IARSLCE monthly board meeting

LEAD California, IARSLCE and GivePulse are proud to announce our next speaker:

Dr. Rochelle Smarr, Director of Experiential Learning at the University of California San Diego

Co-Moderated by Dr. Marisol Morales, Executive Director of the Carnegie Elective Classifications and Dr. Elaine Ikeda, Executive Director of LEAD California.

Our Next Speaker: 

Rochelle Smarr, Ed.D., is the Director of Experiential Learning at UC San Diego, where she leads the Experiential Learning team to increase access to and support of engaged learning beyond the classroom through co-curricular activities and academic internship programs. She has held previous roles in the field of community engagement with Students First - New York, City College of New York, Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania. In 2019, she joined California State University, San Marcos as the Assistant Director for Civic Learning and later served as Director of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement before joining UC San Diego in 2023. She is an active member of CUMU and IARSLCE. Serving as the conference journal co-editor for Metropolitan Universities Journal for CUMU, along with hosting a virtual workshop series. In 2023 she was the conference chair for the annual IARSLCE conference in New Orleans, and will resume the role for the upcoming conference in 2024 to be held in San Diego. Click here to learn more about Rochelle.

Abstract:

Title: Stories from the Field: Black Service-Learning Student Experiences

The aim of this research study is to provide a macro picture of Black student's experiences in service-learning through reflective semi-structured interviews (Creswell, 2015; Shah, 2020). To better understand the experiences of Black students' service-learning experiences, a grounded research study was used to highlight themes that emerged from the data collected by participants (Charmaz, 2017; Kimball et al., 2016; Mertler, 2019). Together the conceptual frameworks of transformative learning theory and student voice theory provided a lens into how students make meaning of their service-learning experiences. By sharing their own narrative stories about what they learned (transformative learning theory) and how they learned through their service-learning experiences (student voice theory) (Cook Sather, 2002; Cook- Sather, 2006; Kiely, 2005; Matthews & Dollinger, 2022; Mezirow, 1997; Welch & Plaxton- Moore, 2019).

Register

This presentation demystifies modern approaches to causal inference by exploring the concept of the counterfactual to encourage research on service-learning and community engagement that yields defensible causal conclusions about the effectiveness of engagement practices. While many of these approaches apply higher order statistical and quantitative methods, this presentation will break down the complex concepts to introductory and exploratory levels for an audiences without backgrounds in applied statistical methods. We will root the conversation in the potential outcomes framework, which is at the heart of the modern approach to and understanding of many causal designs.

Participants will be able to identify how applications of the potential outcomes framework can be applied to research projects in SLCE. The presentation will review and clarify the core assumptions of the potential outcomes framework, enabling participants to evaluate how these assumptions may affect a design and plan their research designs accordingly.

Register

IARSLCE is pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for the 2024 IARSLCE Awards. Nominations are due by April 21, 2024 and should be submitted electronically to awards@iarslce.org. Self-nominations are welcome. Complete descriptions of awards and instructions can be found here.

All nominees will be notified of their status in May and award winners will be recognized at the 2024 IARSLCE Conference in San Diego, Oct 2-4. Please help us recognize the outstanding scholars in our field by submitting a nomination!

We also rely on our membership to serve on review committees and select our recipients. If you are willing to serve as a reviewer, please email the IARSLCE Awards Committee at awards@iarslce.org.

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

Involving youth as active participants in research empowers them to find solutions to society’s problems. Through this process, young people transform from being perceived as passive or accepting youth to active, engaged, responsible citizens, building their capacity for active citizenship. Engaging in research also allows young people to build mutually liberatory partnerships that equalize relations between youth and adults. A framework used to engage youth as researchers is called Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). YPAR enables students to apply a critical lens to their environments, which helps them uncover truths behind structural exploitation, oppression, and opportunities for resistance. The “praxis” component of YPAR calls young people to act along with their adult allies to redress systemic issues impacting their community. This research framework is particularly salient after young people experienced isolation and learning losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. This panel introduces the components of YPAR and brings in perspectives from students who have participated in a summer YPAR program at Merrimack College.

Register

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

IARSLCE Members are invited join our monthly Community Conversation on the 4th Wednesday of each month at 12pm PT/3:00pm ET. This is a space to bring your scholarly ideas, problems of practice, and/or desire to connect with colleagues. There's no specific agenda for these gatherings. Rather, the agenda emerges from the priorities and questions that participants bring into the space. It's a great opportunity to have thoughtful discussions and exchange resources.

No need to register in advance, just join us at this link: bit.ly/IARSLCECommConv

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

Dissertation Dish with Dr. Mayada Kanj

"Partnership Experience in Service- Learning between a Private University and Community Organizations in Lebanon"

In 2012, the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) adopted a SL pedagogy to reach out to underserved communities in order to enhance the learning experiences of public health students as well as improve social conditions impacting health of the population in those communities. Community sites are located in underserved areas that struggle with poverty, which is impacting health outcomes and well-being of the population living there. This research adopted a qualitative methodology to explore the partnership experience of community organizations engaged in SL with the FHS at AUB. Purposive sampling was used to identify community organizations based on set criteria and subsequently semi- structured interviews were conducted with key informants in the selected organizations and with faculty who teach SL courses.

Results suggest that the SL relationship between the faculty and the community organizations created threads for a possible network where benefits are skewed towards the academic partner. Yet, despite these inequitable conditions, community organizations chose to remain in the relationship and provided justifications for doing so. These justifications are embedded in a power dynamic between academia and community organizations where the soft power of the university impacted interactions of the faculty with the local communities.

Findings of this research cannot be interpreted outside the context of a developing country and a collectivist culture. The perception of power impacted the reaction of community respondents to the power dynamic in the going interactions. Being situated in a collectivist culture seemed to impact the acceptance of unequal relationships and in most cases, this imbalance could not be disrupted.

Register

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

In recognition of exemplary contributions through research on service-learning and community engagement, IARSLCE honors those whose research contributes significantly to understanding and advancing community engagement, across all approaches and all educational sectors.

For more information on eligibility and the nomination process, click here.

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

Dissertation Dish w/ Dr. Trina Van Schyndel

Community-Engaged Practitioner-Scholar Professional Identity Development Through Participation In A Community Engagement Association’s Graduate Student Fellowship

When rhetoric does not match reality for higher education institutions’ commitment to community engagement, graduate students may find counterspaces to the academy are necessary and allow them to reset and reframe, collectively organize, and push back against normative socialization processes of the academy that do not serve their needs as emerging community-engaged practitioner-scholars. This basic, exploratory qualitative study examined professional identity development of community-engaged practitioner-scholars through participation in a community engagement professional associations’ graduate student fellowship – the Imagining America (IA) Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) Fellows program. From 15 interviews, six major themes emerged, which were divided into two sections. The first section, the people, focused on participant backgrounds (i.e. personal/social identities, characteristics, and life experiences) and ways of work as community-engaged practitioner-scholars. The second section, the setting, focused on tension experienced within the academy during and after graduate school, as well as the experience and development of new conceptualizations (i.e., revelations of the mind – or head), new relationships (i.e., affirmations of the heart), and new practices in their work (i.e., transformations of the hands) through participation in the IA PAGE Fellows program. While socialization (Weidman et al., 2001) toward community engagement did occur through IA and the PAGE, these spaces also functioned in a way similar to counterspaces (Case & Hunter 2012) and influenced participants’ professional identity development through new revelations, affirmation, and transformation in the face of oppressive and deficit-oriented narratives toward community-engaged work that continue to perpetuate academia.

Register

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

More info

IARSLCE Members are invited join our monthly Community Conversation on the 4th Wednesday of each month at 12pm PT/3:00pm ET. This is a space to bring your scholarly ideas, problems of practice, and/or desire to connect with colleagues. There's no specific agenda for these gatherings. Rather, the agenda emerges from the priorities and questions that participants bring into the space. It's a great opportunity to have thoughtful discussions and exchange resources.

No need to register in advance, just join us at this link: bit.ly/IARSLCECommConv

Urban Engagement, Entwined: Examining the intersecting impacts of the pandemic and identity-based justice movements on community engagement in urban spaces

We are navigating a moment in the community engagement field when we continue to contend with the challenges brought about by COVID, and reckon with the realizations of how our work disrupts or supports identity-based oppression. As scholarship continues to emerge on these distinct and intersecting forces, we invite you to reflect on how urban institutions and communities in the United States and around the world are learning from the recent past to innovate their approaches, reshape their practices, and reimagine the possibilities of higher education community engagement.

Register

The IJRSLCE Editors have issued a call for manuscripts for Volume 1 of the International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. The Editors are seeking submissions that reflect the breadth of scholarship in the service-learning and community engagement field, with articles from different disciplines and countries, reflecting a range of methodologies.

The Journal has five main sections: (1) Advances in Theory and Methodology; (2) Community Partnerships and Impacts; (3) Faculty Roles and Institutional Issues; (4) International Service-Learning and Community Engagement Research; and (5) Student Outcomes – Primary, Secondary, and Higher Education. In addition, there is a Book Review section.

The Author Guidelines are available at the IJRSLCE website; submissions are managed by ScholasticaHQ. Registration on Scholastica is required for manuscript submission. The deadline for submissions to be considered in the 2023 volume is May 15, 2023.

IARSLCE monthly board meeting

IARSLCE Members are invited join our monthly Community Conversation on the 4th Wednesday of each month at 12pm PT/3:00pm ET. This is a space to bring your scholarly ideas, problems of practice, and/or desire to connect with colleagues. There's no specific agenda for these gatherings. Rather, the agenda emerges from the priorities and questions that participants bring into the space. It's a great opportunity to have thoughtful discussions and exchange resources.

No need to register in advance, just join us at this link: bit.ly/IARSLCECommConv