"[This book] questions the prioritization and theoretical/philosophical underpinnings of the core concepts of service learning: 1. learning, 2. service, 3. community, and 4. change. By 'liberating' service learning, [the author] suggests reversing the prioritization of the concepts, starting with change, then community, then service, and then learning. In doing so, [the author] clarifies the benefits and purpose of this work, arguing that it will create greater pedagogical and community impact. [This book] challenges--and hopefully will change--our thinking about higher education community engagement."--

Numerous studies have chronicled students lack of trust in large social institutions, declining interest in politics, and decreasing civic skills. This book is a comprehensive guide to developing high-quality civic engagement experiences for college students. The book defines civic engagement and explains why it is central to a college education. It describes the state of the art of education for civic engagement and provides guidelines for designing programs that encourage desired learning outcomes. In addition, the book guides leaders in organizing their institutions to create a campus-wide culture of civic engagement.

This book offers a broad overview of many issues related to assessment in higher education, with specific application for understanding the impact of service-learning and civic engagement initiatives. This revised edition includes an additional chapter that explores recent changes in the assessment landscape and offers examples and resources for designing assessment strategies for community engagement in higher education. The original text includes narrative addressing assessment issues and strategies; a detailed discussion of learning from multiple research projects performed over the past two decades about impact on multiple constituencies –students, faculty, communities, and institutions; and a discussion of strategies for data collection, analysis, synthesis, and reporting. Specific assessment instruments for use with each constituency are provided, including suggestions for administration, preparation, and data analysis. This volume will be helpful for individuals seeking a comprehensive resource on assessment issues in higher education.

Beyond their educational value, university institutions can play a pivotal role in community improvement. By utilizing academic resources, these organizations can positively impact their communities. Engaged Scholarship and Civic Responsibility in Higher Education is a critical reference source for the latest scholarly research on the adoption and implementation of civic engagement initiatives in higher education institutions. Including a range of pertinent topics such as service learning, economic development, and social justice, this book is ideally designed for academics, practitioners, students, professionals, and researchers interested in the growing influence of universities on community improvement.

This book offers a comprehensive rethinking of the theory and practice of service-learning in higher education. Democratic and community engagement are vital aspects of linking colleges and communities, and this book critically engages the best practices and powerful alternative models in the academy. Drawing on key theoretical insights and empirical studies, Butin details the limits and possibilities of the future of community engagement in developing and sustaining the engaged campus.

This eighth volume in the Advances in Service-Learning Research series includes eight essays selected from manuscripts submitted by participants in the seventh annual conference of the International Association of Research in Service-Learning and Community Engagement, held in Tampa, Florida, in October, 2007. The volume builds upon the theme of that conference: "Sustainability and Scholarship: Research and the K-20 Continuum," bringing together the work of scholars from K-12 and higher education to argue for the connection between rigorous and purposeful research and sustainable service-learning and civic engagement. Articles range from models for program-level assessment to examples of significant field-based research projects to approaches to advance discipline-based sustainable impacts to connections between civic education and sustainable communities. Voices of community partners, students, faculty members, administrators, and discipline-based organizations are part of the conversation, and each of the essays raises important challenges for future research that can help to shape, document, and sustain the important impacts of work in this field.

Twenty-five leaders from the higher education and service-learning sectors provide insight into what works in building citizenship through civic engagement on their campuses and communities. From small colleges to large universities, these strong voices demonstrate that American democracy is very much active and prepared for the 21st century.

Civic education in higher education is housed in various types of institutions (i.e., community colleges, four year universities, public and private institutions), institutional offices, academic departments, and larger, cross-campus initiatives and organizations. Civic education programs promote numerous activities to foster student engagement both inside and outside the classroom. Many in higher education have embraced the civic education movement; however, as with other social movements, the civic education movement is still a contested area. Defining civic education (i.e., civic engagement, service learning, political engagement, community engagement, etc.) becomes problematic because there seems to be as many terms for civic education as there are civic education scholars. Engaging Civic Engagement: Framing the Civic Education Movement in Higher Education provides a comparative analysis of major approaches to civic education in the civic education moment, including implications for higher education.

This volume examines the role of writing, rhetoric, and literacy programs and approaches in the practice of civic engagement in global contexts. Writing programs have experience in civic engagement and service learning projects in their local communities, and their work is central to developing students’ literacy practices. Further, writing programs compel student writers to attend to audience needs and rhetorical exigencies as well as reflect on their own subject positions. Thus, they are particularly situated to partner with other units on college campuses engaged in global partnerships. Civic Engagement in Global Contexts provides examples and evidence of the critical self-reflection and iteration with community partners that make these projects important and valuable. Throughout its thirteen chapters, this collection provides practical pedagogical and administrative approaches for writing studies faculty engaging with global learning projects, as well as nuanced insight into how to navigate contact zones from the planning stages of projects to the hard work of self-reflection and change. Partnerships and projects across national borders compel the field of rhetoric and composition to think through the ethics of writing studies program design and teaching practices. Doing this difficult work can disrupt presumptive notions of ownership that faculty and administrators hold concerning the fields involved in these projects and can even lead to decentering rhetoric/composition and other assumptions held by US-based institutions of higher education. Civic Engagement in GlobalContexts will be useful to instructors, advisors, and project managers of students in faculty-led project learning in overseas settings, international service learning through foreign study programs, and foreign study itself and to faculty members introducing civic engagement and community-based learning projects with foreign students in overseas institutions. Contributors: Olga Aksakalova, James Austin, Maria de Lourdes Caudillo Zambrano, Rebecca Charry Roje, Patricia M. Dyer, Tara E. Friedman, Bruce Horner, Kathryn Johnson Gindlesparger, Adela C. Licona, Ian Mauer, Joyce Meier, Susan V. Meyers, Sadia Mir, Stephen T. Russell