(Page 2 of 20) - Advancing Undergraduate Service Learning and Community-Based Research at a Large Public Research University: The University of Wisconsin-Madison Morgridge Center for Public Service authored by Rouse, Mary. and Sapiro, Virginia.

their ongoing professional obligations; (3)a pedagogical practice understood in
community agencies, and supported so that it does not add undue burdens to them; (4)
integrated into the curriculum at the programmatic and campus level, (5) widely
available to students, and (6) maintained at an appropriately high level of quality. Let us
focus on each of these tasks briefly.

Ensuring service-learning is part of understood and accepted models of pedagogy

among faculty, staff, and administrators, both generally and within particular disciplines,
interdisciplinary areas and the academic schools and colleges. Service-learning, of
course, is an evolved pedagogy, not the same as traditional internships or peripheral
volunteer activities. Although there is widespread support for community-based, engaged
learning, it is still probably the case that many institutions and their faculty envision these
activities in the more traditional modes. Political science is a good example; there could
be few departments in the country that do not at least look kindly on, if not actively
support or organize internships for their students. Integrating community engagement
into the core of the learning activities, rather than placing it at the periphery, even as a
valued enhancement, is a new concept. Moreover, the service- learning model that
identifies the community-based partners explicitly into our understanding of “teachers” is
new to most faculty and institutions, too. It is these transformed ideas of the learning
model, and not simply the question of whether learning can take place outside the
classroom that must be the focus of institutional activities to build awareness and support.

And, we, believe, the transformed model cannot simply be an abstract one; its

details are likely to be strongly shaped by the nature of the field in which learning is
taking place. We do not imagine service- learning models of teaching and learning are
meaningfully the same for the professor trying to organize a new course in engineering or
English or economics. Indeed models of service- learning and community-based support
are likely to vary across subfield in disciplines as internally diverse as is political science.
If our point is to build courses and curricula, and not just have abstract discussions of
pedagogical values, institutions -- universities and professional societies like the
American Political Science Association -- will have to find ways to help develop these
new ideas and practices.

Ensuring that service-learning as a pedagogical practice is supported adequately

to allow faculty to pursue it without undue added burdens to their ongoing professional
obligations.

Even where faculty and administrators are in tune with current views of service-

learning it is not a simple or cost- free matter to follow through to develop and teach the
courses. Learning new pedagogies and integrating them into one’s own special teaching
field takes time and other resources. Certainly developing the community partnerships
required to offer service- learning demands multiple types of resources. Teaching these
courses requires a different kind of labor from traditional forms of teaching. Recognition
is also required after the fact in terms of appropriate credit and reward. Moreover, all of
this must occur in a period in which there are ever increasing demands on department,
college and university resources in a time of intense budget challenges and constraints,
especially in the public sector. Departments and programs are challenged to provide the