BEST PRACTICES SESSION SCHEDULE & DESCRIPTIONS

SCHEDULE

See below for session descriptions

SESSION DESCRIPTIONS

Saturday, 3:30pm – 4:30pm

This session will discuss the ICHEC-India Housing Project, an international service-learning project established by the ICHEC Business School in Brussels, Belgium. Student-led teams spend the month of July in rural Indian villages constructing houses for needy families. Each student participant is responsible for funding the construction of one house. American participants prepare for the project by taking a three credit hour course entitled ‘Border Crossings’ which explores Indian culture, develops student expectations for the project, and organizes student fundraising efforts. One credit hour of the course is taken the semester after the project is completed and is used for reflection on and discussion of the students’ experiences.

Emily Burchfield, Zachary Smoot, Leonor Tapernoux, Amandine Gillet, Vincent Huart

It is not unusual for social work students to enter their academic programs with few travel experiences and minnimal knowledge of cultures other than their own. This presentation describes the efforts of one social work program to promote global awareness of social justice issues in Guatemala. Service learning work experience enables students to learn the sociio-economic issues facing the people of Guatemala today. This understanding, in turn, enables them to work more effectively with clients who may come from this country or other Central American countries.

Linda Williams, Allison Barbour, Annette White

In 2002, Wake Forest University initiated a service trip to Vietnam. Participants traveled to Vietnam for two weeks leaving the day after Christmas and returning before the start of spring semester. While in Vietnam, students built schools in poor villages and sponsored the construction of playgrounds and the development of school libraries. They also spent time with Vietnamese students and engaged in brief cultural travel. During spring semester 2006, with support from the ACC/IAC and Wake Forest’s Lilly Grant, a summer study abroad program was developed. During the summer program in 2007, students built two “Mercy Houses” (like Habitat houses) and a bridge in rural village, while completing 6 credit hours (from 9 available credit hours) in sustainability, project management, and culture. This session will discuss the successes and challenges of moving from a service trip to a service learning study abroad program.

Caroline Harbaugh, David Nix, Mary Gerardy

Since 2002, UVA and several institutions of higher learning from Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa, have been involved with the Southern African Virginia Networks and Associations – SAVANA – research and educational consortium. Over the last five years, a number of interdisciplinary service learning activities involving students from both U.S. and southern African institutions have taken place in southern Africa. These activities have both benefited from and been facilitated by faculty and staff affiliated with partnering institutions of higher learning in the SAVANA consortium. Best practices collaboratively developed from lessons learned from the planning process to implementation and through assessment will be discussed.

Robert J. Swap, Vhonani Netshandama, Claudia Ford, Jan Vermeulen, Clare Terni

Belize (South Gallery, Ballroom)
Boston College

During Winter break of 2008 I will be going to Belize. Although I have participated in other international service learning opportunities, I believe this one would be the most appropriate to discuss at the conference. I would be able to speak of the preparation process including fundraising, group effort and team building it has taken to get to where we are. While in Belize we will be running a winter camp for children in the south of the country and returning to the north after a week to build a home for a family. I believe that the experience on this trip will render me able to provide an apt presentation in the discussion of both what is required to organize a trip like this and also what can be done in the future beyond our two week stay.

Veronica Gentile

Two programs at the University of Maryland give American and International students an opportunity to participate in Service-Learning activities together. In the Global Communities program, students undertake service in the diverse communities surrounding the university while developing skills in inter-cultural communication. Through the Alternative Spring Break program, students travel to various communities across the United States and undertake service together, learning about and reflecting on local and broader social issues. This session will discuss these programs, highlighting the advantages and challenges of bringing American and International students together in service-learning.

Wendi Ralaingita, Athina Tesfa-Yohannes, Vanessa Arthur, Lidia Rosas, Joelle Salmon

Saturday, 4:45pm – 5:45pm

The Global Citizen Partners program is a bi-lateral service-learning exchange program with Tec de Monterrey, Mexico. The program occurs during first summer session, and involves Mexican and U.S. students working together in either Alianza or Roanoke on projects serving children in distressed communities. Additionally, students take coursework that explores community service within a country context. This session outlilnes the credit and project features of this exchange program, as well as highlights the challenges involved in marketing, credit exchange, and (for U.S. students) meeting necessary language proficiency requirements.

Michele James-Deramo, Kathleen Arceneaux

The Young Women Leaders Program: International Success from Domestic Roots (Blue Room)
University of Virginia

The Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP) is in its 10 th year of providing an academic service-learning opportunity for women at UVA. Female university students take a two-semester course on the theory and research of adolescent development along with instruction in best mentoring practices and then work with at-risk adolescent girls for three hours a week over the course of the year to help them achieve their full potential.

Recently, the YWLP expanded internationally when a YWLP/UVA graduate introduced the program to Mozambique by training ten high school girls (there’s no college in her region) to serve as mentors and community educators for the next 20 girls she recruited. This venture subsequently received funding from the Peace Corps and the US Embassy and the newly-launched YWLP is now an official Mozambiquan nonprofit organization!

Meredith Lawrence, Winx Lawerence

Casa de la Solidaridad (3118)
Boston College

Casa de la Solidaridad is a service-learning study abroad program in El Salvador. Students take classes with Casa faculty at the University of Centroamerica 3 days a week and are immersed in surrounding communities, in different manners, 2 days a week. Community, simple living, spirituality, solidarity, and social justice are stressed. The goals of the program are education for transformation, global citizenship, lifelong learning and service, and international solidarity. The Casa program faces challenges such as the safety for the students, recruitment, local legitimacy, and financing and scholarships. They are constantly making changes to address the needs of their students and the Salvadoran communities.

Sheila Bharucha

Promoting Cultural Competence in Nursing Students through International Service-Learning (Green Room)
Clemson University

This session will discuss how baccalaureate nursing students take part in short-term medical missions to Latin American countries as part of the senior level community health course. Students travel to remote regions to provide primary care and health promotion education. They learn first-hand about poverty, lack of education, and political issues of a lesser-developed country. Preparation begins with conducting a community assessment and working with key informants to identify a health education need. Based on this need, students develop a plan of action. Research has demonstrated that students perceive a greater self-efficacy related to cultural care as a result of the service-learning experience.

Roxanne Amerson

Local Applications of Global Service Service-Learning Experiences (South Gallery, Ballroom)
UNC – Chapel Hill

The APPLES Global Service-Learning Program offers UNC undergraduate students a unique opportunity to work with global and local immigrant communities, while uniting rigorous academic coursework with substantive volunteer service. Students and faculty from UNC-Chapel Hill will discuss a number of global service-learning models that allow students to travel, study in and work with communities in Latin America where social, economic, or political conditions are pushing residents to immigrate to North Carolina and other regions in the United States. Panelists will also discuss their experiences in Southern Africa and consider how the concept of "service learning" translates in cultures outside of the United States.

Hannah Gil

 

International Service Learning in Cameroon: Reflections on a successful service learning partnership (Brown Room)
University of Maryland

In June 2007, 10 University of Maryland students traveled to northern Cameroon in West Central Africa to complete a two-week service-learning program, organized in conjunction with EFA International, a DC-based non-profit organization that promotes the successful future of African youth infected and/or affected by HIV/AIDS. From the intial planning stages, the project was designed as a truly joint effort between EFA and UM, and, as such, the program design was very intentional in its efforts to address both the academic needs of the UM students and the actual needs of the youth in Maroua. This session will explore the successes and challenges of the program and will discuss lessons learned in anticipation of the program's second year in summer 2008. The session will be led by the coordinator of the program and by two program alumni from the 2007 project.

Rebecca Schendel

Sunday, 9:30am – 10:30am

Students as Agents for Shaping Curriculum (Walnut Room)
Georgia Institute of Technology

Anu Parvatiyar based her successful campaign for SGA President on a platform that highlighted service-learning. Anu worked with administrators, faculty, and fellow students to integrate service-learning into the Institute’s academic agenda. This program will include first hand accounts on leading a student based initiative, networking with and presenting to key administrators, and energizing fellow students to affect change. GA Tech’s Coordinator of Service-Learning will discuss how to gauge student interest and link this with the institution academic mission. In addition, Study Abroad Coordinators will discuss the importance of identifying and modeling existent programs to integrate service-learning initiatives into the curriculum.

Anu Parvatiyar, Eli Riddle, Sarah Brackmann, Jason Seletos

VA Route 81 to Somalia: Learning The World with African Refugees (Blue Room)
Virginia Tech

Students travel VA Route 81 to the Pilot Street Project in Roanoke where they enter an environment that is radically different from anything they've encountered in the United States. The Pilot Street Project, a partnership between Refugee and Immigration Services and the Virginia Tech Service-Learning Center, provides on-site language and literacy programming for refugees living at the Maple Grove Apartments. The majority of those served are from Somalia or Burundi, have little prior contact with Western culture, and are low level literacy learners--meaning that they do not read in their native language and have little to no English language proficiency. This session describes the project, as well as the unique cultural challenges that have arisen working with this population.

Michele James-Deramo, Amy Nasta, Chez Hughes

Students' reflections on the role of international service-learning in developing cultural competence in undergraduate and graduate students (3118)
Clemson University

This proposed session presents an international, service learning experience for an interdisciplinary group of undergraduate and graduate students traveling through Tanzania, Africa. The students participated in service projects focused on water flow and supply and preschool through secondary education. A learning objective for this experience was developing cultural competence through study abroad and service learning. This session presents students’ reflections (pre-travel, during travel, and post-travel) on their experiences.

Cheryl B. Warner, Stacey Chapman, Kelly Finnegan, Darrly Jones, Michelle LeBlanc, Amanda Nix, Ryan McNealy

Intercultural Learning through K-12 Outreach (Green Room)
UNC – Chapel Hill

The service-learning class "Intercultural Education in K-12 Classrooms" at UNC- Chapel Hill provides an opportunity for international and returned study-abroad students to make use of their international experiences through engaged academic learning and service by sharing their international knowledge in K-12 classrooms through the Carolina Navigators outreach program. In this session students share their intercultural learning experiences and diverse service projects involving research, festivals, event planning and classroom presentations. Overarching project goals, challenges, and suggestions for replication will be discussed.

Tara Muller, Ben Baden, Chelsea Leathers, Samantha Buckner

Pedro Arrupe International Program (Brown Room)
Boston College

This program is a faith-based international education/service immersion program which invites students to learn about the lives of- and to be in solidarity with- people who live in social, economic and political marginalization in countries often described as “developing”. The program provides the opportunity to bear witness to the stories of people who struggle for peace and justice- and often survival- in their respective communities. There is an emphasis on pre-trip and post-trip education and reflection on issues of justice and faith. The goal is to understand the structures and practices that create suffering around the world, and to seek constructive ways to change this oppression.

Milagros Berabo