The Case of Service Learning Partnerships

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2009

This article furthers knowledge on cross-sector partnerships. It distinguishes between partnerships that produce predefined outcomes and those that produce co-defined ones. Predefined outcomes are defined by one partner prior to the formation of the partnership and could have been attained easily with alternative partners. Co-defined outcomes are defined by partners in mutual consultation and tailored to the resources and goals of the participants. The article identifies delegation as a factor that crucially defines whether partnerships produce pre-or co-defined outcomes. Delegation occurs when there is a clear-cut division between coordination and participation so that staff members engaged as coordinators are otherwise disengaged from the partnership. Delegated partnerships-those with coordinators engaged only in coordinating duties-are likely to produce predefined outcomes whereas undelegated partnerships are likely to produce co-defined outcomes. The article builds on a grounded theory study of 11 service learning partnerships formed by institutions of higher education and community organizations.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2021

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2021

This article explores the experiences of organisations participating as Community Partners (CPs) and co-educators in a service-learning module in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in South Wales, UK. It focuses on the opportunities and challenges faced by community organisations when working within the Service-learning (SL) model, and the relationship with the university and the students, including issues of expectation, assessment and identity. The partners provided SL placements of 30 hours or more in a range of community projects and organisations. These placements were intensely collaborative affairs. We researched the experiences of community partners to better understand the dynamics of the relationship; to better understand how to prepare community partners, HEIs and students; and to tease out how complex partnership projects like this one with multiple partners may be conducted successfully. A qualitative study was conducted. The data were collected through semi-structure...

Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 2019

Although there have been growing concerns on how service-learning can accentuate the power differences between the server and the served, service-learning can foster transformative partnership by recognizing the contributions each can offer for a better society. Using participant observation and discourse analysis, this case study examines the perceptions of third-year undergraduate students of a health-related degree in a Philippine-based Jesuit university about their school–community collaboration in a primary healthcare setting. Despite apprehensions at the start of service-learning, students saw themselves confronted with the challenge to overcome personal barriers from authentically encountering the urban poor, whom they served in the community. However, establishing transformative partnership in service-learning was not without its share of dilemmas. Such findings can contribute to discourses on service-learning, informing practitioners how to support social transformation in ...

New Directions for Student Services, 1999

Whatever the institutional location or reporting lines of the program, service learning thrives on the expertise and experience of both academic affairs and student affairs. This chapter describes and examines partnerships for service learning.

Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice

Community partners contribute to fostering and sustaining service-learning partnerships. In the service-learning pedagogy, their leadership roles, although identified as partners and co-collaborator, have been under-investigated in the context of their perceptions and contributions. To contribute to the understanding of partners' collaborative involvement, and leadership strategies, we interviewed four partners from two non-profit agencies that had collaborated on projects with a small liberal arts university for more than six years. The partners described their motivations for committing to the partnership, discussed the perceived benefits of the collaboration, and explained the strategies they implemented to address partnership challenges. We demonstrate that in service-learning collaborations, active community partners exhibit leadership competencies of knowing, being and doing, and they display the five components of leadership success outlined in the Relational Leadership Model: supporting purpose, sustaining process, ensuring ethics, maintaining inclusiveness, and creating empowerment.

2019

During the last two decades, the knowledge base regarding the benefits and burdens for all stakeholders in service learning has expanded. However, service-learning research has neglected to address the foundation of the pedagogy, its definition, and stakeholders’ perspectives on the meaning of service learning. The current research addresses this deficiency through the use of focus group methodology to explore how community partners, specifically, define service learning. By recognizing the community voice, we hope to empower all those engaged in service-learning pedagogy to communicate understandings, experiences, and expectations to develop beneficial service-learning partnerships.

2003

2003

To Pearl and Herb Gendlermy beloved parents, whose extraordinary partnership since 1943 continues to inspire many current and potential partners.

Executive Summary In recent years, interdepartmental partnerships within the public sector have been heralded as effective instruments for addressing complex social problems. For example, it is claimed that they can motivate staff and facilitate innovative practices that lead to improvements in service delivery. However, though partnerships are widely promoted as a panacea within the sector, there is a paucity of research that has looked at them from a critical perspective or examined how they operate in practice.