Service-Learning at Loyola College
The following definition of service-learning and related course criteria for Loyola College
were developed by the Committee on Engaged Scholarship[1] during 2003 and 2004
and approved unanimously by the same Committee in December 2004.
They were approved by COAD on November 11, 2005.
At Loyola College, service-learning refers to experiential learning within academic courses that is gained through structured reflection on community-based service. In most courses, service-learning pedagogies are combined with more traditional modes of teaching and learning. Essential components of service-learning include: learning and service which enhance one another, reciprocal partnership with the community, and meaningful, structured reflection. Service-learning courses at Loyola intentionally contribute to those Undergraduate Educational Aims which promote justice, diversity, leadership and social responsibility.[2] These values are central to the Jesuit educational mission of Loyola College and of all Jesuit colleges and universities.[3] Optional or Mandatory: Service-learning may be optional or required of all students in a course, depending on the pedagogical, curricular and logistical preferences and needs of the instructor, department, and community partners involved.
Loyola College strives for pedagogical excellence in the use of service-learning and employs ‘best practices’ widely accepted by knowledgeable practitioners. To that end, the following criteria are present in a service-learning course at Loyola: I. Purpose A. Learning and Service Enhance One Another - Enhancing student learning and being of service to others are the primary aims of all service activities and placements.
- The service contributes to specific learning objectives of the course.
- Learning course content informs and enhances service.
B. Justice, Diversity and Leadership Service-learning intrinsically contributes to many of the Undergraduate Educational Aims of Loyola College which are central to the mission of the College: e.g., the promotion of justice; diversity; and leadership.[4] Service-learning courses should be designed to highlight such issues and benefit from these inherent pedagogical strengths. II. Partnership and Reciprocity Reciprocity is the defining principle of service-learning partnerships. Therefore, the service meets both community needs and the learning needs of students. In addition, all parties benefit from the service and the learning. Prior to syllabus completion and the beginning of the semester, instructors communicate with community partners and agree upon the service to be undertaken for the course and its connections with service-learning aspects of the course. In order to meet the needs of all parties, a minimum of 20 hours of service per semester (e.g., two hours per week for ten weeks) is generally expected of all service-learning students. All parties (instructor, community partner and student) are involved in establishing their respective responsibilities and expected benefits prior to the start of the service-learning activity.[5] III. Preparation and Explanation The instructor prepares students for service-learning by: - Explaining the following in the syllabus and/or in the first few class meetings:
- the rationale for using service-learning in the course
- service-learning assignments and activities
- reflection
- reciprocity
- partnership(s) with community co-educator(s)
- connections among course learning objectives and service-learning/service.
- Arranging appropriate orientations to the specific sites where service will be done and to the issues that are relevant to each site.
IV. Reflection Meaningful, structured reflection is the primary link between service and learning in the course: it is the way in which students make the experience of service educative and connect it to course content. Meaningful, structured reflection is: - “Continuous…over the course of each event or experience. Continuous reflection includes reflection before the experience, during the experience, and after the experience.”[6]
- “Connected” in that it “links service to the intellectual and academic pursuits of the students” at two levels: (1) “[s]ervice experiences illustrate theories and concepts…making academics real and vivid”, and (2) [t]hrough classroom work…students begin to develop conceptual frameworks that explain service experiences.”
- “Challenging to assumptions and complacency” in a way that “produces new understanding, raises new questions, and moves towards new frameworks for problem solving”, and
- “Contextualized”, i.e., “is appropriate for the setting and context of a particular course...; the environment and method of reflection corresponds in a meaningful way to the topics and experiences that form the material for reflection.”
V. Assessment Assessment of the service-learning aspects of the course is essential. Service-learning assessments are completed by: (1) the instructor, (2) the community partner(s), and (3) students in the course.[7]
Appendix A
Appendix B
[1] Members include: Gerard Athaide (Marketing), Janet Preis (Speech Pathology), Carolyn Barry (Psychology), Drew Leder (Philosophy), Steven King (Sellinger School), Martha Wharton, (Academic Affairs and Diversity), Pat McClaughlin, SSND (Community Partner Representative), Greg Sileo (Student Representative), Joanna Tellis and Robin Crews (Office of Service-Learning).
[2] See Appendix A.
[3] See Appendix B.
[4] See Appendix A.
[5] Service-learning contracts are available online for this purpose. See these and many other service-learning resources for faculty at: www.loyola.edu/service-learning
[6] All quotations in this section are from: Eyler, Janet, Dwight E. Giles, Jr., and Angela Schmiede, A Practitioner’s Guide to Reflection in Service-Learning: Student Voices & Reflections. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Pgs. 17-21, 1996.
[7] Service-learning course assessments are available through Blackboard for this purpose.
Appendix A:
Undergraduate Educational Aims of Loyola College To Which Service-Learning Contributes[8]
“Critical Understanding: Thinking, Reading, and Analyzing
c. the ability to make sound judgments in complex and changing environments” “Leadership
a. an understanding of one’s strengths and capabilities as a leader and the responsibility
one has to use leadership strengths for the common good b. a willingness to act as an agent for positive change, informed by a sense of
responsibility to the larger community” “Promotion of Justice
a. an appreciation of the great moral issues of our time: the sanctity of human life,
poverty, racism, genocide, war and peace, religious tolerance and intolerance, the
defense of human rights, and the environmental impact of human activity b. commitment to promote justice for all, based on a respect for the dignity and sanctity
of human life c. commitment to and solidarity with persons who are materially poor or otherwise
disadvantaged” “Diversity
a. recognition of the inherent value and dignity of each person, and therefore an
awareness of, sensitivity toward, and respect for the differences of race, gender,
ethnicity, national origin, culture, sexual orientation, religion, age, and disabilities
b. awareness of the structural sources, consequences, and responsibilities of privilege c. awareness of the global context of citizenship and an informed sensitivity to the
experiences of peoples outside of the United States d. awareness of the multiplicity of perspectives that bear on the human experience, and
the importance of historical, global and cultural context in determining the way we see
the world” “Wellness
b. ability to balance and integrate care for self and care for others
[8] All quotes come from the Undergraduate Educational Aims of Loyola College.
Appendix B:
Relevant Selections from:
“The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education*”
by Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, Superior General of the Society of Jesus
“* The twenty-eight Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States held a Conference on "Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education," at Santa Clara University (California), 5-8 October 2000, to mark the 25th anniversary of Decree 4 of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, and to reflect on its impact upon the Society's university apostolate in the United States. The 420 participants, among them many top administrators, endorsed Father General's address as the basis upon which to plan education for justice on every campus.” ... “I. B. The promotion of justice …Since Saint Ignatius wanted love to be expressed not only in words but also in deeds, the Congregation committed the Society to the promotion of justice as a concrete, radical but proportionate response to an unjustly suffering world. Fostering the virtue of justice in people was not enough. Only a substantive justice can bring about the kinds of structural and attitudinal changes that are needed to uproot those sinful oppressive injustices that are a scandal against humanity and God. This sort of justice requires an action-oriented commitment to the poor with a courageous personal option… III. A. Formation and learning …The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become. For four hundred and fifty years, Jesuit education has sought to educate "the whole person" intellectually and professionally, psychologically, morally and spiritually. But in the emerging global reality, with its great possibilities and deep contradictions, the whole person is different from the whole person of the Counter-Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, or the 20th Century. Tomorrow's "whole person" cannot be whole without an educated awareness of society and culture with which to contribute socially, generously, in the real world. Tomorrow's whole person must have, in brief, a well-educated solidarity. We must therefore raise our Jesuit educational standard to "educate the whole person of solidarity for the real world." Solidarity is learned through "contact" rather than through "concepts," as the Holy Father said recently at an Italian university conference.24 When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection. Students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively. They should learn to perceive, think, judge, choose and act for the rights of others, especially the disadvantaged and the oppressed… Our universities also boast a splendid variety of in-service programs, outreach programs, insertion programs, off-campus contacts and hands-on courses. These should not be too optional or peripheral, but at the core of every Jesuit university's program of studies. Our students are involved in every sort of social action - tutoring drop-outs, demonstrating in Seattle, serving in soup kitchens, promoting pro-life, protesting against the School of the Americas - and we are proud of them for it. But the measure of Jesuit universities is not what our students do but who they become and the adult Christian responsibility they will exercise in future towards their neighbor and their world. For now, the activities they engage in, even with much good effect, are for their formation. This does not make the university a training camp for social activists. Rather, the students need close involvement with the poor and the marginal now, in order to learn about reality and become adults of solidarity in the future. III. B. Research and teaching If the measure and purpose of our universities lies in what the students become, then the faculty are at the heart of our universities. Their mission is tirelessly to seek the truth and to form each student into a whole person of solidarity who will take responsibility for the real world… III. C. Our way of proceeding …Paraphrasing Ignacio Ellacuría, it is the nature of every University to be a social force, and it is the calling of a Jesuit university to take conscious responsibility for being such a force for faith and justice. Every Jesuit academy of higher learning is called to live in a social reality (as we saw in the "composition" of our time and place) and to live for that social reality, to shed university intelligence upon it and to use university influence to transform it… IV. In conclusion, an agenda …We give thanks for our Jesuit university awareness of the world in its entirety and in its ultimate depth, created yet abused, sinful yet redeemed, and we take up our Jesuit university responsibility for human society that is so scandalously unjust, so complex to understand, and so hard to change. With the help of others and especially the poor, we want to play our role as students, as teachers and researchers, and as Jesuit university in society. As Jesuit higher education, we embrace new ways of learning and being formed in the pursuit of adult solidarity; new methods of researching and teaching in an academic community of dialogue; and a new university way of practicing faith-justice in society.”
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