In 1974, Duke offered its first service-learning course. Since then, these individual service learning courses have expanded into Duke Service Learning, an initiative that supports 80 individual courses this fall semester alone.
The program’s mission is outlined in Duke University’s founding agreement, which emphasizes a combination of education and service. However, in an increasingly politically reflective and active society, the conversation around service-learning courses is changing, and students are becoming more deliberate about the purpose, goals, and outcomes of their service-learning courses.
“It’s never going to be a perfect system. That’s something we really encourage our students to think about and incorporate into their conversations. This is not a risk-free practice,” said Joan Clifford, director of service learning. says Mr.
Service learning challenges and opportunities
Regardless of the potential challenges, Clifford believes service learning has an important place in Duke’s academic program.
“Students see the potential to be leaders, to be team players, and to actually gain knowledge from the community. Those interactions don’t happen in the classroom.”
Alexis Moss, a second-year teaching assistant in Clifford’s class, Spanish 306, has seen the benefits of service learning firsthand.
“I was able to talk directly to people who spoke Spanish, but I was also able to talk to people in the community who were really in need, and I was able to talk about food insecurity in Durham,” she said. “The people there really treated me like family. I ended up spending so much time there that I ended up getting almost twice as much time in classes as I should have. .”
Clifford acknowledges that despite the benefits of service learning, there are unavoidable downsides. Both Clifford and Moss pointed out that the biggest potential harm is a messianic mindset, the idea that students volunteer solely for their own benefit without consideration for the communities they serve.
To counter this threat of messianism, Clifford points out that Duke University is implementing critical service learning, rather than traditional forms of service learning. This means that students are encouraged to look at the systemic issues that cause their desires to be met.
“We’re really trying to do a systematic, big-picture analysis of why we need these services,” Clifford said. “Not only do we learn the skill sets and tasks that nonprofits are looking for from us, but we also think about how we can be well-informed to actually solve problems in solidarity with our communities.”
In addition to discouraging messianism, Clifford and Moss agree that service-learning departments need to have conversations about time requirements and whether they should be lowered or not exist at all. .
“I don’t want to just give up my time to give up my time,” Moss said. “You’re spending time learning more about something, growing personally, growing within your community, and growing the community itself.”
bursting of duke bubble
Still, Clifford and Moss both emphasize how service learning has changed Duke’s relationship with the community.
“As part of the project, we met with community partners and all of them said the most important thing about their partnership was the relationships they built,” Clifford said. “So this is talking about the heart of service learning, the human side of what we do. It’s the connections and relationships that we make.”
Clifford said it’s fairly common for students to continue working with service-learning organizations after their classes are over, including several students in the spring course. Mosu is one such success story.
After volunteering with Root Causes in her Spanish class, she was offered the position of volunteer coordinator and found similar Duke students who continued to support the organization after the course ended.
In addition to service students, various other Duke and community members support these organizations.
To continue these community relationships, Clifford shared that Duke University is working to establish a new Center for Community Engagement to centralize communications and advocacy efforts.
For Moss, service learning and community involvement as a whole has changed the way she sees herself, not only as a student at Duke University, but as a citizen of Durham.
“It’s important to step outside of the Duke bubble and understand your place in the larger community, which is why service learning is essential at Duke.”
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