizenship in higher education.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">The focus of the discussion will be on international service-learning as it connects with educating students to possess and demonstrate personal and social responsibility, as well as lifelong commitments to citizenship that reflect critical global and international perspectives. Chapter authors will present and discuss models of international service-learning that can function as transformative educational processes for students, faculty, staff, community partners/communities, and the academy. Panelists and participants will define and distill best practices and model programs, projects and courses and reflexively consider their own practice.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">** References: ** <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">There were no references provided with this proposal.

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