This essay is an excerpt from a keynote speech delivered by Benjamin Barber at the 2nd Annual Summer Research Institute on the "Future of Community Engagement in Higher Education." The speech focuses on six conditions that will impact community service-learning and voluntarism efforts in the years ahead: the ideology of neo-liberalism and…

In a September 2013 interview, Thomas Ehrlich and Ernestine Fu--whose passion for public service is manifested in differing ways and from two dramatically different generational standpoints--discussed insights from their co-authored book, "Civic Work, Civic Lessons: Two Generations Reflect on Public Service (2013)." Septuagenarian Tom…

In this paper, I suggest that community-based learning can act as a "public space" for the exchange of religious and non-religious identities. By providing a space for the collaboration between religiously-affiliated Universities and non-religiously affiliated community partners, community-based learning offers the opportunity for the negotiation…

In this article, the author states his belief that community based learning among adults can be a powerful force for encouraging personal development and for strengthening democracy in this multicultural, globally interdependent, battered world. To do so, however, it needs to pervade all the curricula, degree programs, learning contracts, and…

Discusses the distinctions between volunteerism and service and expresses concern about the use of "service" as an umbrella for all forms of civic participation. (JOW)

Explores the possibility of creating an integrated, intentional approach to service learning and civic engagement in higher education, rather than the "helter-skelter" approach that is currently common. Discusses different faces/phases of academic citizenship. (EV)

American high school and university students perform community service in record numbers. According to the most recent survey of incoming university freshman, more than 80 percent of students undertook volunteer work in high school. While volunteering is on the rise, political interest and engagement among youth is declining. These two trends lead…

Discusses why liberal and professional education must be reinvented to include socially responsive knowledge as a key component of every college student's education. Describes faculty attitudes toward civic engagement and faculty initiatives at Portland State University. (EV)

Asserts that juxtaposing traditional notions of liberal education with emerging views of civic engagement, captured most forcefully by the service learning movement, reveals common themes rooted in a democratic vision of society and the power of education to advance citizenship. (EV)

The connection between service and character is a natural fit in today's schools. An important fact of school reform in recent years has been the push to connect academics to the "real world." But while there is widespread agreement that educating students to become good citizens is crucial, there are differences on how to make that goal…

This introduction to a special issue reviews the community service movement in the 1960s-70s, current calls for youth involvement in community service, and the semantic differences related to the term "service learning." (SK)

Service-learning places students and educational institutions in direct contact with surrounding communities, teaches them greater appreciation for persons of different social privileges, and helps them to recognize the necessity of social intervention in distributing the benefits of democracy. Service-learning is inherently democratizing by…

In this article, the authors call for tying service learning to feminist agendas, emphasizing civic activism involving true collaboration with communities. They report on a graduate seminar, "Feminism and Composition," at their own university that worked toward this goal by having students self-reflectively participate in local organizations that…

To educate young people to be productive citizens and to ensure that the democratic objective of equality is realized, service learning must adopt an alternative paradigm that promotes the ideals and values of participatory democracy. Three problematic assumptions of service learning are that (1) good citizenship requires students to "give" back…

The growth of community service, particularly service learning, is not occurring as quickly or as seriously as it should. The comprehensive partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and the West Philadelphia public schools that involves parents, children, and community members in a variety of programs is a model of a service learning…