Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning: Multidisciplinary Case Studies, Reflections, and Strategies [1st ed.] 9783030426903, 9783030426910

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Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning Multidisciplinary Case Studies, Reflections, and Strategies Edited by Karen Lovett

Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning

Karen Lovett Editor

Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning Multidisciplinary Case Studies, Reflections, and Strategies

Editor Karen Lovett Office of Experiential Learning University of Dayton Dayton, OH, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-42690-3 ISBN 978-3-030-42691-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Alex Linch/shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Telling the Story of Experiential Learning (EL)---Student Perspectives on EL at UD

This collection highlights several examples of experiential learning (EL) at the University of Dayton (UD), a Catholic-Marianist institution in Dayton, Ohio. The narratives and analyses provided by faculty and staff contain many examples of how EL impacts educators and students, like us, the student employees of the Office of Experiential Learning (OEL). As communication majors, our similar academic experiences and interests have allowed us to combine our skills to tell the story of EL at UD. We’ve collaborated on several creative projects about EL which have given us a unique perspective on the impact of EL on students at UD. Our EL experiences as student employees in the OEL have also encouraged us to reflect on the importance of EL for our own education. As a team, we’ve worked together to create and disseminate various types of content which focus on the importance of EL for students’ education, including videos, blogs, social media posts, email newsletters, to name a few. We’ve conducted numerous student and faculty interviews about EL and facilitated several EL Labs1 which encourage students from diverse backgrounds to reflect on their EL experiences. Through our positions in the OEL, we have advised and supported many students, and encouraged their growth by helping them think critically about their EL experiences. Our shared communications background has helped us tell the story of EL, and hearing about our peers’ unique EL journeys has also helped us relate to our peers on a more personal level.

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TELLING THE STORY OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING (EL)—STUDENT …

As a result of these experiences, we’ve developed a better understanding of EL and how it encompasses a variety of opportunities for students to explore and enhance their learning, such as those represented in this collection (internships, education abroad, community-engaged learning, to name a few). We’ve seen and personally experienced the importance of becoming involved with our university on more than just an academic level. EL impacts students because it allows them to break out of their comfort zone, acquire new skills, and discover their vocations. Through involvement in various types of EL, students obtain a new understanding of their purpose in life. Students who explore and seek new knowledge through EL opportunities have a better understanding of how they can make a positive impact on communities beyond UD. EL also dissolves the boundary between student and professor. In some cases, this even leads to a professional relationship that lasts after graduation. Our own experience has taught us that professors can be more than just teachers; they can also be our mentors. Traditional methods of teaching have their place in academia, but EL offers an alternative way to develop knowledge and bridge the gap between professors and students. Our EL experiences have prepared us to apply this knowledge in the real world. At UD, we have the freedom to shape our education through EL. EL deeply engages students in non-traditional ways and gives us control of our educational journeys. Our professors don’t always know what the outcome of EL will be; rather than being “in charge,” they learn together with students. Students at UD are encouraged to take part in community engagement, study abroad, research, and other EL opportunities. The university shows support for their students by giving them access to EL that will help them grow and succeed. We believe UD stands out among other higher educational institutions by providing an environment for innovative ideas, student support for future career goals, and acknowledgment of the growth of their students. No matter what your background, abilities, or interest, UD is a community that supports all learning styles. These are key themes that tie the following chapters together. Dayton, USA

Sophia Williamson, M.A. Colleen Kelch, B.A. Christopher Miller, B.A.

TELLING THE STORY OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING (EL)—STUDENT …

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Note 1. The EL Lab has been a critical part of our work in the Office of Experiential Learning; through these unique monthly three-hour workshops, we promote EL to our peers and guide them through meaningful reflection about their learning journeys using digital storytelling and other techniques. Their reflection has included sharing their experiences abroad, communityengaged learning opportunities on and off campus, as well as professional development through various internships. For more information about the EL Lab, visit udayton.edu/el. Sophia Williamson, M.A. holds a B.A. and M.A. in Communications with a focus on Public Relations, from the University of Dayton. During her time as a Graduate Assistant and Media Producer in the Office of Experiential Learning, she filmed, edited, and created video content about experiential learning. Colleen Kelch, B.A. is originally from Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Dayton with a B.A. in Communication, with a focus in Public Relations, and a minor in English. While working in the Office of Experiential Learning at UD, she created and managed social media accounts and collaborated with her team members to produce informative and interesting digital content. Christopher Miller, B.A. is a graduate student attending Marquette University who will obtain his M.A. in Communication in the Spring of 2021. He works as a teaching assistant at the university in a professional public speaking class. Chris graduated from the University of Dayton in 2019 while working alongside Karen Lovett, Sophia Williamson, and Colleen Kelch in the Office of Experiential Learning (OEL).

Acknowledgements

First I would like to thank my amazing husband Justin for being so supportive, loving, and kind. Thank you for patiently listening to my ideas and for offering your wise, heartfelt advice when I needed it. I am especially thankful to you for being such a wonderful father to our beautiful baby daughter Ophelia, who arrived to this world in the midst of this book project. I am grateful for my family who fills my life with light and love every day. Thank you to my mother, Ligia, and sister Sandra for inspiring me and cheering me on throughout my educational and professional pursuits. Thank you to all of the authors who contributed to this collection. I am so inspired by all of your innovative work and your dedication to student learning and success. I love my work because I have colleagues like you, who challenge me to grow and who’ve made me feel at home at UD. I am especially thankful for my colleague Patrick Thomas. Thank you for sharing your extensive knowledge and expertise to help me with every stage of this project. I am also so grateful for Patrick’s ENG 377 students who worked diligently to help me edit the book as part of their own experiential learning. Thank you to my talented graduate student and digital media producer, Sophia Williamson, who has been a fantastic, fun, and creative colleague over the past three years. Thanks to my students Chris Miller and Colleen Kelch who have made many wonderful contributions to our office; I am grateful to all my students for their hard work, collaboration, and

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dedication to the Office of Experiential Learning, and for helping me better understand the student perspective. I will especially miss you after graduation. I am also grateful to my supervisor Deb Bickford, Associate Provost and Director of the Learning Teaching Center (LTC). Her mentorship has helped me grow in so many ways. I look up to you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me the opportunity to be the Director of Experiential Learning at UD and for showing me what great leadership looks like. I am also thankful for all my colleagues in the LTC for creating such an inviting, inclusive learning environment. Many thanks as well to Stephen Wilhoit, Hunter Phillips Goodman, and Laura Cotten, for reading through dozens of chapter proposals and helping me make selections for this collection. I appreciate your willingness to share your time and wisdom with me. I am also fortunate for the support and kindness that President Eric Spina and Provost Paul Benson have shown me; I appreciate all the work you do every day to ensure that all students have access to excellent EL opportunities at UD.

Contents

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Introduction: Listening and Learning from Experiential Learning Educators Karen Lovett When Students Write for Money: Reflections on Teaching Grant Writing Through Experiential Learning Nicole F. Adams and Patrick W. Thomas

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Intergenerational Engagement Through Experiential Learning Linda A. Hartley

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Museums and Mud: An Experiential Undergraduate Geology Course for Pre-service Teachers Michael R. Sandy

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Forming Engineers for the Common Good Kelly Bohrer, Margaret Pinnell, Malcolm W. Daniels, and Christine Vehar Jutte

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The Processes of Reciprocity and Reflection in Service-Learning Pedagogy Roger N. Reeb and Amanda R. Barry

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Experiential Learning in Sustainability: Opportunities, Building Partnerships, and Student Engagement Felix Fernando We Are All Students: The Moral Courage Project as a Model for Transdisciplinary Experiential Learning Natalie Florea Hudson and Joel R. Pruce Dinner in the Desert Kitchen: Reflections on Experiential Learning Through Food, Art, and Social Practice Glenna Jennings Critical Cosmopolitan Citizens: Experiential Engagement with Local Immigrant and Refugee Communities Miranda Cady Hallett and Theo Majka Writing the History of the Dayton Arcade: Experiential Learning Through Immersion, Collaboration, and Service James Todd Uhlman

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Power, Access, and Policy: Reflections on the Women’s Center Internship Program Lisa J. Borello

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Beyond Skepticism or Compassion: A Critical Pedagogy of Gender-Based Violence Jamie L. Small

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Performing Arts in the Service of Others: The Common Good Players and Experiential Learning in Social Justice Theatre Michelle Hayford Student Employment for the Real World: Experiential Learning and Student Development Chris Fishpaw and Chelsea Fricker Experiential Learning and Education Abroad: Examining the Experiences of Students in the Semester Abroad and Intercultural Leadership Program Karen McBride Afterword: Learning, with Consequence Margaret Cahill, Lauren Hassett, Olivia Hendershott, Abigail Hines, Beth Hock, Robert Kelly, Christina Mesa, Nicole Perkins, Ethan Swierczewski, and Clare Walsh

Index

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Notes on Contributors

Nicole F. Adams, M.A. has been a Lecturer in English at University of Dayton since 2007, teaching professional writing courses and coordinating the writing internship program. For her work in instructional design and community-engaged learning, she was awarded Outstanding Faculty Member (Non-Tenure Track) in the College of Arts & Sciences for 2015. An active Education Abroad faculty member, she has supervised and taught on various programs in England, Ireland, Spain, and Italy with a focus on cultural differences in workplace communication. Before joining UD, Nicole F. Adams was a workforce development account manager at Sinclair Community College, where she consulted with area businesses to assess training and development needs and implement related programs. Through her LLC, Workplace Communication Consulting, Nicole F. Adams conducts corporate training and coaching for both corporate and nonprofit organizations. Nicole F. Adams earned her B.S. in Education from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) and an M.A. in English/Organizational Communication from Wright State University (Dayton, Ohio). Amanda R. Barry, M.A. a Graduate Student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Dayton works with the homeless population in Dayton, Ohio. She conducts participatory community action research with a focus on civic-related student outcomes of service-learning. Other research interests include trauma, social stigma, privilege, and social justice and the intersectionality of homelessness, minority status, mental health, and xv

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substance abuse. She currently serves on the Board for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (Montgomery County, Ohio). Kelly Bohrer, M.S. is the Director of Community Relations for the School of Engineering at the University of Dayton. In this role, she provides leadership for the development, implementation, support, and evaluation of community-engaged learning and scholarship initiatives that advance the School’s academic and civic engagement mission. Kelly also teaches upper-level community-engaged learning courses and is actively involved in planning and implementing faculty and staff professional development to promote and enhance community-based experiential learning. Other positions Kelly has held at the University of Dayton include the Director of Community Engaged Learning and Scholarship within the Fitz Center for Leadership in Community, Coordinator of Community Outreach in the Center for Social Concern, and the Lab Coordinator in the Biology Department. In these roles, she created, directed, implemented, and assessed high-impact experiential learning and civic engagement initiatives, including social justice education, local immersions, and inquiry-based science labs. Dr. Lisa J. Borello has served as the Director of the Women’s Center at the University of Dayton since July 2017. In this role, Dr. Borello advances gender equity on campus via educational programming, research, and policy development. She also serves as Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at UD. Prior to joining UD, Dr. Borello served as the Assistant Director in the Professional Development and Career Office at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. She’s spent more than 15 years working in higher education in diverse roles ranging from strategic communications to grant writing to managing a research lab. She has a Ph.D. and M.S. from Georgia Tech in Sociology of Science & Technology, a Master’s in Women’s Studies from Georgia State University, and received her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Women’s Studies from Penn State University. She conducts research on women’s advancement in higher education, gender, and technologies of the body and women in male-dominated STEM professions. Malcolm W. Daniels, Ph.D. is a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. With undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland,

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he has worked at the University of Dayton since 1985. In addition to his faculty responsibilities, he has held various administrative positions including Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research. His professional areas of research are in electrical machines, control, and automation. Most recently his research has focused on the design of renewable energy systems and the control of micro-grids. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Electrical Engineering, he also teaches courses in Appropriate Technology Design. Dr. Daniels currently serves as Director of the ETHOS Center within the School of Engineering. The Center is the focal point for all community-engaged learning and service within the School of Engineering. In this capacity, he directs domestic and international service immersion programs for undergraduate and graduate engineering students. Felix Fernando, Ph.D. is a Lecturer at the University of Dayton (Hanley Sustainability Institute). His research and teaching interests are on human dimensions of sustainability. Specifically, he is currently interested in how people think about certain things like climate change and local food, and how such information can be used in planning. He is interested in examining the mental and psychological thought processes in play pertaining to sustainability and how to address certain misconceptions, misrepresentations, and action barriers through teaching and research. He uses a mixed methods approach in his research, where qualitative and quantitative methods blend in a complementary manner. He has published work in several well-known journals, including Science of the Total Environment, Water, Rural Studies, Rural Sociology, Society and Natural Resources, and Applied Research in Quality of Life. Chris Fishpaw, M.S. is the Director of Student Leadership Programs at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. In this role, he advises the Student Government Association, oversees leadership programming and co-curricular initiatives for the campus, and coordinates the awardwinning Student Employment for the Real World experience. A Dayton native, Chris earned a Bachelor’s of Music in Music Education and a Master’s of Education in College Student Personnel from the University of Dayton. At UD, he has worked with summer conferences, campus information services, college media, and student life and concurrently taught elementary school and middle school band for seven years.

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Chelsea Fricker, Ed.M. serves as the Assistant Director of the Center for Student Involvement and Student Leadership Programs at University of Dayton (OH). In this role, she works to develop programs that enhance the leadership experiences of students on campus through student employment, scholarship, programming, and co-curricular involvement. Chelsea has overseen the University of Dayton’s award-winning Student Employment for the Real World program since February 2018. Chelsea is a two-time alumna of the University of Missouri, holding a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Communications and a Master of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Educational Leadership at the University of Dayton. Miranda Cady Hallett, Ph.D. (Ph.D. Cornell University 2009) is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Human Rights Research Fellow at the University of Dayton. She has published numerous articles on Salvadoran culture and politics, Central American migration, and US immigration policy in scholarly journals and stays active and engaged as a public scholar accompanying trans-border migrants and refugees. Linda A. Hartley, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean for Education in the School of Education and Health Sciences and Professor of Music in the College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Hartley, past coordinator of the undergraduate music education program, is the founder of the UD music education graduate program and the UD New Horizons Music program for adults. The recipient of the University of Dayton Faculty Award in Teaching and the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award, Dr. Hartley is a published author of journal articles and book chapters, and an active presenter and consultant on music education topics. Michelle Hayford, Ph.D. is the Director of the Theatre, Dance, and Performance Technology Program and Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Dayton. Michelle holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. Her original creative scholarship combines her passions of creating live plays with utilizing the craft of theater as a necessary response to community and civic engagement. Previous original works include Spectacle (with Nick Cardilino, 2018), Sustenance (2016) created in collaboration with the Hanley Sustainability Institute, Dog Wish (2013) commissioned by The Humane Society of the United States, and Suit My Heart (2011) created in collaboration with Footsteps to the

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Future, a foster youth nonprofit. She is co-author and co-editor (with Susan Kattwinkel) of Performing Arts as High-Impact Practice, published by Palgrave Macmillan (2018) and Arts and Humanities Division editor of the journal SPUR: Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research. Natalie Florea Hudson, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Dayton, where she also serves as the Director of the Human Rights Studies Program. She specializes in gender and international relations, the politics of human rights, human security, and international law and organization. Her book, Gender, Human Security and the UN: Security Language as a Political Framework for Women (Routledge, 2009), examines the organizational dynamics of women’s activism in the United Nations system and how women have come to embrace and been impacted by the security discourse in their work for rights and equality. She is a co-author of Global Politics (McGrawHill, 2013) and numerous articles appearing in journals, such as International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, Journal of Human Rights, International Journal, Simulation and Gaming, and Global Change, Peace and Security. Her current research focuses on human rights and humanitarian advocacy campaigns focused on sexualized violence in conflicted-affected areas. Glenna Jennings, M.F.A. is an artist and educator whose work draws primarily from the history, theory, and practice of photography. She completed her MFA in Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, and holds BAs in English and Spanish, and a BFA in Photography. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Dayton, where she heads up the photography program. Jennings has worked and exhibited widely throughout the USA, China, Europe, and Mexico, and her work resides in multiple private and public collections. She is co-founder of the Desert Kitchen Collective, a loose organization of artists, educators, students, and advocates working to promote food justice and eradicate hunger on regional and national levels. Jennings’ research, teaching, and service inform her dynamic practice of image-making, curating, and socially engaged creative collaboration. Karen Lovett, Ph.D. is the Director of Experiential Learning at the University of Dayton (UD). She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Education from Columbia University in New York City. Prior to UD, she was Assistant Professor of Cooperative Education at Antioch College and Adjunct Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Fordham University.

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Karen is interested in how people learn through experience in diverse social contexts, and her work highlights the transformative impact of experiential learning on students’ lives. Students Margaret Cahill, Lauren Hassett, Olivia Hendershott, Abigail Hines, Beth Hock, Robert Kelly, Christina Mesa, Nicole Perkins, Ethan Swierczewski, and Clare Walsh edited chapters included in this collection as part of an experiential learning project for Patrick W. Thomas’ ENG 377: Writing in Social Contexts course. They are destined for great things. Dr. Theo Majka (Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton) has taught Immigration and Immigrants (Soc/Ant 368) since 1999 and Sociology of Human Rights beginning spring 2019. Immigrant and refugee integration has been the focus of much of his recent research and community involvements. The three research projects on this topic that he coordinated resulted in four 1-day conferences held at UD. His and Jamie Longazel’s 2017 article on Welcome Dayton, “Becoming Welcoming: Organizational Collaboration and Immigrant Integration in Dayton, Ohio,” was published in the journal Public Integrity. Among others, he is also the co-author of Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, with Linda Majka (1982), and Farmers’ and Farm Workers’ Movements, with Patrick Mooney (1995). His and Linda Majka’s chapter “Institutional Obstacles to Incorporation: Latino Immigrant Experiences in a Mid-Size Rustbelt City” [Dayton] appeared in Latinos in the Midwest, edited by Rubén Martinez (2011). He was also a participant in the “community conversations” and subsequent committees that resulted in the Welcome Dayton: Immigrant Friendly City initiative in 2011 and has been a member of the Welcome Dayton Committee. Karen McBride, Ed.D. is the former Director of Education Abroad and Partnerships at the University of Dayton’s Center for International Programs (CIP). She is now an International Partnerships Manager at the University of Dayton School of Law. The Office of Education Abroad coordinates short- and long-term programs abroad for students and faculty at the University of Dayton. Karen was responsible for establishing student learning outcomes on all education abroad programs as well as the acquisition and use of data for program enhancement. She also taught the first three reentry courses for students on the Semester Abroad and Intercultural Leadership program. Additionally, Karen managed a

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variety of partnerships with international institutions to enhance campus internationalization and facilitate cross-cultural opportunities for UD students, faculty, and staff in her former and current roles. Karen has 15 years of experience working in international higher education and is the current Chair of the Education Abroad Knowledge Community with NAFSA. Her background includes study, internship, work, and research experiences in Costa Rica, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Thailand. Karen wrote the Creating an Internationalization Framework guide for Thai universities as a Fulbright Specialist to Thailand in 2013. Karen is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Antigua, West Indies. Margaret Pinnell, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean for Faculty and Staff Development and a Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. Dr. Pinnell served as the acting director of ETHOS from 2001 until 2012. She has over 35 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of community-engaged learning and K-12 STEM education. In addition to these areas, her current research interests also include faculty development. Joel R. Pruce, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Human Rights Studies in the Department of Political Science and Faculty Fellow in Experiential Learning in the Learning and Teaching Center at the University of Dayton. Joel is faculty coordinator of the Moral Courage Project, a program of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center. With this initiative, Joel recruits and prepares undergraduate students to conduct immersive fieldwork in a search for “upstanders,” ordinary people who act extraordinarily during moments of crisis. The students gather interviews and produce a range of multimedia products, including exhibitions, podcasts, and websites to share stories out widely. Thus far, the Moral Courage Project has generated two efforts, “Ferguson Voices: Disrupting the Frame” and “America the Borderland.” Joel is also the author of The Mass Appeal of Human Rights (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and editor of The Social Practice of Human Rights (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Roger N. Reeb, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology and a Faculty Research Fellow in the Human Rights Center at the University of Dayton, where he previously held positions of Director of Graduate Programs in Psychology (2006–2014) and Roesch Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences (2014–2018). Dr. Reeb received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University, after completing the Brown

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University Internship Program. Dr. Reeb received numerous awards at the University of Dayton (Alumni Award in Teaching; Outstanding Faculty Service-Learning Award; Service-Learning Faculty Research Award). He also received numerous awards from the American Psychological Association (Dissertation Award; Springer Award for Excellence in Research in Rehabilitation Psychology–Division 22), and he currently serves as a Work Group Member for the American Psychological Association’s Citizen Psychologist Initiative. Dr. Reeb is a Fellow in the Midwestern Psychological Association. With over 35 publications and over 100 conference presentations, Dr. Reeb coauthored Service-Learning in Psychology: Enhancing Undergraduate Education for the Public Good and published Community Action Research: Benefits to Community Members and Service Providers. Dr. Reeb conducts participatory community action research, with special research and scholarship interests in the areas of homelessness, psychopathology, service-learning pedagogy outcomes for students and community, and advocacy. Dr. Reeb, a licensed clinical psychologist, serves on the Homeless Solutions Board and the National Alliance on Mental Illness Board (Montgomery County, Ohio). Michael R. Sandy, Ph.D. was born in Kingston upon Thames, England, in 1958. Growing up in the suburbs of SW London was not so far from the scenic North Downs where he developed an interest in the relationship between geology and scenery. Family vacations in southern and South West England, and Yorkshire nurtured this interest in geology. After the opportunity to study geology at high school, he studied for a B.Sc. (HONS), 1980, and Ph.D., 1984, in Geology from Queen Mary College, University of London. This was followed by a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, before moving to the University of Dayton, where he has been in the geology department since 1987. Fieldwork has been an important component of his professional life as a geologist with a research interest in Mesozoic brachiopods. He has carried out fieldwork and studied fossils in museum collections in the UK, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. These various opportunities have fueled his interest in experiential learning and incorporating it in this teaching. Jamie L. Small, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Dayton. Her research focuses on law, gender, and sexual violence. Currently, she is writing a book manuscript where she

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investigates how prosecutors and defense attorneys make sense of men who are sexual victims. Previously, she taught for Project Community at the University of Michigan. Established in the wake of the civil rights movement, Project Community is one of the oldest and longest-running undergraduate service-learning programs in the USA. Patrick W. Thomas, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Writing and Director of Undergraduate Studies in English at the University of Dayton. His research intersects literacy studies, writing technologies, empirical methodologies, and computer-mediated communication. With Pamela Takayoshi, he has edited the collection Literacy in Practice: Writing in Private, Public, and Working Lives (Routledge Press). He has published in the journals Computers and Composition, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, and Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. Patrick teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in digital writing, argumentation, composition theory, writing assessment, discourse analysis, business communication, report and proposal writing, writing for the web, style, and composition. Dr. James Todd Uhlman is an Assistant Professor of US sociocultural history at the University of Dayton. He received his Ph.D. in History at the Rutgers and has been a Fellow at the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the National Endowment of the Humanities. His research interests revolve around the history of mobility, identity formation, capitalism, popular culture, and structures of power. His recent publications have examined a variety of topics including the history of travel, public lecturing, authorship, film, and automobility. These have appeared in the pages of literary, historical, and interdisciplinary journals including American Nineteenth Century History, Studies in Travel Writing, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Gilded Age Progressive Era. Currently, he is at work on a number of projects including the political impact of Hollywood trucker films in the 1970s, the diplomatic importance of Russia during the Civil War, as well as monographlengthened studies about famed traveler and lecturer Bayard Taylor entitled The Cultural Work of Mobility in the Political Economy of Nineteenth Century American Capitalism. Dr. Uhlman teaches classes on subcultures, film, cultural icons, and comparative historical study. He recently piloted a series of courses titled the “Dayton History Project” in which students worked collectively to research and write a history on a local

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history topic. The courses combined the traditional approaches of historical enquiry with twenty-first-century technology, as they emphasize experiential learning and community engagement. In both classes, the students built websites such as http://daytonarenahistory.org/ or https://arcade. daytonhistoryproject.org/ to display what they found. Dr. Christine Vehar Jutte graduated from the University of Dayton (UD) with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering in 2002. During her years at UD, she traveled to India through a Campus Ministry Cultural Immersion Program, which inspired her to co-create UD’s ETHOS (Engineers in Technical Humanitarian Opportunities of Service-learning) program with fellow engineering students in the spring of 2001. Since then, Christine has been working for NASA as a civil servant and contractor.

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2 Fig. 16.1 Fig. 16.2 Fig. 16.3

Field trip to Ohio Caverns, West Liberty, Ohio (Photograph by the author, 2019) Installation of Dinner in the Desert Kitchen II: Just Add Water (Personal Photo from Author) Student-designed dinner plate (Photo Credit: Hadley Rodebeck, 2017) Overall IES Scores for SAIL Cohort 1 (2016–2017) Overall IES Scores for SAIL Cohort 2 and Control Group 2 (2017–2018) Overall IES Scores for SAIL Cohort 3 and Control Group 3 (2018–2019)

46 130 131 247 247 248

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List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 15.1 Table 16.1 Table 16.2 Table 16.3 Table 16.4 Table 16.5

Various locations visited during GEO 204 field trips CSI learning outcome Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for SAIL Cohort 1 (2016–2017) Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for SAIL Cohort 2 (2017–2018) Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for Control Group 2 (2016–2017) Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for SAIL Cohort 3 (2018–2019) Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for Control Group 3 (2018–2019)

49 229 248 248 249 249 249

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Listening and Learning from Experiential Learning Educators Karen Lovett

The field of experiential learning (EL) has significantly expanded over the past several decades, along with a proliferation of research and scholarship on EL methods and best practices. The following chapters provide detailed, behind-the-scenes insights into the creation and development of powerful and impactful EL programs that contribute to student success. The book brings together the voices of 37 faculty, staff, undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, and community partners, from over fifteen different academic disciplines and areas of specialization at the University of Dayton (UD), a private Catholic and Marianist institution in Dayton, Ohio. The book contains EL case studies, reflections, and strategies for designing, facilitating, expanding, and assessing different EL activities and programs, including community-engaged learning, internships, education abroad, student employment, and more. It provides a unique, holistic picture of EL which includes educators’ personal experiences and learning processes—perspectives which are often missing in EL literature.

K. Lovett (B) Director of Experiential Learning, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_1

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The book also features many examples of the ways EL educators collaborate within and across academic and professional boundaries to develop multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches to EL. The chapters describe the complexities of doing EL in a college setting, including: integrating EL into a course or curriculum, navigating academic and institutional hurdles to obtain EL resources and support, handling the logistics of executing an EL activity or program, mentoring and guiding students with varied skills and abilities who are at different developmental stages in their college careers, leading students into new and diverse communities beyond the classroom, and facilitating deep, sometimes difficult conversations with students and colleagues about the ethical, social, political, and economic dimensions of EL. One especially unique feature of this book is that students contributed to the collection in many important ways. Students in ENG 377 Writing in Social Contexts, taught by English professor Patrick Thomas, co-authored the afterword and provided immensely valuable editorial support, rendering the book itself an EL project. Additionally, my own student team in the Office of Experiential Learning co-authored the book’s foreword and offered a wealth of insights that informed the development of this project. Scholars have offered numerous definitions for EL, a broad term which includes many pedagogical approaches, learning environments, and activities1 (Beard & Wilson, 2015; Eyler, 2009; McClellan & Hyle, 2012; Morris, 2016). In sum, EL is a process that involves active engagement and self-guided learning in a purposeful, immersive experience, as well as reflection and sense-making about that experience in order to transform it into knowledge that can be applied in subsequent experiences and contexts. Active engagement in purposeful, immersive experiences can take many forms, from internships to community-engaged learning, student employment, education abroad, and more—there are numerous teaching and learning methods which can be included under the larger umbrella of EL (Roberts, 2016). EL learning goals and objectives can also vary greatly; some experiences are intended to prepare students for specific professions, others are meant to help individuals achieve greater integration of classroom concepts and real-world problems, others are meant to enhance learners’ problem-solving and leadership skills or intercultural competencies, and some attempt to do all of these and even more. In addition to differences in form and objectives, strategies for implementing EL experiences can

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vary greatly, depending on the learners (K-12 versus traditional collegeage students or adult learners, for example), the specific techniques employed by instructor or facilitator of the experience (e.g., having students work in groups or teams), and the structural or geographic constraints and assets of the learning environment (location, the academic calendar timeline, funding availability). Overall, research has found that EL has many benefits for students; “gains in deep learning, practical competence, persistence rates, civic engagement, appreciation of diversity, professional networks, and many others” (Kuh & O’Donnell, 2013; Hesser, 2013, cited in Coker & Porter, 2013) are well documented. The various forms of EL represented in this collection are now recognized as high-impact practices which have become essential and fundamental components of higher education. Yet as the chapters in this collection demonstrate, creating impactful EL opportunities is not always easy or straightforward, particularly because effective, meaningful EL experiences must be intentionally designed and require careful coordination, collaboration, and integration. Authors highlight the “critical importance of orchestrating appropriate framing of the educative experience, of guided inquiry and reflection, and of meaningful linkages between various experiences” (Roberts, 2016, p. 56). This is more important than ever as colleges and universities are increasingly challenged to purposefully integrate EL on their campuses, as well as track and evaluate the outcomes of EL for diverse learners. As a result, it has become more and more important to provide opportunities for students to apply classroom concepts in real-world settings, and gain practical experience through relevant and engaging EL. The rise in interest in experiential learning (EL) in US education makes sense in a time when young generations are leading and advocating for change in the world. Indeed, “given the weight of societal issues and concerns in front of them, this generation appears to have less tolerance for ‘learning for learning’s sake’ and seem to push harder for relevance and application” (p. 61). Thus, the collection brings together educators who “promote various expressions [of EL]” and “argue for educational reform that would support experiential education in all settings” (Itin 1999 in Roberts, 2016, p. 44). However, it is also worth noting that doing EL can present challenges, which several authors in the collection point out. It should also be kept in mind that EL is not always equally accessible to all learners, and more can and should be done to make EL equitable in higher education institutions. Some barriers can include, “finances, major

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requirements, athletics, a lack of research opportunities, commitments to student organizations, familial complications, and transportation issues as reasons for nonparticipation” (Coker & Porter, 2015, p. 66). As a result, it is important for institutions and educators to make opportunities as accessible through various means; “experiential learning requirements, scholarships, targeted advising, diverse faculty and destinations, and good institutional policies can all increase participation” (66).

About UD and Dayton UD, a mid-sized institution of approximately 12,000 students, has a long history of EL initiatives on campus, in the city of Dayton, and globally. Over the past century, the university has built long-lasting ties with numerous organizations and corporations where hundreds of students participate in internships, co-ops, and community projects each year. UD is privileged to have abundant resources to do EL on a large scale. EL is integrated into the academic curriculum and offered through a variety of centers and institutes on campus.2 Our Institutional Learning Goals which guide and frame our Common Academic Program also reflect the centrality of EL at UD. EL at UD is a way for students to explore their vocation and discover their passions, purpose, and callings, and how they can use their talents and gifts to meet the world’s greatest needs. As a Catholic, Marianist university, our educators are committed to educating the whole person and developing leaders in service of others which promotes leadership and service for the common good. UD attracts students and faculty who are interested in helping others and invested in making a positive impact on communities both on and off campus. For them, EL is a direct way to take action and make a difference with their college education. Throughout the years, UD’s leaders have shown strong support for the development of EL in key areas such as sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation, community-engaged learning, global and intercultural learning, among others. Our current president has underscored the important role of EL in UD’s educational mission as the University for the Common Good and has also implemented various initiatives to make our campus (predominantly white, middle to upper class) more inclusive and accessible to more diverse groups of students. UD’s Office of Experiential Learning, located in the Ryan C. Harris Learning Teaching Center, was created as a way to connect UD’s EL

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efforts and help foster communities of practice around EL. The deep support and commitment to EL allow educators to experiment with different types of EL and establish important partnerships across institutional and community boundaries. This has resulted in fruitful and vibrant EL communities of practice which include individuals from a myriad of backgrounds, perspectives, and types of expertise. I am very fortunate to be the Director of EL at a university where EL is widely practiced and supported by university leadership, and where students generally have great interest in, and access to, a multitude of EL opportunities. And, of course, it is wonderful to be at a place where there is so much interest in reflection, research, and scholarship about EL. The city of Dayton also provides a unique context for this collection. Despite Dayton’s historical legacy as a city of inventors and successful business owners, it has also faced many difficulties such as an economic depression, the ongoing opioid epidemic, a struggling public education system, housing and racial segregation, food deserts, among others. These issues are not unique to Dayton and can be seen in cities across the Midwest and US. UD communities have responded to these local and regional issues through a number of EL programs, while also educating students about community assets and opportunities. Dayton is experiencing an economic revitalization, and its population is gradually increasing and becoming more diverse and welcoming to newcomers such as immigrants and refugees. Readers of this text will gain important insight into the ways EL educators in this book are applying their expertise, knowledge, and skills in new ways to address these realities so their students have the best chance of becoming the kinds of responsive, creative, and collaborative problem-solvers the world needs. This collection can appeal to a range of audiences, including faculty and staff educators looking for examples of EL within and across disciplines, as well as college administrators interested in supporting faculty in their areas and gaining a better understanding of the issues educators encounter when doing EL. Those who are interested in expanding campus-wide EL initiatives and advancing EL goals, nurturing communities of practice around EL, and developing an understanding of faculty at different stages of learning around EL would find the collection helpful as well. Students interested in how learning happens in diverse social contexts, or those looking to explore the institutional demands, constraints, and opportunities that impact EL in higher education would also benefit from this book. The sections described below offer readers a roadmap for

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exploring six key themes in the collection. These themes are applicable to many forms of EL as well as diverse student populations and institutions involved in EL.

Building EL Experiences into the Curriculum for Developing Professionals From grant-writing projects to experiential field trips and music lessons with community members, the EL activities featured in this section are designed to prepare future professionals with the skills they need to succeed in their chosen fields. Chapter 2, “When Students Write for Money: Reflections on a Decade of Community-Engaged Grant Writing” by Nicole F. Adams, M.A. and Patrick Thomas, Ph.D. (English), describes how students apply their grant-writing skills to help meet community partners’ needs, while simultaneously gaining a better understanding of their own vocations. Chapter 3, “Intergenerational Participation through Experiential Learning in Music Education” by Linda Hartley, Ph.D., describes the process of developing the New Horizons Program (NHP), an EL program in which students who are preparing for careers in music education develop music lessons for Dayton community members over the age of 50. Hartley discusses how this kind of intergenerational EL helps students develop important skills that will enhance their careers as music educators. Similarly, Chapter 4, “Museums and Mud: GEO 204 (Geology for Teachers) - An Experiential Undergraduate Course for Preservice Teachers” by Michael Sandy, Ph.D., describes the integration of outdoor field experiences into a geology course for pre-service education teachers. As a result, students gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of geology, and they can use these experiences to develop their own K-12 science classrooms.

Sustainable and Reciprocal Community-Engaged Learning Chapter 5, “Evolution of Community-Engaged Experiential Learning from a Program to a Center: Reframing ETHOS to Broaden Participation and Impact” by Malcolm Daniels, Ph.D., Margaret Pinnell, Ph.D., Kelly Bohrer, M.S. and Christine Vehar Jutte, Ph.D., highlights the Engineers in Technical Humanitarian Opportunities of Service-Learning

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Center (ETHOS). The chapter describes the development of partnerships grounded in reciprocity, in which engineering students work side by side with communities to co-create technical solutions. Chapter 6, “The Processes of Reciprocity and Reflection in Service-Learning Pedagogy” by Roger Reeb, Ph.D., and Amanda Barry, M.A., highlights a servicelearning program in which students work with homeless shelter residents to enhance their sense of hope, empowerment, social support, wellness, and quality of life as they strive to overcome homelessness. Chapter 7, “Experiential Learning in Sustainability: Opportunities, Building Partnerships, and Student Engagement” by Felix Fernando, Ph.D., describes the process of engaging students in local sustainability initiatives, including how to structure and evaluate EL in community-engaged settings.

Crossing Boundaries: Transdisciplinary EL for Social Justice Chapter 8, “We Are All Students: the Moral Courage Project as a Model for Transdisciplinary Experiential Learning” by Joel Pruce, Ph.D., and Natalie Hudson, Ph.D., describes the development and growth of a multisited (Ferguson, Missouri, and El Paso) inter-/transdisciplinary EL program focused on human rights, which involves collaboration among faculty and community partners from photography, political science, media production, and more. Chapter 9, “Dinner in the Desert Kitchen: Reflections on Experiential Learning through Food, Art, and Social Practice” by Glenna Jennings, M.F.A., explores a socially engaged art program involving educators, students, advocates, and food-related organizations who work to raise awareness of food justice and food insecurity in Dayton. The chapter addresses key challenges and successes in establishing collaborations across academic disciplines, managing course assessment, and sustaining equitable partnerships with individuals and organizations outside the university.

EL Research in the City: Communities and Places of Dayton Chapter 10, “Engagement with Local Immigrant and Refugee Communities” by Miranda Hallett, Ph.D., and Theo Majka, Ph.D., describes an EL experience in which students conduct interviews with leaders

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and representatives of local immigrant and refugee communities and organizations. Authors describe how this community-engaged project leads students to see the inherent interconnections of local to global issues, while also fostering opportunities for growth in cultural humility and a sense of critical global citizenship. Chapter 11, “The Dayton Arcade Experiential Learning History Project: Combining Research Methods, Community Outreach, and Digital Humanities,” by James Todd Uhlman, Ph.D., describes how students worked together to write a history of the Dayton Arcade, a shopping mall built in 1904, currently undergoing redevelopment as part of a city-wide urban revitalization program. Through this immersive, place-based EL experience, students interviewed Daytonians and constructed a website about the arcade as a public resource for the community.

Engaging Issues of Power, Identity, and Inequality Through Transformative EL Chapter 12, “Power, Access, and Policy: Reflections on the Women’s Center Internship Program” by Lisa Borello, Ph.D., discusses the development of an internship program through the university’s Women’s Center, in which students critically analyze gender equity issues on campus, develop policy recommendations, and become agents of change in the process. Chapter 13, “Beyond Skepticism or Compassion: How Experiential Learning Enhances Pedagogy of Gender-Based Violence” by Jamie Small, Ph.D., gives readers a close look at various pedagogical strategies including developing community partnerships with law enforcement officials, grant-writing activities, and mini-documentary productions, which enabled students to locate themselves within systems of gendered violence rather than maintaining their positions as outside observers. Chapter 14, “Performing Arts in the Service of Others: The Common Good Players and Experiential Learning in Social Justice Theatre” by Michelle Hayford, Ph.D., focuses on an applied performing arts troupe, the Common Good Players (CGP), comprised of diverse undergraduate and graduate students of various majors dedicated to social justice and creating a more inclusive community at UD. The CGP leverages performance and active participation of audiences to serve UD’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

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Integrating the Student Voice and Assessing EL Through Student Reflection Chapter 15, “Student Employment for the Real World: Experiential Learning and Student Development” by Chris Fishpaw, M.S. and Chelsea Fricker, Ed.M., outlines the Student Employment for the Real World program, a professional development opportunity for student employees at UD. Authors describe how they encourage student reflection, and integrate students’ voices and perspectives in the design and evaluation of the program. Chapter 16, “Experiential Learning and Education Abroad: Examining the Experiences of Students in the Semester Abroad and Intercultural Learning Program” by Karen McBride, Ed.D., describes the use of qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the experiences of over 60 student participants involved in the Semester Abroad and Intercultural Learning Program (SAIL) and understand students’ intercultural competency learning outcomes. The chapter serves as a model for designing education abroad programs that include assessment of student learning around intercultural leadership. To conclude the collection, undergraduate students provide a meta-commentary on the value and significance of EL. Drawing on their own EL project in which they served as chapter editors for this collection, students reflect upon the narratives of teaching and learning recorded in this collection to address the implications for students’ understanding of the design, implementation, and evaluation of EL opportunities.

Conclusion As Director of Experiential Learning at UD, I have developed a great appreciation for the fascinating, complex, and innovative EL landscape around me, which is reflected in the following chapters. My unique perspective as an anthropologist of education has informed the ways in which I examine and analyze EL in its numerous forms and expressions. I have been guided by a desire to discover the meaning, value, and impact of EL, from the perspectives of those who participate in EL and practice it every day. Through hundreds of illuminating conversations about EL with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community partners, my understanding of the multifaceted nature of EL deepened and expanded. I have also gained insight into how these individuals are actively re-shaping institutional norms and transforming cultures of higher education as they work

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with students to address real issues and problems on campus, in surrounding communities, and globally. As a result, I have realized just how distinctive and special UD is. In addition to offering strategies, methods, and tips for doing EL effectively, this book also represents a model for building communities of practice around EL. Bringing EL educators together to share and write about their experiences encourages them to communicate with each other about their teaching practices, concerns, hopes, and dreams. I have found that one of the most effective ways of supporting and inspiring the creation of new and engaging learning experiences for students is to listen and share stories of what EL educators have learned by doing EL. My students and I have carefully documented our findings3 and we’ve shared numerous lessons and insights about EL with colleagues on campus through various workshops and educational forums. I believe our efforts to highlight the story of EL at UD have led to increased curiosity, reflection, and engagement with EL. I hope this collection will inspire the same for you and your communities of practice, wherever they may be.

Notes 1. For a compilation of various EL definitions, see Beard and Wilson (2015, pp. 25–26). 2. For more information, see our EL catalog at udayton.edu/el. 3. For more information about the Office of Experiential Learning archive of EL interviews, reflections, and testimonies, visit udayton.edu/el.

References Beard, C., & Wilson, J. P. (2015). Experiential learning: A handbook for education, training and coaching. London: Kogan Page. Corker, J. S., & Porter, D. J. (2015). Maximizing experiential learning to student success. Change, 47 (1), 66–72. Eyler, J. (2009, January 1). The power of experiential education. Liberal Education, 95(4), 24–31. Hesser, G. (Ed.). (2013). Strengthening experiential education: A new era. Mt. Royal, NJ: National Society of Experiential Education.

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Kuh, G.D., & O’Donnell, K. (2013). Ensuring quality and taking high-impact practices to scale. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. McClellan, R., & Hyle, A. E. (2012, May 1). Experiential learning: Dissolving classroom and research borders. Journal of Experiential Education, 35(1), 238–252. Morris, L. V. (2016). Experiential learning for all. Innovative Higher Education, 41(2), 103–104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-016-9361-z. Roberts, J. W. (2016). Experiential education in the college context: What it is, how it works, and why it matters. New York: Routledge.

CHAPTER 2

When Students Write for Money: Reflections on Teaching Grant Writing Through Experiential Learning Nicole F. Adams and Patrick W. Thomas

As professional writing faculty, we are deeply invested in helping students understand the roles that writing plays in workplaces; how, for instance, an accountant communicates changes in tax laws to her client, or how a nurse instructs a patient in aftercare from a surgical procedure. Indeed, the workplaces our students enter are saturated with writing, and regardless of profession, students can expect to write daily as part of their working lives. For this reason, experiential learning plays a significant role in our professional writing pedagogy, as the pedagogical strategies of EL situate students within authentic purposes, audiences, and consequences for

N. F. Adams · P. W. Thomas (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] N. F. Adams e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_2

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their writing. These authentic contexts provide students with opportunities to understand unfamiliar genres and written conventions of professional discourse as well as the ethical and social commitments of writing with accuracy, clarity, and concision. One especially successful approach to experiential learning in professional writing is through community-engaged grant writing. In this project, students collaborate with community partners to identify a funding need, target a donor, and write a grant proposal on behalf of a community organization. Along the way, students have guided practice in research methods to solicit organizational information, persuasive communication, writing in multiple new genres (meeting agendas, progress reports, grant narratives), strategies for collaboration, and project management.

Grant Writing at the Intersection of Related Pedagogical Goals Grant writing has emerged as a way to integrate several conceptually overlapping areas of our work as English instructors at the University of Dayton. As a kind of community-engaged experiential learning, grant writing offers a unique avenue for introducing students to professional “communities of practice” (Wenger, 1998) that are already actively addressing local needs. Of course, students do not come to our courses “tabula rasa” but as individuals with interests, motivations, and concerns of their own. The potential for community-engaged experiential learning, through grant writing, relies in part on our ability to tap into students’ interests at a local level through their work with community partners. Beyond the goals of community-engaged experiential learning, grant writing projects fulfill many of the interests that are central to effective pedagogical practices in the field of Professional and Technical Writing. Specifically, grant writing activities offer an immersive framework for teaching specific threshold concepts (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015) and professional writing practices in an authentic context. In terms of threshold concepts, or the “core knowledge and disciplinary capabilities that students must transition through to make progress in their majors” (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015), students recognize that writing is a social, rhetorical activity (Roozen, 2015, cited in Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015), and that disciplinary and professional identities are constructed through and mediated by writing (Estrem, 2015, cited in Adler-Kassner

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& Wardle, 2015). Beyond these concepts, grant writing offers a useful way of addressing many of the types of skills that are important for professional writing students to practice as part of their learning experience, skills such as primary research, collaborative writing, development of workplace/professional genres, and rhetorical methods for tasks such as interviewing, memoing, summarizing, and reporting. These skills and practices, which are common across many types of Professional and Technical Writing curricula, are integrated within the development of grant proposals through a multi-stage approach to research, writing, and dissemination. Finally, grant writing provides us, as faculty at the University of Dayton, with a tangible means of enacting some of the most significant tenets of the Common Academic Program (CAP), the university’s interdisciplinary general education program. Specifically, CAP courses are part of sixteen types of courses built around a set of seven institutional learning goals. Beyond introductory-level coursework, students are required to take “Crossing Boundaries” courses from areas outside of their own major discipline “in order to see the relationship between the practical and theoretical and to understand issues in a more integrative and holistic perspective” (“The Common Academic Program,” 2010, p. 16). The particular type of course for which we teach grant writing falls within an “Inquiry” category of Crossing Boundaries courses. Inquiry courses are categorized as such because they require students to investigate problems and develop solutions using methodologies outside of those in their home discipline. In the case of our grant writing course, these methodologies are drawn from the rhetoric and professional writing studies and include critical rhetorical analysis and qualitative research. Therefore, in addition to providing English majors with experience and professional development in grant writing, our coursework in grant writing also engages students from other disciplines—especially social scientific, business administrative, and scientific disciplines—in experiential learning as a way to understand how professional writers work to solve problems and communicate effectively, for money, within organizations. Together, these interconnected sets of pedagogical goals—of experiential learning, professional/technical writing, and our university’s general education program—are meaningfully integrated through our approach to the teaching of grant writing, which we describe in further detail below.

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Simulation Pedagogy to Community-Engaged Grant Writing Nicky, the first co-author of this chapter, offers the following narrative describing her initial foray into teaching grant writing: When I began teaching at UD in 2007, two of my four assigned classes were to be the Report & Proposal Writing course, offered to a variety of majors. I knew that such a course could be prime ground for experiential learning (still commonly being called “service learning” at that time) and that getting students out in the community would be key to making it relevant to them. After all, it’s not the most engaging course title or workplace writing task! Yet, it would be nearly two years before I made the leap into community-engaged learning. Given the wonderfully positive responses from students and community organizations, I often ask myself why I waited. And then I remember the intimidating logistics and goals involved: coordinating 40 students (usually two sections) and their direct communication with community partners (partners, of course, that need to be lined up well in advance); providing them with enough understanding of the nonprofit world to give them confidence to begin researching and writing; and sustaining their interest in a single project spanning 8 weeks or more. Ten years and over 25 community partners later, the logistics are still necessary, of course – but now that I’ve seen the student engagement and investment first-hand, they’re exciting rather than intimidating. In fact, I can’t imagine teaching the course without the grant writing project.

Patrick, the second co-author of this chapter, had surprisingly parallel experiences when developing activities for grant writing. I came to the University in Fall of 2011, fresh out of graduate school, and interested in the ways that I might expand course offerings in the area of professional writing. After all, that was why I was hired. In graduate school I had worked on a series of successful grant writing projects, most of which were funded, and so I knew first-hand how empowering it was to be able to use my writing skills to further projects that I cared about – especially educational projects for teachers. Despite this, I had little “formal” training in grant writing, so I wasn’t sure I could actually teach a course in which I had only practical experience. However, when I arrived to campus, our first-year faculty orientation included a three-hour tour of the city of Dayton, making stops at four

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local organizations with which the university had maintained active community learning projects. What was so memorable about that tour was how many different types of organizations were represented: large nonprofit centers, start-up businesses, and even neighborhood programs. The message of that tour was clear: UD, my new employer, cared about how it helped the community. And that message was repeated multiple times over my first year, as many folks in my department mentioned the possibilities of engaging with local community partners to help build new opportunities for students with interest in writing. I was interested in doing this, but without knowing which community agencies to target, or how to go about doing so, I decided to begin with a smaller assignment for grant writing instead.

For both of us, prior to including a grant writing course into our curricular offerings, we each experimented with the prospect of grant writing assignments in our other professional writing course, especially Report and Proposal Writing, a course for non-majors focused on producing various types of the two genres. In this way, our approach mirrored the type of “simulation pedagogy” (Wang, 2019), a popular pedagogical approach in applied fields such as nursing, management, and computer science. In this approach, instructors may construct simulated rhetorical situations in which students practice producing appropriate kinds of texts to fit that situation. Often, students benefit from this approach to practice professional writing skills because it offers a “low stakes” method of engaging in the kinds of communicative situations that they can envision in contexts outside the classroom. The simulation approach to grant writing often took the form of an instructor-supplied RFP (Request for Proposals, a solicitation for grant proposals). As instructors, we could invent a funding organization, situation, and genre constraints and group students into grant writing teams as a way to propose funding ideas aimed at this RFP. Student teams could work to fulfill many of the aspects of the grant writing process in conditions that we, as instructors, can easily control and alter as teams required. In addition, students had the opportunity to select causes, issues, or campaigns to which funding from the RFP organization would be applied. This approach was successful in the way that it provided us with opportunities for experimenting with teaching the process of grant writing— including research, genre knowledge, and team writing, all of which offer students (who may or may not have interest in grant-making or grant writing) useful practice in developing professional skills.

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A further opportunity to develop grant writing projects into a fuller curricular offering occurred in 2014 with the University of Dayton’s launch of the CAP. The deliberate interdisciplinary focus of CAP encouraged pedagogical and curricular experimentation, and in doing so foregrounded experiential learning as a cornerstone of students’ UD academic experience. As is often the case when new curricular programs are introduced, departments across the university were re-evaluating their general educational course offerings in light of the institutional learning goals and curricular priorities. Too, departments sought new forms of learning that would demonstrate the significance of an interdisciplinary approach to general education. For us, these factors related to the introduction of CAP provided the momentum to develop the new grant writing class. In the spring of 2015, we began collaboration on a new CAP course proposal for grant writing. Given the interdisciplinary focus of CAP courses, we sought to integrate disciplinary knowledge, drawn from our own field of professional and technical writing and earlier class experiments with grant writing, with related disciplines that would find the experience of learning grant writing useful. To this end, we examined literature and resources in our social science departments; namely political science, sociology, and communication studies. Because we decided to propose the course as a “Crossing Boundaries: Inquiry” course, we foregrounded the use of rhetorical methods—drawn from classical rhetorical theory, activity theory, and genre theory—as a way to guide the process of grant writing. Further, we situated the practice of grant writing within interdisciplinary foci of leadership development (especially for nonprofits), and communication management. Thus, the thrust of our course was to integrate professional grant writing with leadership and management skills and practices for nonprofit professionals. This led to the final focus and course title, Writing for Grants and Non-Profits. The course has now been taught since spring 2017, each time with enrollments primarily from the fields of English (Professional and Technical Writing), Communication Studies, Political Science, Health Sciences, and the interdisciplinary Medical Humanities and Sustainability Studies programs. As a way to demonstrate the course design and general structure, the section below outlines a typical course sequence.

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Integrating Communities of Practice Within the Grant Writing Course Design More than the imperative of interdisciplinarity, making the case for the need for a course in grant writing and its role within the CAP generally required that we draw upon the value of experiential learning as it pertains to learning professional writing for students across the university. To do this, Nicky developed a course rationale that centered on the practice of Corporate Social Responsibility as it has evolved from a trend to a necessity as corporations face increased global competition in retaining customers and employees. Understood this way, corporate partnerships with nonprofit organizations have allowed companies to “give back” within their communities, especially as young professionals across industries seek service opportunities in prospective employers. Therefore, understanding the roles and needs of nonprofit organizations is key to students’ connecting with the communities in which they work and live upon graduation. Framed as an opportunity to learn about both corporate and nonprofit operations (and the partnerships between the two) while learning about local community needs, Writing for Grants and Non-Profits provided a capacious avenue for understanding how grant-making activities take place. Further, writing to address real needs as identified by nonprofit organizations, students’ writing directly supports local community projects. In other words, Nicky’s course rationale required that experiential learning be infused into the course content. Understood within the larger context of disciplinary pedagogy, the significance of this integrative focus is especially significant because of how the course intentionally works against some of the prevalent assumptions about the teaching of professional writing. For one thing, much research on the relationship between academic writing instruction and professional writing activities recognizes that there is a gap between how students are taught to write and how students actually write when they enter their workplaces. Dias, Freedman, Medway, and Paré (1999) compare writing activities in academic and workplace settings, concluding that academic writing “assumes a distinct identity seeking autonomy” while workplace writing serves as a “means to an end” (p. 235). In short, these contexts place writers, as their title suggests, “worlds apart.” On the other hand,

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Joliffe (1994) notes that many practitioners—including writing instructors—follow a “myth of transcendence,” by which he means “an assumption that while sites of writing may differ, people easily transport or translate what they have learned from one domain to another” (qtd. in Dias et al., 1999, p. 223). What this means for our course, then, is that the experiential learning component of students’ grant writing for local nonprofit organizations is not merely a by-product of interdisciplinarity or a response to institutional demands. Rather, experiential learning is quite possibly the only way by which students might learn how to move between the academic and professional communities of practice and learn the particular kinds of genres, communication practices, collaborative writing approaches, and professional discourse conventions that professional communities require. Far from being an “alternative” approach to the teaching of grant writing, the experiential approach is the primary (and possibly the only) way in which students might occupy roles within their nascent professional communities. For the sake of helping readers recognize the specific learning goals and sequence of activities that students practice in the course, we offer our own set of course learning outcomes and general assignment list. While institutional contexts and instructors’ priorities may differ, we intend the following sets of outcomes and assignments to be generative for readers in designing their own courses. Grant Writing Course Learning Outcomes and Assignment Sequence By the end of this course, students will be able to: 1. Identify rhetorical and organizational strategies that impact the effectiveness of professional writing and communication in the nonprofit sector. 2. Identify various disciplines represented within the nonprofit sector, including health care, education, the arts, international and cultural awareness, environmental advocacy, and economic development. 3. Based on analyses of social problems, analyze and critique professional writing practices designed to build community relationships and fund selected projects.

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4. Create targeted documents designed to inform and/or persuade readers in various genres, including reports, proposals, letters, and e-mails. 5. Present to peers and community partners their acquired knowledge of grant proposal writing processes and the specific ways projects will benefit the local community. To accomplish these goals, students engage in the following overlapping tasks: • Class Pitch: Students create a professional introduction to your qualifications that would make you a good team member for the course grant project. After hearing each student’s pitch, students compose a Reflective Memo, explaining their choices for team members, drawing on content from each person’s pitch. • Preliminary Client Plan: A short report of a relevant client organization for whom the group will be seeking grant funding, the problems/needs of the client organization, and the feasibility assessment of working with these clients. • Client Investigation Report: a research-based report in which students detail the client’s problem and funding needs. Often accompanies by a presentation to the client for feedback. • Funding Search: a written proposal of at least 3–4 possible funders/funding sources for the client, along with an assessment of each and recommendation of funds and source to pursue. • Project Letter of Inquiry: a formal introductory letter seeking financial support from the funding source on behalf of the client. • Project Budget: an itemized budget for the grant project with accompanying budget justification. • Project Final Application: a completed grant application packet, submitted to the granting institution on behalf of the client. • Final Presentation: an oral and visual presentation, accompanied by individual written self-assessments of collaborative work during the semester, presented to the class and clients. In addition to the activity sequence outlined above, students engage in a variety of informal writing assignments, including period reflections,

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progress reports, correspondence with client organization, team agendas and minutes, and self-assessments.

From Course Assignment to Curricular Offering: Changes in Student Perceptions The developmental transition in our teaching of grant writing—from an ad hoc course assignment to a regular curricular offering—represents a shift in the way that experiential learning functions within our professional writing curriculum. What began as a simulation, as an activity that we “snuck in” to a course that was supposed to be about more “serious” matters of report and proposal genres, has now become a vital and popular course for students both within and outside the English major. The popularity of this course is, we believe, in large part due to the direct role that students play in working for clients on a grant funding project. Indeed, our particular version of community-engaged experiential learning has granted our course a unique reputation, as we have been successful in securing grants for a number of local organizations and, to date, have garnered over $40,000 in funding. We have found that students are attracted to the course’s practical purposes both for engaging with a grant project for a local organization and for practicing new skills related to an aspect of professional writing with which many undergraduates are unfamiliar. Too, students have reported that employers are particularly interested when students include their grant writing experience on their resumes. Nicky recalls Chris, an accounting major who took her in the fall of his senior year. The following semester, as Chris was interviewing for accounting positions, he relayed to Nicky that the Deloitte recruiter spent the majority of his interview asking about the grant writing project and Chris’ role in developing the budget, writing the proposal narrative, and submitting a proposal. Chris was surprised to the point of concern that an accounting recruiter was so preoccupied with an experience that was outside of Chris’ accounting major. When Chris was offered a position at Deloitte, he was told that the grant writing experience made a significant positive impact on his application. Two of Patrick’s recent students, one an English major (Katie) and the other a Political Science major (Emily), have gone on to use their grant writing skills in their early career work. For Katie, her grant writing experience became useful during her time as a Peace Corps volunteer in

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Tunisia, as she taught local young women entrepreneurs how to apply for small business grants. For Emily, who works at a nonprofit literacy center in Chicago, grant writing became a necessity for continued funding for the personnel she manages. As each of these student stories demonstrates, students’ grant writing experience has had immediate, demonstrable effects on their early professional lives—even when the actual practice of grant writing has nothing to do with students’ career choices. What is compelling about these narratives is that the process of grant writing changes how students understand both the scope and effect of professional writing. Beyond skillbased training for corporate positions, students’ relationship with writing changes when they can demonstrate for themselves has writing functions as a “means to an end” (Dias et al., 1999, p. 235). That is, when students can see the end—the impact that their own team’s writing can have to address a local need or community organization—their writing takes on heightened importance for them, even if the grant is ultimately unsuccessful. What students recognize through the grant writing process is how writing operates in a professional context, how real people make decisions about money based on the writing they produce, and the real effects of these financial decisions on the organizations with which they work.

Grant Writing Project Suggested Components and Resources As working directly with nonprofit organizations (not to mention writing grant proposals) is new to many students, any successful grant writing project will have to “ease” students into the process. Our earlier iterations of the grant writing project demonstrate this is just as important for instructors, who often work with few campus resources for building and maintaining relationships with local organizations, and/or may have no direct, first-hand experience writing grants professionally. Below are some of the components we have incorporated consistently over the years to build and sustain student confidence and engagement. Creation of Student Teams While we normally assign students to teams in professional writing courses (since it simulates the notion that we don’t usually get to choose our co-workers), we learned early on that allowing students to indicate their

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organization/project preferences was key for this assignment. Though they may have not worked within the nonprofit sector, most students have experienced the missions of such organizations in various ways—a volunteer project, an ill or struggling family member, or raising money for a philanthropic cause, for example. We also provide students a list of organizations with brief descriptions of their missions and the projects for which they would like to seek funding. Students then rank their top 3 of 7 or so choices and we create the teams that way. We also ask them to indicate if they have a car on campus, since it will be important for them to have transportation to the site for at least one meeting. Class Visit/Lecture from Grants Professional The Nonprofit and Grants Specialist at our local metro library became a key partner nearly from the beginning. She was delighted to be asked to share her expertise in a class lecture/discussion and provided a wonderful foundation for understanding grants and funder research. Agency Profile/Needs Assessment Report This first client-based writing assignment asks students to do research to learn more about their nonprofit organization, its mission, and funding needs related to the project it has identified. Though the grant project is collaborative, we often make this assignment individual so that one student can’t simply rely on the knowledge of the others. This research and short 2–3 page report also seem to invest students, as each one is reading first-hand about the organization. In preparation for writing this, students also conduct an initial site visit to the nonprofit as a team, so they’re typically excited to learn more after meeting some of the people behind the mission. Textbook and Supplementary Reading The standard textbooks we use for our professional writing courses typically don’t discuss grant writing in much detail—and understandably, given its unique goals and audiences. For the first few years, we supplemented lectures with online readings from various sources. For the last few semesters, however, we have been asking students to purchase Tori

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O’Neal-McElrath’s Winning Grants Step-by-Step workbook to guide them through the various stages of grant writing. It’s especially useful because it is organized by the typical sections of a grant. Progress Report After students have started drafting the grant proposal itself, this short memo assignment helps us to pause and take a look at the bigger picture: what have they accomplished, what has yet to be completed, and what additional information or resources might they need? We ask them to craft this with both their instructor and their client in mind as primary audiences, and they send it to the nonprofit when they submit it to us for evaluation. Class Presentation to Nonprofit and Department Guests When their grant proposal is in its final editing stages, we invite the organization contacts and department guests into the course for student presentations of their work. This allows the rest of the class to learn about the missions and needs of the other organizations and gives the students a chance to engage in dialogue with various community members. Both of these, we believe, help students envision ways they might engage within their own communities after college, regardless of the industries in which they work.

References Adler-Kassner, L., & Wardle, E. (2015). Naming what we know: Threshold concepts in writing studies. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Dias, P., Freedman, A. P., Medway, C., & Paré, A. (1999). Worlds apart: Acting and writing in academic and workplace contexts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Estrem, H. (2015). Disciplinary and professional identities are constructed through writing. In L. Adler-Kassner & E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know: Threshold concepts in writing studies (pp. 55–57). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Joliffe, D. A. (1994). The myth of transcendence and the problem of the “Ethics” essay in college writing instruction. In P. A. Sullivan & D. J. Qualley (Eds.), Pedagogy in the age of politics: Writing and reading (in) the academy (pp. 183–194). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

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Roozen, K. (2015). Writing is a social and rhetorical activity. In L. Adler-Kassner & E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know: Threshold concepts in writing studies (pp. 17–19). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. University of Dayton. (2010). The Common Academic Program. Dayton, OH: University of Dayton Academic Senate Academic Policies Committee. Wang, J. (2019). Simulation rhetoric and activity theory: Experiential learning in intercultural situations. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 49(2), 213–231. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Intergenerational Engagement Through Experiential Learning Linda A. Hartley

The program described and analyzed in this chapter debuted in 2000. It combined a college-level course in music education with music education instruction and performances for senior citizens. Positive responses warranted the program’s continuation for the past 20 years; its success seen largely as the hybrid result of two major educational philosophies: experiential learning (EL) and intergenerational learning (IL). The overriding impetus behind the ongoing program is to enrich and reward two demographics not often enough joined in the world of music or education; college students majoring in music education get to practice their instructional skills and learn their trade in concert with an older generation eager to learn or continue to learn. In the exchange, both generations not only reach outside their normal milieus but also learn new dynamics of communication. And they make music. In this program, college students in their junior year are under the supervision of credentialed and experienced in-service professionals.

L. A. Hartley (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_3

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Because they are juniors, they gain invaluable EL before the more traditional senior year of student teaching. And while their pre-service field experiences set in place by state auspices occur in the typical venues of pre-kindergarten, elementary, middle school, and high school settings, this program’s EL takes place in a different real-world setting with a different set of real-world students, broadening the college students’ audience repertoire. Schools of education realize that an ever-greater variety of active or hands-on learning components should exist for pre-service experience before the capstone experience of student teaching. Genuine field experiences prior to stepping into the role of a full-time classroom teacher prove invaluable. Aiken and Day (1999) found that early field experiences impact pre-service teachers, suggesting the need for carefully designed, authentic, classroom experiences. Moreover, the rewards can prove particularly illuminating when the college students’ field experience expands its reach into the teaching of adult learners (andragogy). This chapter thus presents both the challenges and rewards of an experiential music education program that is intergenerational in scope, one in which undergraduate college students give music instruction to adults anywhere from 30 to 40 or more years older, and one in which the resulting community performances give tangible evidence of Albert Einstein’s belief that “intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”

Identifying Opportunity As both a K-12 music educator and then as a music teacher educator in the university setting, I have espoused and emphasized EL in every course, recognizing it as a significant and sequential component of the learning process. EL has evolved over the past few decades and has gained much traction as noted by numerous publications, especially since 1990. For example, Wurdinger and Carlson (2010) helpfully delineate five well-documented learning processes: active learning, project-based learning, problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, service learning, and place-based learning. This kind of detailed analysis deepened my grasp of the EL potential in the field of music education. The authors’ focus on active learning resonates with teacher education preparation, emphasizing theory to practice through direct experience and reflection. While active learning tends to be focused on learning activities within the classroom,

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this EL utilizes active learning concepts both inside and outside the classroom space. By the very nature of their subject, musicians tend to be active composers, performers, or conductors, craving exploratory learning at the forefront of their passion and enjoyment. So too have my personal and professional musical experiences informed and steered my teaching. Preservice school music educators are guided to become successful musicians, performers, conductors, project managers, event planners, public relations and communications experts, recruiters, writers, and fundraisers. While most young student musicians begin building the foundation for perfecting their performance skills before entering college, it is in their undergraduate curriculum and beyond that they accrue most other competencies required to execute the job successfully. These multifaceted layers of expertise needed by pre-K through high school music educators can easily parallel the wealth of skills and knowledge needed for a variety of careers. However, there are other avenues to explore which can also assist in strengthening students’ pre-service training and preparation for their chosen careers. One of these involves intergenerational exchanges. Life expectancy of the average American has risen sharply over the past few decades, from age 68 in 1950 to age 79 in 2017. Baby boomers began reaching the standard retirement age (65) in 2007. Our retired workforce population has grown not only because people are living longer, but also because of the population explosion of the baby boomer generation. Mather, Jacobsen, Pollard (2015) cite that the number of people 65 and older is projected to more than double by 2060, and increase by 18 million between 2020 and 2030. Clearly, opportunities for engaging older and active adults in higher education EL can be abundant. My focus here is on just one of the multiple EL examples I have established for my students, designed purposely for a junior-level methods course, a course required of all music education majors. This curricular component offers a unique perspective of intergenerational learning (IL) and provides replicable qualities for limitless subject areas outside of music. Incorporating an IL component within undergraduate university courses enriches learning for all ages. The concept of intergenerational programming involving older adults from our community most resembles activities purposefully designed to unite cooperation, collaboration, and interaction between people of differing generations, enabling them to share their talents and resources. Benyon and Alfano (2013) cite an

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abundance of literature showing that when senior citizens immerse themselves in learning experiences with youngsters, benefits accrue across the age spectrum. I expressly chose the junior-level instrumental music methods course as the direct recipient of this particular EL program. The three-credit-hour course is offered through the Department of Music within the College of Arts and Sciences. Students in this course are typically music education majors who are preparing for a career in teaching school music in grades K-12. Desired student learning outcomes in my course include the development of successful teaching strategies to improve individual and group musical performance. Specific to this particular EL, students additionally benefit from increasing their differentiated learning techniques (adjusting teaching methods to varied types of learners) because of their work with an older adult population. For example, teaching adaptations may include providing instruction with greater audible clarity, increasing eye contact, delivering more expert demonstration, recalibrating levels of patience, adjusting to particular physical expectations and limitations, emphasizing the reasoning behind instruction, and utilizing a collaborative learning style. Within this distinctive EL, rich opportunities exist for sharing knowledge, skills, experiences, and perception among different generations of participants. Older, active adults tend to take a keen interest in the education of college-age students and often make valued contributions to their learning experiences. Intergenerational learning provides a transfer of knowledge that moves both ways. For older adults, this can provide a sense of self-worth when they can assist a younger generation in career development. In this methods course, undergraduate students are able to exchange their knowledge with adults two to three generations above their own. This is something that Lane (2012) specifically focused on, reporting on the positive aspects of engagement of pre-service music teachers with adult amateur musicians. For example, Lane’s study comments on the benefits of meaningful social interaction between generations, indicating that adults are more capable of providing pre-service teachers more immediate and clear feedback than are school-aged children. Lane also points out a more practical and important consideration: The flexibility of older adults’ schedules makes an intergenerational learning experience more conducive to a college curriculum and college students’ schedules (pp. 317–322).

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Yet another argument in this program’s favor concerns the age range. For the rest of their lives, our undergraduate students will likely be working with adult administrators, colleagues, and community members in addition to children. Intergenerational learning provides opportunities to adjust instruction to accommodate learners of all ages with various abilities. Routinely designing intergenerational experiences for music-making enhances participants’ understanding of musical styles, learning differences, and appreciation for multiple age groups. Incorporating best practices instruction in adult learning styles in addition to instruction in the learning styles of children is key to successful intergenerational experiences. Choosing a topic that can be enjoyed by a range of generations may be easier than one might first think, particularly since community colleges and lifelong learning institutes as well as universities have since the 1960s and then again since the 1980s taken up the respective banners of experiential and intergenerational education. The literature studying and analyzing intergenerational, experiential teaching and learning exists on various topics, including environment, education, healing and health, history—and music.

Program Initiation Creating these different opportunities takes a great deal of time, much effort, vision, persistence, and intentionality. After considerable thought and research, many conversations, and financial help from a start-up grant, I created a New Horizons Music Program for the University of Dayton. This adult, community-outreach music education program provides entry and reentry points for adults primarily 50 years old and better to learn to play musical instruments. The basic premise is that adults in this program receive instruction by me, by other professional staff members, and by students in the undergraduate music education degree program under our guidance. As with many great ideas, I wish I would have been the one to think of such a program first. And even though I have placed my own perspective on this program, I must credit the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester and Professor Emeritus Dr. Roy Ernst for establishing the first program of its kind (New Horizons International Music Association). When I first heard about the Eastman adult music learning program through a nationally televised news broadcast, I had just begun

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my first year of a tenure-track position. Upon learning that the Eastman School of Music used the university’s students as instructors in the program, I immediately knew that I wanted to begin a similar program at our university. At the early stages of the Eastman program, anecdotal evidence from participants and instructors revealed positive outcomes: enjoyment, renewed and increased teaching strategies and motivation, physical and emotional health benefits, encouraging community relations, social engagement, and bolstered self-worth. Waiting impatiently for a few years as I worked to carve time into my daily schedule for this major endeavor, I continued to investigate the possibilities, eventually receiving a university grant to design and initiate the University of Dayton New Horizons Music Program (NHMP). The grant was awarded by our Learning and Teaching Center, which focuses on curricular innovation that has the potential for sustainability, and the program is jointly sponsored through our Special Programs and Continuing Education office and the Department of Music. I proposed to create a significant and life-changing EL component for all students in our music education undergraduate degree program, but with the specific additional goals of increasing both community outreach and education opportunities for the university. This win-win approach provided buy-in for continued support and appeal. We would not only serve our students’ education but also offer opportunities to adult learners throughout the greater Dayton area. The target audience would include adults with no previous music experience, adults considered reentries (those who have played long ago but paused for careers and families), and adults who were experienced musicians. The logistics of establishing an adult community music education program included finding a location for instruction, identifying prime instructional times for both pre-service teachers and adult learners, creating and distributing advertising, arranging parking for the adults, and purchasing instructional materials. The start-up grant nicely assisted with the purchasing of marketing and instructional materials, but time, effort, and passion fueled the fruition of other logistics and the restructuring of the curriculum. At this stage, I did not begin to expect or comprehend the strength and benefits of intergenerational learning when I first conceived of this EL component for our university. That would come later and remains ongoing. From the outset, my distinct curricular purposes were to enhance the education of our pre-service teachers and improve their instructional skills

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by offering varying levels of instruction to adult community members. This demands weekly collaboration between my music education majors, faculty, program staff, and community members so students can expand and solidify their rehearsal preparation and their teaching skills. Applying concepts that they first explore in the classroom, undergraduate students then regularly interact with and instruct senior adults learning to play musical instruments and prepare for performances. Students construct their lesson plans as a part of their coursework and then present their plans during scheduled NHMP ensemble rehearsals. These EL opportunities typically vary between 5 and 20 minutes of instruction time and require the inclusion of specific learning objectives that are reviewed in class. Most often, teaching components are video recorded so that students and instructors can best reflect on and assess projected outcomes. Their learning process is also bolstered when the adult participants offer verbal feedback, ask questions for clarification, and otherwise, interact with students before and/or after rehearsals.

What Worked; What Needed Adjusting The construction of this EL component involved two separate functions: (1) establishing the adult community music ensemble and (2) revising my current syllabus and teaching materials to include this intergenerational learning component. Fortunately, my background in elementary, secondary, and higher education includes a wealth of experience as a music ensemble director, and so I planned to be the music director of the university/community music education program. Though the concept of experiential learning focuses on student learning outcomes, something familiar to my background, I learned early on that creating a highquality, sustainable EL program entails a variety of non-educational skills and attention. Most of my efforts during the summer prior to the first meeting of the NHMP focused on starting the program, with funding from the university grant. In hindsight, I should have involved my then-current students in the early design stages, while they were still on campus so that they could engage in the initial planning procedures. However, my previous experiences provided me the knowledge for what needed to be done and by when. The UD NHMP follows the university academic calendar, meeting once a week during fall and spring semesters. Since my methods class

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is taught only in the spring term, I offered my students the opportunity to become teaching assistants in the fall term on a volunteer basis. This decision had pros and cons. In its favor, students gained a great deal of teaching experience. But because additional time was not built into my schedule, the undergraduate didn’t receive the supervisory instruction from me that would have best served the adult learners. I soon realized that I needed to provide preterm instruction for the fall term’s volunteers, especially for those who had not yet taken my methods class. Scheduling learning space for this EL component was not terribly difficult because classroom and rehearsal rooms were available in the earlier part of the mornings, as were our students and the community participants (most are retired). I eventually shifted the time slot of my methods class to coordinate with the NHMP teaching times. Initially, the recruitment of adult participants only yielded eighteen adult community members, and therefore, administering the program was not extraordinarily cumbersome. However, the size of the group doubled within a year, and so I found myself as not only the music director and instructor for my students, but also the librarian, budget manager, marketing coordinator, social event coordinator, performance planner, and communications coordinator. Enjoyable as it was, I quickly organized a committee structure of adult participant volunteers so that I could better focus on my faculty position, instruction, and student learning. Later, the committee structure grew still more, eventually made up of a highly organized Executive Board with elected officers and multiple committee chairs. While I continue to serve as music director, the Board functions to assist me with all non-musical and non-educational aspects of the program. And as the size of the program continued to grow, I found a need for supplemental professional staff members in addition to more undergraduate student assistance. Currently, the program consists of five professional staff members; it has also grown from one music ensemble to four and includes approximately 100 adult community members. To financially sustain the program indefinitely, I could not rely on continued grant funding. Community participants now pay a small tuition fee under the umbrella of our campus Special Programs and Continuing Education office. Tuition fees (currently $90 per semester) help cover the cost of instructors, music and equipment purchases, facility rental, and marketing. While this program is not a money-maker, it has remained stable in expenses and income. Particularly helpful for sustainment of the program is an established endowment, mostly funded by members of the

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NHMP organization. This assures us a portion of our annual expenses. The endowment is held by our university advancement office. An essential element of a successful adult learning program is the allocation of time for social engagement. Thus, scheduling a time to enjoy each other’s company over coffee and treats has become a weekly tradition. In fact, the participation and enthusiasm from both our college students and the adult participants are remarkably evident during these gatherings. Time here allows for informal feedback to the students, but even more encouraging, the weekly meet-ups have proved their worth in forming lasting relationships even beyond graduation. Through my observations of both the student feedback and adult interaction, it is evident that participants on both ends of the age spectrum have gained an appreciation for lifelong learning.

Program Challenges In my three decades of teaching in higher education institutions, it never fails to amaze me how university parking affects nearly every aspect of learning intentions and community engagement. I desired to bring senior adults to campus to learn in our music facilities. I proposed the university as the program setting for three main reasons: convenience for our students, most of whom are residential and without access to transportation; access to suitable and ideal music teaching facilities; and the overall learning environment that a university provides. This worked fairly well for the first 10 years of our program, even though some creative solutions became necessary along the way. These included shuttling adult participants from a remote parking lot, providing donuts to campus parking attendants (potentially bribery or a token of appreciation), and coming up with some imaginative parking spaces for handicapped participants. Unfortunately, as the New Horizons Music Program grew substantially, these options became obsolete. We were forced to find another space for instruction, off-campus. Also, not a simple task was finding the right physical facilities that would satisfy everyone’s needs. This demanded locating a learning/teaching space close enough for student access, a space with accessible parking and entry, a facility with square footage spacious enough to hold large group rehearsal and small group instructional rooms, and a space with an adequate learning environment that included sound acoustics and good lighting. Affordability was also an issue, one that we had

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been able to meet without additional cost because of our campus facilities. When renting a space off-campus became necessary, we once again had logistical concerns and a new budgetary reality. Fortunately, with a team of motivated NHMP participants, we located a near-perfect space within a 15-minute drive from campus, and students began carpooling to their once-a-week EL assignments.

Pre-service Teacher Learning Outcomes Once the program got underway, I realized the necessity of incorporating a unit in my methods course syllabus that focused specifically on adult learning. The students needed better preparation for differential learning styles. Curriculum in pre-K-12 teacher training primarily focuses on pedagogy, a child-focused teaching approach centered on how children learn best. The term andragogy refers to the method and practice of teaching adult learners. Truthfully, I needed to learn more about andragogy myself for help in more effective functioning with the adult learners, and thus better modeling of differentiated teaching strategies for my undergraduate students. Now I modify my syllabus each year to improve the student experience dedicated to this EL unit, based upon student and adult participant feedback and upon further research in the field. While most intergenerational learning studies convey adult learning outcomes and benefits, Corrigan, McNamara, and O’Hara (2013) researched undergraduate student learning outcomes in intergenerational learning initiatives. Their findings show that students gain knowledge, competencies, and skills that contribute to both their personal and professional development. Additionally, the authors report that these initiatives are an excellent means to foster intercultural and intergenerational solidarity. Throughout the development of this EL, I have incorporated specific objectives for students, and I have then annually tracked outcomes through three formats: through formal student evaluations within the course, through class discussions, and individually written responses. Of the three formats, the independently written responses to explicit questions have provided me with the most beneficial feedback on student outcomes, as well as with information on ways to improve the experience for the student. During my one-semester methods course, students engage in multiple experiences to enhance their learning through in-class labs, rehearsing

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music ensembles in area middle schools and high schools, and working with their peers in university music ensembles. These field experiences are fairly typical of preparation courses for music educators and so lead students to learning objectives that will be familiar to those in the field. Students can demonstrate knowledge of learning theories in instrumental music education; teach tonality, rhythmic feeling, and technical skills to beginning instrumentalists; develop a variety of rehearsal techniques and teaching skills for elementary and secondary ensemble; plan effective rehearsals utilizing detailed lesson plans; effectively teach/rehearse an instrumental ensemble, including demonstration of error detection and correction techniques, motivation techniques, eliciting expressive qualities, and student evaluation; demonstrate professionalism through field experiences, discussions, assignments, and daily participation; demonstrate essential adaptations for hearing and physical health for instrumental music; perform piano to successfully aid in score study and accompanying; and demonstrate knowledge of instrument transpositions. Students can meet these expectations in the typical middle school and high school settings. And certainly, these outcomes are reinforced when undergraduate students work with older adults. However, the older audience adds new perspectives. Unique to my course as compared to the typical teacher education methods course is the intergenerational component. Involvement with the New Horizons Music Program has not only strengthened learning outcomes but also demonstrated unexpected benefits.

Intergenerational Outcomes Currently, there are approximately 100 older adult participants in our NHMP, with an average age of 71. The NHMP concert band includes 70 members, with the other 30 members participating in beginning band, and/or specialty groups. The growing size of this program provides multiple opportunities for our music education majors to improve their teaching skills, improve their dispositions, and develop an appreciation for lifelong learning. Instruction is provided through one-on-one lessons, sectional coaching, master classes, and large group rehearsals. Additionally, because our senior adults enter the NHMP at various levels of ability, our students must prepare for differentiated learning techniques, techniques that serve them well for their future careers. Student coursework for this EL program is primarily focused on preparation for concert band

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rehearsals, performance alongside adult members, observation of professional conducting staff, weekly rehearsing of the concert band, and participation as conductors in a public concert. To elucidate a typical intergenerational learning experience from my viewpoint as the students’ instructor, I offer the following observations. During class, we learn to develop detailed lesson plans to include learning strategies that will enhance student learning. Students in my methods course are provided with a limited time frame for instruction in this EL component, and they must develop lesson plans that fit within that time frame. Each student is responsible for a specific musical composition, and therefore, each works with a different musical conductor’s score to study and then to prepare learning strategies for achieving a musical performance from the adult ensemble. Musical compositions vary in style and are geared to appeal to the senior adult population, including marches, Broadway medleys, big band jazz, tunes from the 1960s and 1970s, and movie themes. The undergraduate students and I agree in class on the learning objectives for their adult students and objectives based upon the musical scores. Students develop procedures to support the learning objectives and design learning assessments that align with each objective. After writing up this rationale, they then must practice their plan as well as study their musical scores so that they are best prepared for an efficient rehearsal. What’s more, they also need to anticipate potential problems that will be encountered by adult musicians, such as incorrect notes and playing out of tune and then be prepared to offer solutions to increase their adult students’ musical progress and performance. This particular component of the EL program is built upon knowledge gained over the first 2.5 years of sequential undergraduate curricular experiences. After the students develop, review, revise, and practice the lesson plan, they attend the once-a-week NHMP rehearsal to observe, perform, and teach. During the time that a student is teaching her or his portion of the rehearsal, I take notes, verify that the video camera is running, and offer immediate feedback as needed. The program’s adult participants are instructed to do exactly what the undergraduate students ask them to do so that they receive authentic feedback. There is usually time during any given rehearsal period for up to 10 student instructors to work with the musicians. Eventually, after a number of these rehearsal segments, undergraduate students learn to expect the unexpected. They will get questions from the

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older adult musicians testing their musical knowledge. And their instruction does not always work as planned, so they may need to need to restate directions in a clearer manner. They also discover that sometimes these older adults, much like middle school or high school students, are not paying attention. My undergraduate students then need to be prepared to motivate their adult students to stay on task so that everyone can learn. Anticipating these aspects, too, must be reflected in their lesson plans. Time sails quickly during these short teaching segments, but each student comes away with a further layer of experience. This experience, in turn, leads to continual improvement, as do the feedback and reflection. We culminate the series of rehearsals with a concert, during which the undergraduates gain experience speaking with an audience, learn performance and stage etiquette, and enjoy the rewards of rigorous work and public performance. From the instructor’s vantage point, I can attest to multiple proud moments throughout the semester, including the “ah-hah” moments that come when successfully practicing a new teaching strategy, when getting unsolicited positive reinforcement from older adult students (“bravo!”), when hearing audience applause, and when watching students take their final bows.

Selected Responses from Undergraduate Students Although I now possess years of student feedback from working with the New Horizons Music Program, in this section I only include a fragment of the most current student responses abstracted from the 2018 and 2019 spring semester classes. Students who completed the instrumental music education methods course and who worked directly with the NHMP concert band during their semester completed a 12-item open-ended survey. The following selected compilation encapsulates self-reported student outcomes from their intergenerational EL: Improved student learning: • Improved instructional and conducting skills. • Improved verbal instructional delivery (clarity). • Beneficial reflective assignments (video review, lesson planning, peer and instructor discussions); enhanced self-guided learning. • Valuable avenue for experimenting with differentiated instruction and adaptation.

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• Instructive model for rehearsal structure and best practice through observing an established concert band. • Invaluable lesson to always have a plan for instruction (“preparation is everything”) and better to overplan than underplan. Unexpected outcomes: • Helpful to learn in a safe and supportive environment. • Inspirational power of lifelong learning, continued education, and cross-generational learning. • Open, receptive, and generous sharing of feedback from older adults. • Positive reinforcement of decision to become a music teacher. • Noted similarities and differences between adult learners and middle school and high school students. • Exhilarating feeling in conducting final concert and in culminating the hard work and preparation. • More confidence instilled as instructors and conductors, especially through working with older adults with life experiences. • Good provision of opportunity to be both a teacher and a learner— we learned from the older adults and their experiences. • Decreased anxiety and increased confidence after working with the adult ensemble. While the initial course objectives were measured in various manners throughout the semester, it is evident through these responses that the students achieved considerably more outcomes than could have been taught in class, or in some cases that could have been gained from a middle school or high school setting.

Adult Participants’ Perceptions Initially, I created this EL program at our university mainly to enhance my students’ pre-service teaching experiences, bringing theory into practice each week. Only secondarily did I foresee that there could be benefits of community support for our university music program by involving adults from the area. How encouraging to find, then, that so many adult participants have developed an affinity for the university from participating as “students” in this lifelong learning program. They have been eager to

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support their undergraduate “teachers” not only by providing feedback but also by attending their campus events and performances and by following their careers post-graduation. Before our undergraduate students begin working with our community adults, I explain to the older adult membership how their participation will benefit the university students and how important their contributions are to their education. Additionally, I provide encouragement and appropriate methods for our adult members to offer comments to the students, especially sandwiching the comments with something positive, a helpful suggestion, and then another positive comment. For the majority, this method works well with multiple generations. As you can surmise from their comments that follow, the community music ensemble members take pride in and appreciate engaging in the learning process for our undergraduate students. The NHMP participants are surveyed annually at the end of the spring semester about their semester program experiences, including their work and socializing with the university undergraduate students. The following statements provide a modest sample of the mature adult learners’ perceptions of the impact that intergenerational learning can have. These university students brought a fresh perspective to the music. For me, the experience was about sharing music-making across age, culture, and ethnic lines. When playing music all interpersonal “differences” cease to matter - only the common goal of producing the best sound possible with each note. I have enjoyed having all of the students work with us and look forward to learning from them each year. Every conductor, be it adult or student, brings a new perspective to a piece of music and a different teaching style. Having these enthusiastic young folks brings a different energy to the rehearsals and I enjoy that, their thirst for learning, and having them there as a resource. It is so refreshing to have the students come and conduct us each year. In the beginning, we can see and sense their hesitation and shyness. As they gain experience conducting us, we can see their growth. We like precise direction and they learn to do that. The opportunity to look outside ourselves and catch a brief glimpse of their potential and emerging styles reaffirms our common musical base and self-worth, embraces differences, and gives a (generally) hopeful sneak peek into their possible future paths. Looking to the future while anticipating growth is a great way to stay young at heart!

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It is fascinating to watch the learning experience as they learn from us how to communicate.

Final Thoughts EL has not only been an avenue to strengthen my students’ education and future careers. It has also provided me an unanticipated line of research: adult learning. Since creating this EL opportunity at our university, I have produced intergenerational scholarly works that resulted in co-authoring one book chapter, one published research article, 12 presentations (including state, national, and international professional conferences), and three grants. On several occasions, I have had current students as well as alumni copresent with me for professional conferences. I never thought of this EL component as a scholarly endeavor, as my objectives were purely studentand community-centered. If readers decide to enhance their current EL activity or create a new EL, I highly encourage documenting all aspects. This documentation will not only enhance the EL but also assist in developing scholarly professional contributions. Including an intergenerational experiential learning component within my students’ undergraduate curriculum has thus demonstrated advantages that I could not have begun to conceptualize from the beginning. Professionally, I have grown in my skills and knowledge as a teacher educator, especially through working with the older adult population. The concept of andragogy was new to me. Expanding my research and teaching scholarship to include intergenerational learning has been a highlight of my professional career. Illustrated by observation and student feedback, the intergenerational component has also helped to support our pre-service teachers’ development and confidence as they enter their chosen career as in-service educators. Particularly gratifying for me has been witnessing my students’ evident professional growth while in tandem, observing them embrace advantages and rewards of working with older adults. With the retirement population continuing to grow and the need for our students to work well and creatively with people of all ages, developing intergenerational EL options can be worth the effort. Older active adults seek ways to learn something new. College campuses can certainly increase their connections with the older adult population by including similar EL structures.

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References Aiken, I. P., & Day, B. D. (1999). Early field experiences in preservice teacher education: Research and student perspectives. Action in Teacher Education, 21(3), 7–12. Benyon, C., & Alfano, C. (2013). Intergenerational music learning in community and schools. In K. K. Veblen, S. J. Messenger, M. Silverman, & D. Elliott (Eds.), Community music today (pp. 121–132). New York: Rowan & Littlefield. Corrigan, T., McNamara, G., & O’Hara, J. (2013). Intergenerational learning: A valuable learning experience for higher education students. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 52, 117–136. Lane, J. (2012). Engaging preservice music teachers with adult amateur musicians. International Journal of Community Music, 5(3), 317–322. Mather, M., Jacobsen, L. A., & Pollard, K. M. (2015). Aging in the United States. Population Bulletin, 70(2), 1–18. Wurdinger, S. D., & Carlson, J. A. (2010). Teaching for experiential learning: Five approaches that work. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

CHAPTER 4

Museums and Mud: An Experiential Undergraduate Geology Course for Pre-service Teachers Michael R. Sandy

Many fundamental observations in geology take place outdoors through fieldwork. This chapter provides reflections on the origins, development, support, challenges, and outcomes of experiential learning (EL) field trip components of GEO 204: Geology for Teachers at the University of Dayton (UD). The course is an introductory geology class for pre-service teachers who are preparing for teaching careers in K-12 settings. GEO 204 incorporates a weekly meeting, and typically three or four of these meetings each semester are field experiences, which range from visiting a museum to understand the diversity of minerals, rocks, and fossils giving glimpses into Earth history, investigating a road cut for fossils in rural Ohio to gain insights into what southwestern Ohio was like 450 million years ago when tropical seas covered the area, to measuring the orientation of glacial striations left on bedrock by a moving glacier transporting sediment during the Ice Age. Other experiences have

M. R. Sandy (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_4

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Fig. 4.1 Field trip to Ohio Caverns, West Liberty, Ohio (Photograph by the author, 2019)

included understanding the development of a cave system and its cave formations (stalactites, stalagmites, etc.), examining local river environments and processes, and also a “trip to Mars” at a Challenger Center—a NASA curriculum-based experiential educational facility. Incorporation of field trips allows the investigation of real, local geology—rather than examples exclusively from a textbook or e-book—and provide students with opportunities to integrate geological concepts, practice scientific observation, and “think like a geologist” (Fig. 4.1).

Experiential Learning and Geology Current best practices in science education demonstrate that science is taught most effectively using hands-on, inquiry-based EL (Jordan, 2005). There are many forms and facets of EL represented in this collection, and field trips are among the various subtypes of EL. In GEO 204, my

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students learn about geology through hands-on experience, discovery, and exploration (“Experiential Learning,” 2019). Preparation for field trips includes pre-trip orientation briefings the week before a field trip to introduce students to new geology terminology, concepts, and content. Prior to a field trip to a cave system, for example, I discuss related geology topics (such as cave formation) with the students to help prepare them for the experience. I also use handouts to illustrate geological concepts we will encounter on our trips, and questions to ask our tour guide. The week following the field trip we reflect on the trip through group discussions and review the content we learned from the experience. I also ask members of the class to share and discuss any photographs they took during the trip using the classroom projector screen. Post-trip debriefs include in-class discussions, submission of a field trip report, completion of questions given at the time of the trip in a field trip packet, a presentation in class on aspects of the trip (different aspects of the trip commented on by different students or group of students depending on class size), and incorporation of field trip-related questions into class tests. Using this pedagogical approach, our field trips integrate Kolb’s EL cycle, which involve “experience, reflection, conceptualization, and application” (Kolb, 1984). Students’ reflections regarding EL in GEO 204 demonstrate a number of positive outcomes; students have remarked on how they benefit from real-world connections that emerge in the field. They describe how field trips have helped them understand the relevance and application of geology beyond the classroom. EL has also helped pre-service teachers discern their own career options and vocational paths. For example, students are introduced to traditional and non-traditional (i.e., non-classroom) vocation options such as educational roles in a museum or at a NASA Challenger Center. GEO 204 also provides pre-service teachers with models for implementing EL in their own science classrooms in the future. EL in geology is certainly not new. Talk to a geology instructor and you may likely hear “we have been doing experiential learning for (geological) ages!” EL has been an essential part of teaching, learning, and research in geology from the inception of the scientific discipline during the second half of the eighteenth century—although it was not referred to as EL at the time. Field trips to examine geological outcrops and landforms, to make observations, interpretations, and draw conclusions have been part of instruction in geology for many decades. This modus

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operandi was no doubt in place when renowned Professor Adam Sedgwick took the newly graduated Charles Darwin on a field trip to the mountains of Snowdonia, in North Wales in 1831, only weeks before he set sail on H.M.S. Beagle on what would be a personal voyage of EL and discovery (Darwin, 1839). Darwin’s geological collections and observations on his voyage were more voluminous than his biological ones, and information from fossils was certainly very significant in the development of the Theory of Evolution (Lister, 2018). Thus, the origins of geology as a discipline are steeped in observations made in nature. Important educational settings for geology students are field trips with a leader/teacher; collectively participants make direct observations on, for example, the appearance and identification of rocks, their layering, jointing, fracturing and faulting, associated fossils and minerals, as well as their role in the formation of local and regional landscapes. Some geology field trips take place in distant locations, if students are not temporally limited to an afternoon off-campus (which is the case for GEO 204). For an undergraduate student training to be a geologist or educator, field trips can be memorable, even once-in-a-lifetime experiences—especially when embedded in deeper conversations about other social, historical, and cultural facets of the field locale. Today, field trip experiences are integrated into geology courses in many different ways, and educators have documented numerous benefits and positive learning outcomes associated with EL in geology (Cooper, Jabanoski, & Kapla, 2019; Schiappa & Smith, 2019; Wandersee & Clary, 2006). A major goal in the initial development of GEO 204 was to incorporate inquiry-based instruction. This can be laboratory-type explorations in the classroom (“traditional” investigation of minerals, rocks, and fossils in the classroom), or field trips to local geological outcrops around Dayton, examining Paleozoic Era sedimentary bedrock and fossils, evidence of Pleistocene ice activity, and educational and governmental institutions, such as the National Weather Service. More locally, walking tours on campus or to a nearby cemetery allow opportunities to examine the geology of building stones, monuments, and memorials. A variety of different locales have been used for field trips, as I have listed in Table 4.1. The content covered in GEO 204 is also driven by the State of Ohio’s Academic Content Standards for Earth and Space Science (Ohio Department of Education, 2018; National Science Education Standards, National Research Council, 1996). During the final class session, students give a 25–30-minute geology mini-lesson on various content standards

Open access; pull off on hard shoulder, stay safely off the road Admission. Group rate available if register in advance

45–60 minutes

2–3 hours

2–3 hours

West of Camden, on State Route (S.R.) 725, Preble County, OH Columbus, OH

Dayton, OH

Camden road cut near Devil’s Backbone

Challenger Learning Center of Dayton. Operated by Dayton Public Schools

Center of Science & Industry (COSI)

Permit required from Visitor Center (no charge) if collecting fossils on the Emergency Spillway

2–3 hours

Warren County, OH

Caesar Creek Visitor Center & Emergency Spillway Managed by Army Corps of Engineers

Participation fees; reservation required

Admission. Group rate if register in advance

1½–2 hours

Dayton, OH

Reservations, permissions, admission fees, and other details

Boonshoft Museum of Discovery

Duration of visit

Location

Various locations visited during GEO 204 field trips

Locality name

Table 4.1

(continued)

Special (temporary) exhibits have focused on aspects of geology and paleontology Geological outcrops; fossil collecting; dams and flood control. Visitor Center has displays of local area natural history and fossils (Sandy 2012; Shrake 1992) Ordovician bedrock and fossil collecting (Frank 1969; Sandy 2012) A variety of exhibits including an exhibit on dinosaurs that opened in 2017 Students are in Mission Control or in space vehicle and participate in various NASA curriculum missions

Purpose/activity

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2–3 hours

2–3 hours

1 hour

Indianapolis, IN

Cincinnati, OH

Englewood, OH

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis

Cincinnati Museum Center: Cincinnati Museum of Natural History & Science (CMNH&S); Duke Energy Children’s Museum (DECM); Robert D. Lindner Family OMNIMAX Theatre

Englewood Dam, Miami Conservancy District & Five Rivers MetroParks

Duration of visit

Location

(continued)

Locality name

Table 4.1

Free access

Admission. Group rate available if register in advance

Admission. Group rate available if register in advance

Reservations, permissions, admission fees, and other details

Plenty of exhibits to interest educators and see children at play; Dinosphere and other science exhibits CMNH&S has a recently opened dinosaur display (2018) and a popular KY cave exhibit; DECM provides opportunities to explore interactive exhibits and observe children at play; OMNIMAX has earth science offerings from time-to-time Observe flood control and river processes; fossil collecting downstream from dam; MetroParks includes bedrock waterfalls

Purpose/activity

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Free. Displays on the Wright Brothers and flight in the Interpretive Center

Free. Groups register in advance

Above Huffman Dam Railroad Cut

Miami University, Oxford, OH

Canoe livery on S.R. 42, OH

Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center, National Historic Park, National Park Service

Karl Limper Geology Museum

Little Miami River

3 hours

1–1½ hours

Fee for canoes. Reservations with group

Free access; do not trespass on rail lines

1 hour

Dayton, OH. Pull off on shoulder of busy S.R. 444. Use caution

Huffman Dam Railroad Cut

Groups register, small fee per head

1–2 hours

Yellow Springs, OH

Reservations, permissions, admission fees, and other details

Glen Helen, Glen Helen Association

Duration of visit

Location

Locality name

(continued)

Holocene, Pleistocene, and Silurian geology, landforms, and processes (Sandy 2012) Fossil collecting from Ordovician strata (Frank 1969; Sandy 2012 gives details on approaching the site) Park here to visit Wright Brothers’ Memorial and a view over Huffman Dam and Railroad Cut; Ordovician-Silurian bedrock, Pleistocene “Ice Age” sediments, Dayton’s aquifer (Sandy 2012) An impressive modern display of minerals, rocks, and fossils; a valuable teaching resource Canoe trip to observe river processes, landforms, and sedimentation

Purpose/activity

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Location

Wilmington, OH

Fairborn, OH

West Liberty, OH

Columbus, OH

Dayton, OH

National Weather Service, Weather Forecast Office

Oakes Quarry Park

Ohio Caverns

Orton Geological Museum, The Ohio State University

Woodland Cemetery

(continued)

Locality name

Table 4.1

1–2 hours

1 hour

1-hour tour

2 hours

1½ hours

Duration of visit

Free admission. Reservation with group

Admission. Group rate available if register in advance Free admission. Reservation with group

Free

Free. Groups register in advance; if there is the chance of severe weather tours are canceled

Reservations, permissions, admission fees, and other details

Geological displays with a focus on Ohio. Impressive specimens. A recently acquired dinosaur skeleton greets you Geology of headstones, monuments, and buildings, local history. From viewpoints: Geology of the Dayton region, Dayton Flood of 1913 (Sandy 1992, 2012)

Tour/overview of NWS and facility. Observe weather balloon launch at 7 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) Silurian and Pleistocene geology (Sandy 2012] Guided tour: Cave processes, cave formations

Purpose/activity

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topics. These lessons require an inquiry activity to be given to the class, introduced and guided through by the students, which provides an opportunity for students to apply the experiential knowledge gained throughout the course. My personal observation based on 40 years of teaching is that experiential opportunities are much more effective at providing students with a better understanding of content than the traditional in class lecture.

Initial Steps: The Personal Road to Experiential Learning My own geological field trip experiences as a schoolboy and undergraduate student, led by talented educators, are central to my belief that field trips play a central role in the development of future geologists and teachers. As an undergraduate in geology at Queen Mary College, University of London, I was a member of the Geologists’ Association (GA) of London. Since its founding days in 1858, the GA has been an association comprised of both professional and amateur geologists. In 1984, when I was a graduate student, I was invited to co-lead a field trip for my local Essex Group of the GA in the vicinity of Llangollen, North Wales (where Darwin had been roaming the hills and mountains with Sedgewick!). The majority of participants were amateur geologists and a small number were academics involved with organizing the excursion. This experience encouraged and challenged me to interpret geology for non-specialists (e.g., Kastens & Manduca, 2012; Manduca & Mogk, 2006). This experience influenced my approach to teaching for the next 40 years. When I began my work in the geology department at UD, I had the opportunity to lead local one-day summer field trips as part of an National Science Foundation (NSF) residential professional development biology and geology workshop for high-school science teachers. This experience developed into a teacher workshop focused on local geological localities within an hour of Dayton, Ohio over five-day-long field trips. Subsequently, I saw a need to incorporate more inquiry-based EL, both in-class and field trips (Mogk & Goodwin, 2012) for pre-service teachers. After many years of directing field trips on weekends for non-science majors, I wanted to look for a model that could guarantee students’ full participation in field trips with no weekend commitments getting in the way. The practical solution was a longer class meeting time once a week, which would need to be the equivalent of lecture classes plus a laboratory

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session. The following section outlines how I was able to achieve this in my GEO 204 course and integrate it into the science curriculum at UD.

Integrating EL into the Curriculum GEO 204 is a part of the Integrated Natural Science Sequence (INSS), a new general education science sequence approved by the Academic Affairs Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences at UD in 1994. One factor driving the sequence’s content (biology, chemistry, geology, physics) was in helping students develop as informed and scientifically literate citizens in today’s increasingly technologically driven society. In my experience, these goals are best achieved through EL, as Morris (2016) suggests, “high-impact, out-of-class experiences can be transformative; they can help students integrate academic knowledge and real world learning; they can support a more seamless transition from college to a career; they may enhance the development of more engaged citizens” (p. 104). The INSS was piloted in the academic year 1996–1997 and implemented in the following year with the School of Education as an early client (Academy for Educational Development, 2012). The outcome was a more integrated sequence of courses than the previous “pick from the following list of courses” smorgåsbord-type ¨ approach. Faculty development support for the INSS during the early years of implementation included half-day workshops for instructors offered most semesters. A few years after the introduction of the INSS, I collaborated with local-area faculty from southwest Ohio on creating professional development workshops for teachers that promoted the incorporation of inquiry-based EL and hands-on science content in their teaching. The focus of these summer workshops was the implementation of inquiry-based units in local K-12 classrooms, and they included year-round feedback and follow up with the teachers. As a result of these experiences, I turned my thoughts on how to more effectively integrate inquiry-based EL into undergraduate classes at UD, for education majors in particular. I was familiar with the adage that the most effective way of teaching science is by doing science (or words to that effect, e.g., Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation, 1996). I didn’t want to just lecture, I wanted to integrate experiences that typified the kinds of hands-on activities that geologists have during their training including fieldwork.

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Around this time, I continued to see the importance of teaching content-knowledge to practicing teachers. But perhaps more importantly, I realized the need for this content-knowledge for the next generation: pre-service teachers (in collaboration with Project Sustain, Basista et al., 2006). I received curriculum development grants from the UD’s Learning and Teaching Center, and also from the Ohio Department of Education. These grants led me to develop the curriculum and rationale for incorporating inquiry-based EL into my courses, including laboratory sections of the Environmental Track of the INSS (incorporating inquiry into physics and geology laboratories was supported by Project NOVA; Owens et al., 2002), which pre-service teachers are more likely to populate. Clearly, the external support to develop the curriculum of GEO 204 was, in my opinion, critical to convince supervisors and administrators that this was worthwhile—and to take notice. Without this support, the path would have been less smooth and more circuitous. The success and programming for GEO 204 have been enhanced during spring semesters as the course is currently designated part of a cohort-sequence (physics and geology) for first-year Teacher Education students and has received support for experiential components from the Dean’s Office, College of Arts and Sciences, UD (part of “Curiosity In the Classroom,” an Integrated Living-Learning Community for students).

Challenges and Positive Outcomes Not everything is hunky-dory in EL land; my peers warned me about the consequences of being involved in curriculum development. They perceived it could harm my career and be at odds with expectations for professional advancement, in terms of tenure and promotion. Involvement in pedagogical and curriculum developments can certainly detract from what may be more typically “traditional” departmental or unit expectations regarding research and publication, specifically expectations to publish a number of peer-reviewed scientific articles in impact-factor-specific journals. In addition, it has not been too difficult over the years to find colleagues and administrators who do not regard curriculum development initiatives as highly as those focusing more directly on “pure research.” Perhaps that is something of the dilemma of not being at a Research-I university: we are not all cast from the same die, and diversity of interests can bring strength to an institution.

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From 1994 to 2002, I was chair of the Geology Department. This overlapped with the time when I was developing interest and contacts in curriculum revision with respect to science instruction and inquirybased learning. This was fortuitous for me, as I did not have to convince a chair about the merits of what I was doing. I think so much of the successful development of a course is timing and having the right support. If you have an administrator with their own personal biases that they are not willing to put to one side, then problems can loom. For example, “I don’t like classes that meet once a week” is something I have come up against—with in fact no real opportunity to discuss the rationale for this preferred delivery. Fortunately, this bias never came to a head to threaten the offering of the course. In general, ensuring that administrators, from immediate supervisors to those in the Dean’s Office are educated about what the course offers is important, but also a challenge. Another challenge I have faced in teaching GEO 204 is classroom scheduling, since most meetings do take place in the classroom. GEO 204 is a “block course”—occupying a room for the whole afternoon— but only once a week! I found myself and my students relegated to poor teaching space at times. I offer these reflections to demonstrate that having a good idea of logistics and timings for field trips is important and planning is necessary. Students are much more likely to be empathetic if the EL experience goes smoothly. Some scenarios present certain challenges; for example, there may not be a way to preview a group tour adequately, both in terms of content and timing. Severe weather can disrupt an outdoor experience. The fact that GEO 204 may be significantly different in delivery from any other class, science or otherwise, that students have taken can have both positives and negatives. One may be challenging students to participate in curriculum that is different for them and this may elicit a concerned response (“this isn’t what I am used to”). The length of the class meetings can be a challenge especially for some students as evidenced by written student evaluation comments, especially during the early years of the class. Because the class is not simply a series of traditional lectures in which content is delivered, this may well represent an uncomfortable experience for the student. I have learned to emphasize at the start of the semester that if the idea of spending an afternoon on a field trip or content lectures that are longer than usual does not appeal, then a traditional lecture-laboratory option is also available.

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Ultimately, based on GEO 204 evaluations—when it comes to EL, some “love it” and some “hate it” which is true for most of my courses. Recently, I asked students who had participated in past sections of GEO 204 to reflect on their experiences. Their reflections demonstrate the value of field trips and inquiry-based EL, such as the importance of using hands-on learning to making real-world connections: I took your class my sophomore year and thought it was so fun. When it comes to elementary education, you learn by doing. We physically took the time to see real life examples of what we should be teaching. Students need to see the relevance of what they are learning. Over time school can become routine and you forget real life connections. Maura Cullen, personal communication.

In addition, students discussed the benefits of disrupting traditional classroom norms by putting EL experiences at the center of the course, rather than as an add-on: Also, in a traditional class setting (as an education student) we always talk about possible extensions to lessons… but the reality of actually doing them gets pushed aside because of deadlines/other curriculum. However, GEO 204 forced us to make those extensions the core part of class and all information came from there. It was almost backwards - begin with extension and then discuss it. Usually you do the textbook work then maybe get a field trip at the end. Maura Cullen.

Some students remarked on how EL enables students with different learning styles to improve their grasp on course content and how GEO 204 has inspired them to integrate EL in their own courses: I think that the EL opportunities were very helpful in grasping the content in a more in-depth and hands on way throughout this course. I enjoyed going on field trips in this class because it strengthened my knowledge on the subject, and also taught me ways that I can one day use to engage my own students in geology. Maggie Nation, personal communication. I loved the opportunities to take what we were learning in class and bring it to life through field trips. Visiting locations around Dayton that provided physical representations of geological features, such as the Ohio Caverns and [Glen Helen] Yellow Springs, allowed for my potential for learning to be amplified. As a future educator, I loved the inspiration that

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GEO 204 gave me for my own future teaching and how to get students excited about learning! Anna Wolfe, personal communication

Conclusions GEO 204 continues to be a popular choice with the Department of Teacher Education at UD. Additionally, teaching this course has also had positive impacts on other classes I teach. I have introduced similar classroom and field trip activities in all of my introductory classes when possible (McKinney, 2002; Sandy et al., 2009). Overall, the development of GEO 204 has been an adventure. The course has introduced many opportunities to observe, discuss, and interpret geological findings in the field; the power of making observations in the field and discussing in situ is that ideas can be tested and challenged based on observations. As a result, during our field trips, students get to practice the scientific method “in action” and, in effect, become geologists. By incorporating EL in my teaching, it is my hope that these future teachers will also do so, and that their students will have a more thorough and deeper understanding of geological principles. Acknowledgements Thanks are due to many, especially Professor Emeritus Dr. Janet Herrelko and the Late Dr. Diana Hunn (1949–2015) of the University of Dayton Department of Teacher Education; Dr. Don Pair, College of Arts & Sciences, for support in developing GEO 204 and the “Curiosity in the Classroom” Integrated Living-Learning Community; Dr. Beth Basista, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio; Marijane Recob, former Lead Flight Director, Challenger Learning Center of Dayton; the Late Ken McKinney, a Gracious Gentleman who introduced me to the “virtual field trip” activity from Aurora, NC. Sincere thanks to former GEO 204 students Maura Cullen, Maggie Nation, and Anna Wolfe. Finally, thanks to Yuliana and Marie Sandy for their support.

References Academy for Educational Development. (2012). University of Dayton: Documentation of the teachers for a new era learning network case study. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED537240.pdf. Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation. (1996). Shaping the future: New expectations for undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (NSF Publication 96–139). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

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Basista, B., Herrelko, J. M., Nedunuri, K. V., Farrell, A., Mathews, S., Lowell, C. A., … Gudorf, C. A. (2006). Miami valley regional collaborative for improvement of undergraduate science and mathematics. In S. Wagner & S. P. Meiring (Eds.), The story of SUSTAIN, models of reform in mathematics and science teacher education (pp. 169–191). Columbus, OH: Ohio Resource Center for Mathematics, Science, and Reading. Cooper, J., Jabanoski, K., & Kapla, M. (2019). Exploring experiential opportunity impacts on undergraduate outcomes in the geosciences. Journal of Geoscience Education, 67, 249–265. Darwin, C. (1839). Journal and remarks, 1832–1835. In Narrative of the surveying voyages of his Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle (Vol. 3). London: Henry Colburn. Experiential Learning. (2019). Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center, Northern Illinois University. Retrieved from https://www.niu.edu/ facdev/_pdf/guide/strategies/experiential_learning.pdf. Frank, G. W. (Ed.). (1969). Ohio intercollegiate field trip guides 1950–1951 to 1969–1970. Kent, OH: Kent State University Printing Service. Jordan, L. K. (2005). Science inquiry: Is there any other way? In R. H. Audet & L. K. Jordan (Eds.), Integrating inquiry across the curriculum (pp. 43–63). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Kastens, K. A., & Manduca, C. A. (Eds.). (2012). Earth and mind II: A synthesis of research on thinking and learning in the geosciences (Geological Society of America Special Paper). Kolb, D. A. (1984). EL: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Lister, A. (2018). Darwin’s fossils: The collection that shaped the theory of evolution. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Books. Manduca, C. A., & Mogk, D. W. (Eds.). (2006). Earth and mind: How geologists think and learn about the earth (Geological Society of America Special Paper 413). https://doi.org/10.1130/SPE413. McKinney, F. K. (2002). Determining age of rocks and fossils. In J. Scotchmore & F. K. McKinney (Eds.), Learning from the fossil record (pp. 115–125). Paleontological Society Special Papers 2. Retrieved from https://ucmp.berkeley. edu/fosrec/McKinney.html. Mogk, D. W., & Goodwin, C. (2012). Learning in the field: Synthesis of research on thinking in the geosciences. In K. A. Kastens & C. A. Manduca (Eds.), Earth and mind II: A synthesis of research and thinking and learning in the geosciences (pp. 131–163). Geological Society of America. Morris, L. V. (2016). Experiential learning for all. Innovative Higher Education, 41, 103–104. National Research Council. (1996). National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

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Ohio Department of Education. (2018). Ohio’s learning standards and model curriculum for science 2018–2019. Retrieved from http://education.ohio. gov/Topics/Learning-in-Ohio/Science/Ohios-Learning-Standards-and-MC. Owens, F., Phelps, M., Freeman, L. M., Sunal, D., Whitaker, K., Bland, J., … Odell, M. (2002). NASA Opportunities for Visionary Academics [NOVA]: “Creating Change in Higher Education” 1995–2001—Preparing Future Teachers for the New Millennium. NOVA Consortium. Sandy, M. R. (1992). Geologic glimpses from around the world—The geology of monuments in Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum, Dayton, Ohio: A selfguided tour. Ohio Division of Geological Survey Guidebook 8. https://kb. osu.edu/handle/1811/78491. Sandy, M. R. (2012). Golden olden days of the Ordovician, Silurian Seas, and Pleistocene Ice: An introduction to the geology of the Dayton, Ohio, area. In M. R. Sandy & D. Goldman (Eds.), On and around the Cincinnati Arch and Niagara Escarpment: Geological field trips in Ohio and Kentucky for the GSA North-Central Section Meeting, Dayton, Ohio, 2012 (pp. 55–86). Geological Society of America Field Guide 27. https://doi.org/10.1130/2012. 0027(04). Sandy, M. R., Wright, J., Holliday, C., & McKinney, F. K. (2009). “Clam chowder, shark soup, and echinoderm sandwiches”: Virtual field trip to the highly fossiliferous Miocene of Lee Creek, Aurora, North Carolina. An inquiry-based paleontological activity that can be readily adapted for Early Childhood, Middle, Adolescent/Young Adult, or undergraduate classes. 9th North American Paleontological Convention, Abstracts. Cincinnati Museum Center Scientific Contributions, 3, 281. Schiappa, T. A., & Smith, L. (2019). Field experiences in geosciences: A case study from a multidisciplinary geology and geography course. Journal of Geoscience Education, 67, 100–113. Shrake, D. L. (1992). Excursion to Caesar Creek State Park in Warren County, Ohio: A classic Upper Ordovician fossil collecting locality. Ohio Division of Geological Survey Guidebook 12. https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/78494. Wandersee, J. H., & Clary, R. M. (2006). Fieldwork: New dimensions and exemplars in informal science education research. In J. J. Mintzes & W. H. Leonard (Eds.), Handbook of college science teaching (pp. 167–176). National Science Teachers Association. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

CHAPTER 5

Forming Engineers for the Common Good Kelly Bohrer, Margaret Pinnell, Malcolm W. Daniels, and Christine Vehar Jutte

The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) showcases the many effective ways experiential learning (EL) is incorporated into engineering education, including cooperative education (co-ops), projectbased and problem-based learning, service learning, capstone design

K. Bohrer Director of Community Relations, School of Engineering, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Pinnell Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. W. Daniels (B) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. V. Jutte NASA Civil Servant and Contractor, Washington, DC, USA © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_5

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courses, internships, and undergraduate research. EL is embraced by engineering schools as a high-impact pedagogy that deepens and generates academic knowledge, develops professional skills, and enhances students’ ability to achieve Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology’s (ABET) learning outcomes (Kuh, 2008; Swan, Paterson, & Bielefeldt, 2014). In this chapter, we reflect on a pedagogy of community-based EL, which is becoming popular to develop global citizens who are critical thinkers and can communicate and partner effectively across difference. Community-based EL is commonly used in international community development work and project-based courses, and is frequently incorporated into engineering centers, programs, and student organizations (Ermilio, Clayton, & Kabalan, 2014; Payne & Jesiek, 2018). Engaging with community is a long-standing institutional tradition strongly influenced by the five characteristics of a Catholic, Marianist education: education for formation in faith; an integral, quality education; education in the family spirit; education for service, justice, and peace; and education for adaptation and change. Our university’s Marianist identity also contextualizes how we practice community-based EL through reciprocal forms of engagement and transformational educational experiences. These experiences provide students with a better understanding of human dignity and the desire to pursue human rights (Acosta-Matos, Bohrer, & Sakuda, 2017). The School of Engineering is no exception to the integration of community engagement and EL as part of a University of Dayton (UD) educational experience to advance the common good. One of the most notable examples is the School’s Engineers in Technical Humanitarian Opportunities of Service-learning (ETHOS) Center, which has integrated and embraced community-based EL pedagogy for over 18 years (Pinnell, Daniels, Hallinan, & Berkemeier, 2014). Here, we share how we integrate, critique, and advance ETHOS Center work with partners, community-based EL opportunities, and engineering in a global world. Historically, community-based EL has been termed “service learning” (SL); however, in following suit with critical analyses to de-emphasize transactional activities and the savior mentality that can result from SL, we refer to our programming as community-engaged learning (CEL) and refer to our community-based, semester-long experiences also as immersions. In our context, CEL is distinguished from other forms of EL by its (i) intentional contribution to the common good, (ii) a meaningful “experience” that is driven and co-defined by the community, and (iii) an ongoing collaboration with community partners and members. CEL

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includes full participation of students, faculty, and community partners in solving public challenges and leveraging community assets, providing students with authentic experiences that align with both course learning and community objectives. CEL has the added benefit of deepening learning around civic, social justice, and global learning outcomes (Jacoby, 2014).

A Reflective Account of ETHOS I am Kelly and I joined the ETHOS Center in 2018 as the School of Engineering’s Director of Community Relations. My lens for the work we do has been shaped by many key experiences in my EL vocational journey. I came to EL work through a deep appreciation of the value it brought me as an environmental biology student. EL animated my academic studies and provided the opportunity to discern where my strengths and skills met my passions and the world’s greatest needs. Thus, I began my higher education career designing and teaching high-impact EL in the Biology Department. Appreciating a good challenge to grow professionally and personally, I soon joined national scholars advocating for deeper EL opportunities in science education, including inquiry-based learning and CEL (then called service learning). Upon incorporating CEL into my academic courses and leading an international immersive breakout, I noticed my students’ growing depth of critical thinking, ability to apply systems thinking, and heightened sense of social responsibility. About the same time, I participated in a yearlong program to study social justice and Catholic Social Teachings (the JustFaith program), which inspired me to further integrate community engagement work into my vocational journey, and interrogate such work in light of social justice theories. Over the next 10 years, I worked with two key community engagement centers at UD, primarily engaging with local partners using a lens of reciprocity and collective action. My intense desire to continue learning, connect deeper with UD’s Marianist tradition in CEL work, and address ways I was potentially perpetuating injustices through university practices led me to facilitating many conversations with scholars, practitioners, and community. We gathered to co-create a set of principles and ethics for community engagement work and to examine what it means to be a primarily middle- to upper-class white institution engaging with communities much different from these privileged identities. I also leveraged the

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university’s application process for the Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement Classification to adjust our language around “service” and strive for reciprocity and transparency in community partnerships. The critical lenses and prophetic voices that Mitchell (2008), Stoecker (2016), and Butin (2006) bring to CEL work continue to inform my practice and inspire me to embrace the tension, rather than running from the work. I continue CEL work because I believe in its potential to promote right relationships (attentive and responsive to the needs of all, without exploitation, oppression or manipulation, doing “with”) and shape students’ sense of social responsibility and commitment to human rights. I am also inspired by the community members I have worked with, greatly appreciating how they share their passion, dedication to social change, and Dayton community stories with our university community. Despite my passion for CEL, I was hesitant to engage with international service learning (ISL) work. I had experience with forming local CEL practices to avoid paternalism and examine power and privilege, but I was critical of ISL’s ability to navigate these. I heard about instances of ISL looking more like neocolonialism, reinforcing the white savior mentality, and objectifying people. Also, I worried about well-intentioned projects going awry (soccer ball nightlight, broken and unused water filtration systems, etc.) and the expense of international trips for students. Eventually, through attending global-focused conferences and leading a faculty learning community on global-local connections, I was inspired to follow the intense scholarly dialogue regarding challenges and benefits of ISL and global citizenship education (Adler, 2019; Hartman, Kiely, Boettcher, & Friedrichs, 2018, and the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning ). I agreed we must provide opportunities for students to understand the context of other places, transnational or local, and the historical, political, and social factors that drive inequality in the world. I was eventually introduced to the Fair Trade Learning framework (Hartman, 2015), which resonated with me for many reasons. The framework addresses the struggle universities have with designing ethical and effective partnerships and practices, an important piece of the work to me. It brings awareness to the lure of host communities being used as learning labs and host cultures being seen as static and exotic, while also decentering the student as the only agent of change. Lastly, the framework addresses the struggle that communities (and local organizations working with those communities) have in CEL work, including keeping

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community voice central, having ownership of the project, and preventing mission drift. When the opportunity presented itself, I was excited to join the ETHOS Center to assist its expansion with Dayton and domestic partnerships for CEL. Also, the ETHOS Center was addressing the challenges of CEL work and deepening its work with a focus on the Fair Trade Learning framework. The ETHOS Center’s values, foundational framework, and vision aligned well with my values as an educator and community engagement professional. I appreciate the way the ETHOS Center focuses on “projects” as a part of (not more important than) long-term partnerships and ongoing initiatives, which are initiated and driven by the community. I also appreciate that the center’s staff own up to and rectify missteps, are weary of having students work on projects beyond their competence and without community input, and seek honest feedback and ongoing dialogue. To write this chapter, I am joined by three co-authors, Margie, Malcolm, and Christine, who have been instrumental in the legacy of the center. We have also incorporated the stories, thoughts, and reflections of our diverse stakeholders (partners, students, alumni). Due to the methods we use for surveying and gathering feedback, we have limited documentation of first account narratives from our community partners that we can directly quote in this chapter. However, as we continue to improve our documentation procedures, we look forward to future opportunities to include more of the community voice.

Establishing ETHOS The ETHOS Center’s humble beginnings start with Christine Vehar Jutte when she was an undergraduate engineering student. Christine was no exception to UD students craving an intimate connection between their academic studies, their future career, and working to advance the common good. Christine describes how ETHOS was created: Being inspired by Mother Teresa, I felt called to help the poor in India through engineering solutions. To explore this calling, I participated in a campus ministry cultural immersion trip to India in the summer of 2000. I received a fellowship based on the following proposal: to learn how to apply appropriate technology (AT) in India, to work with a rural community to implement an AT project using local resources, and to further

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develop the technology in my upcoming senior capstone design course back in the States. My plan for implementing AT in India did not materialize for many reasons, including my naive assumptions of the required time and communication necessary for effective community engagement. However, the observations I made during that visit were eye opening, making me much more aware of what it takes to develop AT solutions in a culture other than my own. I was also astonished to realize that unfortunate challenges, such as lack of running water within a community, were not purely of a technical nature (meaning lack of resources, design, and labor) but instead, more heavily integrated in political, cultural and economic issues. I quickly realized that engineers need to step back and understand the big picture before helping to address a ‘technical problem.’ India humbled me, but that was good. My newfound humility gave me new understanding and passion – to create opportunities for other engineering students to have similar transformational learning experiences. I shared these reflections with the Chair of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, who encouraged me to form a multi-disciplinary team of students and use my upcoming senior capstone design course to create opportunities for other engineering students. To design what is now called “ETHOS immersions,” we used aspects of the engineering design process, including gaining a better understanding of appropriate technology, researching other organizations engaged in international engineering service, and considering best approaches for community engagement. After this process and many consultations with campus and community experts, we identified our main objective as developing an experience built on partnerships grounded in reciprocity in which engineering students would work side-by-side with communities to co-create technical solutions.

Foundations and Elements for Success Thanks to the efforts of these engineering students, along with the support they found at UD, the ETHOS student programs reflect the philosophy, theory, and best practices of community/university partnerships and CEL pedagogy (Clayton, Bringle, Senor, Huq, & Morrison, 2010; Jacoby, 2014). Furthermore, students’ desire to align with Marianist values of solidarity and building inclusive communities led the ETHOS Center to be one of the first UD examples of grounding CEL within sustainable and reciprocal community partnerships to address grand challenges. To this day, such attention to sustainable and place-based partnerships is one of our priorities and informs what community challenges we work

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on, which students are matched where, and how we prepare and reflect with students. Very early on the ETHOS Center (then called the ETHOS program) identified a set of core values to guide the center’s activities. These core values are deeply rooted in the Marianist character for which our university was founded: (1) appropriate technology—do more with less: make use of local resources without exploitation and co-create sustainable design solutions with the community; (2) cultural sensitivity—respect and appreciate the inherent values of the culture: integrate cultural knowledge into design specifications and develop culturally appropriate design solutions; (3) partnership—develop relationships: live and work within the community, spread hope, and seek to create employment and empowerment; (4) cultural immersion—act in solidarity through community engagement: learn with and from the community; and (5) personal transformation—let the world change you. A recent reflection from an alumnus demonstrates the integration of these values in ETHOS immersions. We highlight aspects of the reflection that demonstrate the core values listed above: I chose to do ETHOS immersions because I wanted to work on meaningful projects in collaboration with local partners abroad [partnerships]…ETHOS showed me that I could combine my love for engineering and human rights to solve challenges with others who are different from me [cultural immersion]. If I didn’t participate in ETHOS, I guarantee I would not be where I am today (conducting doctoral research in Humanitarian Engineering) [personal transformation]…Professionally, I feel that I am a much better engineer because of my immersions. I learned about designing for end-users in low income communities and to carefully evaluate the context in which a technology will be used [appropriate technology and cultural sensitivity].

As ETHOS evolved from a program to a center, several key undertakings aided the success of our EL programs. During the first several years, the university did not award academic credit for the immersions, and only a graduate assistant coordinated program logistics with volunteer guidance of a faculty member and financial support from a department chair. As the program grew to include close to 30 students immersing internationally per year, and as it began receiving national attention, the administration recognized the ETHOS international immersion program as a mission-aligned, distinguishing program providing transformational

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learning experiences for UD engineering students. As a result, the School of Engineering provided ETHOS with financial and personnel resources, enabling the creation of a credit-bearing engineering elective course EGR 330: Engineering Design and Appropriate Technology, development of 10-day ETHOS Breakouts to further support community partners and expand student opportunities, and strengthened collaborations with a variety of campus partners (Student Health Center and Center for International Programs). Lastly, domestic immersions and partnerships were added to the opportunities for students. More recently, as a result of the School of Engineering’s strategic planning process, the ETHOS program was created into a center with a dedicated program facility and expanded staff to include a faculty center director (Malcolm), a program manager, 2 graduate assistants, and a Director of Community Relations (Kelly). With this increased capacity, we have expanded our partnerships to include local community organizations for “Dayton immersions” and are even better equipped to collaborate with our partners in reciprocal ways, including incorporating partner needs and desires into other engineering courses, involving graduate students who can dive deeper into technical challenges, and supporting faculty and student research projects for our partners.

Fair Trade Learning and ETHOS Center’s Programs To assess how we engage locally, domestically, and internationally, we reference recent work by Hartman, Paris, and Blanche-Cohen (2014) on the Fair Trade Learning framework. Their work contextualizes communitybased global learning within the critiques of SL and volunteer tourism movements, developing an ethical framework for evaluation and assessment. We offer some reflections on how our EL programs measure up to the aspirational principles and standards within the framework. Each core principle and standard below follows Hartman et al. (2014) terminology. Dual Purposes This core principle stresses the importance of developing programs with well-balanced community and student outcomes. Alumna Lori HannaMcIlvaine’s story demonstrates how we balance community outcomes with student learning outcomes.

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During the spring semester that Lori was enrolled in the pre-immersion ETHOS course, she also had a co-op experience with a medical device company. Following that semester, Lori’s international ETHOS immersion included working on a variety of solar projects with Grupo Fenix, an NGO located in Sabana Grande, Nicaragua. While living in, working with, and learning from the local community, Lori identified many community assets and desires as well as challenges. One noted challenge was the inability to sterilize medical equipment on-site at any time, which was greatly impacting the local community’s ability to provide health care for all. Thus, Lori leveraged her work experience at the medical device company to explore an opportunity for device sterilization through the community’s asset of solar-powered technology. Back on campus Lori researched solar sterilizers and found that they exist, but could benefit from design improvements; thus, Lori pursued the design and development of the solar sterilizer for her undergraduate thesis. She integrated various aspects of this research into class projects for two required undergraduate mechanical engineering courses and participated in a second ETHOS immersion with the same community. During her senior year, her senior capstone project team designed and tested the solar sterilizer. Additionally, through partnering with business students and receiving first place in a business plan competition, Lori’s team established a small not-for-profit business, which they transferred to the community. Community Voice and Direction Another project with Grupo Fenix highlights the role of community voices directing our engagement with the Sabana Grande community in Totogalpa, Nicaragua. Residents of Sabana Grande rely on several handpumped water stations throughout the community. Without ready access to clean water, many homes rely on simple latrines for human waste management. The resulting challenges, particularly during the rainy season when many latrines flood, require little description and are broadly recognized throughout the community as a challenge to community and environmental health and well-being. Using a process modeled after the WASHTech technology assessment and implementation framework, we collaborated with the community on (i) a comprehensive community survey, (ii) multiple community meetings, and (iii) consultations with local government representatives and

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funding agencies to explore sustainable solutions. Subsequently, Grupo Fenix developed model latrine designs and established a community-based social enterprise to maintain and fund new latrines across the community. The ETHOS Center continues to advise and support a sustainability assessment plan for this initiative with environmental assessment processes directed by local Grupo Fenix staff. The partnership continues with support for capacity development, for assessment of their developing social enterprise structure, and for the development of a long-term, comprehensive public relations strategy. Commitment and Sustainability These last two examples from the Grupo Fenix partnership also speak to the importance we place on commitment and sustainability in our partnerships (Reynolds, 2014) and in encouraging students to continue connecting. From the community partners’ perspective, Susan Kinne (2019) writes: These partnerships [between a village, NGO, and international partners] have created a path out of poverty and dependency for many of the villagers. Just as importantly, not only have many people in the community become more materially secure as a result of these collaborations, but they have become teachers themselves—teachers both to others in the community and to visitors. Indeed, the increased confidence and self-esteem of the community members as a result of these genuinely reciprocal collaborations… is perhaps the best evidence that the changes in the community are enduring and sustainable.

Similarly, our partnership with a Dayton nonprofit, Mission of Mary Cooperative, has evolved from sending students as volunteers or observers to having immersion students working on projects which advance the organization’s net-zero energy use goals. Mission of Mary Cooperative often provides feedback to improve our practices and shares their hopes for our sustained partnership work in the future. We now have many engineering students involved with this partner through various projects in engineering courses, all of which are driven by the community partner’s desire for net-zero energy use and their work to ensure food security for their neighborhood.

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The student-centered aspect of “Commitment and Sustainability” and the standards of “Student Preparation, Connect Context to Coursework and Learning, and Preparation for Healthy Return to Home Communities” advanced by Hartman et al. (2014) advocate for having students participate in facilitated critical reflective practices before, during, and after immersions. This aligns well with EL best practices at UD and helps students engage ethically and effectively, and with our world. We believe critical reflection is key to success. For international immersions, students who participate in EGR 330 reflect on cultural, ethical, and practical considerations for their upcoming immersion. During the immersion, students write a critically reflective photo journal and, upon return, submit both a personally reflective paper and a technical project report. They also engage in a one-day retreat, which facilitates positive reintegration into their home communities and reflective analysis of the structural forces that shape community challenges and engineering solutions in other countries. A recent alumnus reflects, “ETHOS showed me how as engineers we have so many tools and so much knowledge that when combined with human relationships and creativity create a unique and powerful perspective to solve difficult problems.” Dayton and domestic immersion students participate in a week-long orientation before their immersion, a course during their immersion, and attend a post-retreat. The course incorporates similar content to the EGR 330 course and further explores human-centered design, becoming a self-aware engineer, and principles of democracy and community engagement. The Dayton immersion students meet together once a week for this course and incorporate dialogue and transdisciplinary activities, while the domestic students complete modules online, and share project “products” that exemplify course concepts and ETHOS’ values. Both sets of students create an online portfolio for reflection, analysis, and sharing and meet with career services professionals to support continued personal and professional growth. During the post-retreat, students reflect on their vocational journey, as this domestic immersion student reflection demonstrates. Because of the work I have been doing at my community organization, I have learned skills to help me make a positive change in the future. I have been inspired to pursue either graduate school or a doctorate program in order to learn more about water resources and waste water management. I

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have learned so much about a community based, sustainable, waste diversion program and I have also learned a lot about myself and what my future plans are.

While we have found successful ways to deeply engage students in their experience, we recognize the need to more intentionally connect students with resources upon return to continue developing their passion, skills, and intercultural learning. [Funding] Transparency We strive to be as transparent as possible about our budget model and expenditures, which includes being upfront about the cost of immersion experiences and connecting regularly with university units responsible for internal fund tracking. The center pays for all Dayton and domestic immersion experiences (room and board), and most of the international students’ expenses, so many students may not be fully aware of the budget limitations and immersion expenses. Students receive cash advances for room and board and must track their expenses. The domestic and international partners arrange students’ homestays, shopping, and meals; therefore, we are assured that most of the funds (minus flights) are spent locally and sustainably. These practices also reflect aspects of the “Economic Sustainability Principle” and embrace the standard of “Local Sourcing.” Because we partner only with organizations who have a longtime presence in and commitment to the local community, project work makes use of locally available resources. This also ensures more program funds are locally and sustainably spent. Environmental Sustainability and Footprint Reduction Despite the numerous ways ETHOS international immersions are aligned with Fair Trade Learning core principles, there are aspects of the program that are challenged by some of these principles. For example, we send over 40 students and many faculty and staff annually to international sites for immersions and partnership visits. If we estimate the average carbon cost of an international flight to be about 8500 pounds of carbon dioxide, the total amount of carbon dioxide that the ETHOS international programs are putting into the atmosphere annually is about a half a million pounds. Even though ETHOS partnerships and projects are often

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related to environmental sustainability, this makes it clear that our program’s environmental costs are significant and prevent us from achieving full sustainability. Deliberate Diversity, Intercultural Contact, and Reflection We believe strongly in reflective practice that shapes our own work as well as student learning. While diversity in our programming is typically only realized by engaging our students (most identifying as white and middle to upper class) in global communities and cultures different from their own, we mentor students to make meaning of that intercultural contact throughout our programming. While ETHOS international immersions certainly include deliberate intercultural contact and structured reflective practices about diversity, we fail at having diverse student participants for any of our immersions. Of the over 500 participants since 2001, only a few students have been underrepresented minorities or international students. The exact reasons for the low participation of underrepresented minorities and international students are unclear. Potential contributing factors may include low institutional diversity, competing paid opportunities, cultural differences of the perceived value and inclusiveness of the program, and (for international students) travel restrictions and visa issues. Global Community Building Global community building expresses the necessity of striving for reciprocity in partnerships for outcomes of solidarity, equity, and right relationships. Hartman et al. (2014) summarize three orientations of reciprocity based on different meanings of the word reciprocal: exchange, influence, and generativity reciprocity. While most of our partnerships begin with mutually beneficial transactions (exchange reciprocity), many have matured into generativity reciprocity, producing project outcomes that neither partner could achieve without the other. Further, we strive to build a campus community increasingly informed and engaged in achieving the goals of our community partners. This is modeled in our commitment to leverage our resources, and the talents of our students, faculty, and staff in technical research and technology development to meet direct community needs: whether this is water supply design in Malawi or the development of educational engineering modules

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to increase interest in STEM fields. This principle also becomes apparent when we host our global partners on campus to meet their development goals, or when we sustain domestic and Dayton communitydriven projects through connecting partners with academic courses, student clubs, and part-time student interns. Direct Service, Advocacy, Education, Project Management, and Organization Building: A Community-Centered Standard This standard expresses the importance of students being in capacity-building roles with an on-the-ground organization to learn from and contribute to community-driven projects. Many students and alumni share their appreciation for this program design element, as this student shares, Being with a small non-profit allowed me to see how community engagement can be achieved on a local and personal level with appropriate feedback from the collaborators working with us. Nearly everybody living locally appreciates and reveres the surrounding ecosystem, so it was encouraging to see people come together to work towards a common goal with passion and perseverance.

Similarly, an international immersion alumnus reflects, “Working with the locals to make it (a water pipeline project) happen taught me the value of respect, empathy, and diverse perspectives in teamwork.” All of our partners have community expertise and many have field expertise with appropriate technology, sustainable development, or human-centered design. Students feel that the opportunity to engage with such partners has contributed to their professional development. By having students incorporate community voice into designs and co-build nontraditional technologies based on engineering principles, students deepen their understanding of engineering work. A recent alumnus shares, “The program offered an opportunity to gain insights into communities and technologies different than my limited background could.” Such exposure to alternative technologies allows students to recognize the far-reaching effects, positive and negative, of engineering and technology and thus the responsibilities of being an engineer in a global society.

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Challenge and Support: A Student-Centered Standard Although the structure has changed through the years, ETHOS international immersion students are intentionally sent in pairs rather than large groups and stay with host families to better ensure full engagement with, and cultural immersion in, the community. Students immersing with domestic partners are either alone or with one other student and stay with host families or in housing provided by the organization. ETHOS Dayton immersion students are fully immersed in a community-living situation during the summer. The ETHOS Center holds fast to the structure of homestays internationally for three reasons: (1) to prevent the experience from becoming a UD-insular experience, (2) to increase foreign language skills and international/cultural awareness, and (3) to share financial resources as locally and ethically as possible (Hartman et al., 2018). Here is an example of how a homestay impacted an alumnus: To be in a place so different than the US for an extended period of time, living and working with people who live and grew up there and have come from a very different culture and upbringing was an eye-opening experience. You begin to realize how interesting, and diverse the world is, yet how similar we all really are, and how easy it was to become close friends with people who were completely different than me.

Conclusion CEL, whether through immersions, breakouts, or course connections, presents a distinctive model of EL that, despite the ever-present challenges which impact successful ethical engagement, has the potential for students’ transformative learning and empathy building (Adler, 2019). Additionally, the work encourages sustainable global partnerships to advance human rights and well-being. Being aware of the confounding complexities involved in our work and wanting to better understand the implications of our global engagement on all stakeholders, we have found the aspirational goals of the Fair Trade Learning framework helpful for examining the confluence of community partnerships, EL, and appropriate technology. The framework guides us through the struggle to design and offer critically reflective, affordable, and accessible experiences and

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move beyond our tendencies to be transactional-oriented in our partnerships. As our university mission inspires us to educate students with critical minds and compassionate hearts by providing them community engagement and cross-cultural experiences, we take seriously our commitment to build ethical community-based global learning experiences for engineering students. By offering these opportunities in the ETHOS Center, graduates are arguably more effective and influential engineers by having enhanced cultural appreciation, resilience, and self-confidence; a greater understanding of and commitment to civic responsibility; and an increased awareness of the impact of professional decisions on society and the environment. While the intentional, value-based program design and the support of our university community have influenced CEL success in the ETHOS Center, another critical piece is prioritizing and honoring the desires and assets of our community partners around the world. We aspire to base our community partnerships on right relationships, solidarity, and human dignity, and we will continue a priori focus on these partnerships to ensure ethical CEL. This is our responsibility and a necessity as we continue to form engineers for the common good.

References Acosta-Matos, C., Bohrer, K., & Sakuda, C. (2017). Civic engagement in Catholic and Marianist Universities: The conversation continues. Association of Marianist Universities. Adler, G. (2019). Empathy beyond US borders: The challenges of transnational civic engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Butin, D. (2006). The limits of service learning in higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 29(4), 473–498. Clayton, P. H., Bringle, R. G., Senor, B., Huq, J., & Morrison, M. (2010). Differentiating and assessing relationships in service-learning and civic engagement: Exploitative, transactional, or transformational. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 16(2), 5–21. Ermilio, J., Clayton, G., & Kabalan, M. (2014). Villanova engineering service learning. International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, Special Edition (Fall), 334–353. Hartman, E. (2015). Fair trade learning: A framework for ethical global partnerships. In M. Larsen (Ed.), International service learning: Engaging host communities (pp. 215–234). New York: Routledge.

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Hartman, E., Kiely, R., Boettcher, C., & Friedrichs, J. (2018). Community-based global learning: The theory and practice of ethical engagement at home and abroad. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing LLC. Hartman, E., Paris, C., & Blache-Cohen, B. (2014). Fair trade learning: Ethical standards for community-engaged international volunteer tourism. Journal of Tourism Hospitality Research, 14(1–2), 108–116. Jacoby, B. (2014). Service learning essentials: Questions, answers, and lessons learned. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kinne, S. (2019). Paths to empowerment: A case study of local sustainability from rural Nicaragua. In P. Flynn, M. Gudic, T. K. Tan (Eds.), Global champions of sustainable development (Chapter 11). New York: Routledge. Kuh, G. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Mitchell, T. (2008). Traditional vs. critical service-learning: Engaging the literature to differentiate two models. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (Spring), 50–65. Payne, L., & Jesiek, B. (2018). Enhancing transdisciplinary learning through community-based design projects. International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, Humanitarian Engineering, and Social Entrepreneurship, 13(1), 1–52. Pinnell, M., Daniels, M., Hallinan, K., & Berkemeier, G. (2014). Leveraging students’ passion and creativity: ETHOS at the University of Dayton. International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering (Fall), 180–190. Reynolds, N. (2014). What counts as outcomes: Community perspectives of an engineering partnership. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (Spring), 79–90. Stoecker, R. (2016). Liberating service learning and the rest of higher education civic engagement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Swan, C., Paterson, K., & Bielefeldt, A. (2014). Community engagement in engineering education as a way to increase inclusiveness. In A. Johri & B. Olds (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of engineering education research (pp. 357– 372). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 6

The Processes of Reciprocity and Reflection in Service-Learning Pedagogy Roger N. Reeb and Amanda R. Barry

Introduction My reflection upon 25 years of using service-learning pedagogy highlights two interrelated processes—reciprocity and reflection—that facilitate and sustain projects. To provide context for this narrative of my journey, we define the experiential learning (EL) pedagogy of service-learning. Pioneers of service-learning “made their pedagogical home in the field of experiential education” (Stanton, Giles, & Cruz, 1999, p. 4), emphasizing “reciprocity between server and served” (p. 3). With this foundation, Furco (1996) asserted: “Service-learning [is] distinguished from other… experiential education by [the] intention to equally benefit…provider and…recipient” (p. 5). The contemporary definition of service-learning includes:

R. N. Reeb (B) · A. R. Barry University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. R. Barry e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_6

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…course-based, credit-bearing educational experience in which students (a) participate in mutually identified and organized service activities that benefit the community, and (b) reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility. (Bringle, Reeb, Brown, & Ruiz, 2016, p. 8)

In this chapter, I discuss my motivations for adopting service-learning pedagogy and related strategies and initiatives over the years. My work has been dynamic, constantly moving in different (but interrelated) pathways, while sometimes leading and sometimes following the developments in service-learning research. I also summarize a service-learning project ongoing since 2012, with an emphasis on both student and community benefits. Along the way, I show that the development (and expansion) of my work illustrates some central EL themes identified by Kolb (2015).

The Beginning of My Journey: My Motivation to Use Service-Learning When I joined the faculty at the University of Dayton (UD) in 1993, I was not familiar with service-learning pedagogy; however, my doctoral training in clinical psychology followed the scientist-practitioner model, which emphasizes the inherent benefits of integrating research, teaching, and practice. Therefore, when teaching Abnormal Psychology, I utilized clinical experiences to illustrate concepts, and students responded favorably, with some requesting that I provide EL opportunities to enhance their learning. Given their enthusiasm for learning, I honored their request and, with assistance from a friend and colleague at the Center for Social Concern at UD, I arranged a community placement for students. This marked the beginning of my use of service-learning pedagogy, which became a career-long endeavor. My handful of students engaged with the material at a superior level, as illustrated by outstanding academic performance and class participation, characterized by intellectual curiosity, insightful ideas on the application of concepts, and sensitivity to social justice issues. There was a sense of reciprocity: I honored the students’ requests to augment the course with EL opportunities; in turn, they embraced the opportunities in ways that enhanced their learning and benefited the community.

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But was it service-learning that enhanced their mastery of course material, or was it their academic inclinations that prompted them to request EL in the first place? I believed that the processes were synergistic and, because I was intrigued by early research on service-learning, I became a Reviewer (and later Associate Editor) for the newly formed Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. But I also learned—from my readings and informal conversations with colleagues—that servicelearning (and EL in general) remained suspect in some academic circles, and that few studies had examined the efficacy of service-learning. Inspired by students who appeared to benefit from service-learning, I conducted a quasi-experimental study in Abnormal Psychology classes to compare students pursuing service-learning (i.e., signing up for a fourth credit and participating in outside-of-class reflections) versus those who did not. Lectures and exams were consistent across all students, but service-learning students engaged in reflection, which connects experience and academic components in complementary ways that foster greater learning and civic development. In brief, Reeb, Sammon, and Isackson (1999) found: (a) service-learning students and traditional students exhibited similar levels of academic performance early in the semester; and (b) as the semester progressed, and service-learning students became more involved in courserelated service, they showed increasingly superior academic performance relative to traditional students. (p. 66)

In the same year that our study was published, two senior researchers published, Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning?—an influential book that documented learning and civic-related outcomes of service-learning and addressed skepticism about the pedagogy. Research shows that “intrinsic motivation to improve student learning and development [is] the most important driving force for faculty adopting [service-learning] pedagogy despite discouragement from colleagues or their departments” (Hou & Wilder, 2015, p. 5). Based on my early success, I felt a strong intrinsic motivation to continue using the pedagogy. Nevertheless, “Many faculty…resist…civic responsibility in their scholarship because of a concern for ‘how it counts’ or how communityengaged scholarship aligns with promotion and tenure guidelines within the context of the research imperative” (Moore & Ward, 2008, p. 5). However, I knew that distinctions among research, teaching, and service

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were often arbitrary and, in line with my scientist-practitioner perspective, I believed that an integration of the three activities yields the most creative and meaningful work. Further, I was impressed by the work of Earnest Boyer (1990), who insisted that promotion and tenure evaluations acknowledge the value of civic-engaged teaching and research.

Strategic Plans and Initiatives: Pursuing a Dual Research Strategy Although I encountered colleagues who were skeptical of service-learning pedagogy, my department chair and department (as well as University administrators) were supportive of my work, and I knew that servicelearning pedagogy aligned with UD’s mission. I followed my conscience, though I knew that there were some risks. To establish a secure foundation, I pursued a dual research strategy: I continued research on service-learning, which I published in both EL journals and “mainstream” psychology journals; however, at the same time, I continued other lines of psychological research and published it in psychology journals. Consistent with the above strategy, I served as a Reviewer (and then Member of the Editorial Board) in both EL and “mainstream” journals. Finally, I accepted an invitation to serve on UD’s new Service-Learning Advisory Board, which was charged by the administration to institutionalize service-learning pedagogy at UD.

An Initiative to Enhance Reciprocity in Campus-Community Partnerships As benefits of service-learning for students became well-documented, Cruz and Giles (2000, p. 28) asked, Where is the Community in ServiceLearning Research? A literature review by Reeb and Folger (2013) concluded: “There is a significant lack of research exploring community outcomes of service-learning, [despite the fact that] accepted definitions of service-learning emphasize community benefits as an essential element…” (p. 399). After reflecting on this lack of reciprocity, I developed a multicomponent strategic plan: First, I implemented projects that incorporated assessment of both student and community outcomes. Second, I published a book (Reeb, 2006) highlighting service-learning projects with demonstrable benefits for both students and community. Third, in my

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service-learning projects, I made a commitment to pursue the rigorous criteria of psychopolitical validity (Prilleltensky, 2008), which “demands that psychological and political power be incorporated into … interventions” and “requires that interventions move beyond [alleviative or] ameliorative efforts and towards structural change” (p. 116). This is critical, because most studies only report community outputs (e.g., number of people served) as opposed to transformative outcomes (e.g., impacting inequality, empowering people, building capacity in agencies, pursuing systemic change). To incorporate multiple perspectives in my service-learning pedagogy, I embraced transdisciplinarity, the use of “several academic disciplines in a way that forces them to cross subject boundaries to…solve a common…goal” (Tress, Tress, & Fry, 2006, p. 17). Due to a lack of conceptual frameworks to provide context for consideration of multiple perspectives, we created the Psycho-Ecological Systems Model (PESM)— “an integrative conceptual model rooted in General Systems Theory [and] developed to inform and guide the development, implementation, and evaluation of transdisciplinary (and multilevel)…service-learning research” (Reeb et al., 2017, p. 6). With commitments to transdisciplinarity, psychopolitical validity, and PESM, I launched the following interrelated initiatives: 1. Graduate students used PESM as a guide in interviewing staff at agencies (who also relayed clients’ views) to obtain ideas for a service-learning project in homeless shelters. 2. As interviews unfolded, I was invited for a series of meetings (2010– 2011 academic year) with the Executive Director of St. Vincent de Paul (Mr. David Bohardt), who wished to implement Behavioral Activation Program in homeless shelters. I introduced Mr. Bohardt to service-learning pedagogy, explaining that supervised students could implement the project, because behavioral activation is relatively uncomplicated, requires less complex skills, and is used effectively by non-psychologists (even paraprofessionals). 3. We embraced participatory community action research (PCAR) defined as: A collaborative approach to research that equitably involves all partners in the research process and recognizes the unique strengths that each brings…[PCAR] begins with a research topic of importance to

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the community with the aim of combining knowledge and action for social change to improve community. (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2003, p. 6; see also: Minkler & Freudenberg, 2010; Porpora, 1999)

PCAR is research with and for the community, as opposed to research on the community. 4. I worked with St. Vincent de Paul to expand collaborative resources by developing a network of community partners, including: Homeless Solutions Board, Montgomery County Office of Re-Entry, National Alliance on Mental Illness, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous, Hospice of Dayton, and The Ohio State Agricultural Extension. 5. I developed a new course for sophomores, Engaged Scholarship for Homelessness, which examines homelessness from different social science perspectives and incorporates a service-learning component in which undergraduates assist graduate students, faculty, and community partners in implementing behavioral activation at homeless shelters. The course encourages students (across disciplines) to engage in my project early in their undergraduate education, and a good number of them continue work on the project in future semesters.

A PCAR Service-Learning Project in Homeless Shelters General Background Following a rigorous orientation, students work alongside graduate students, faculty, and community partners to implement three categories of behavioral activation sessions at shelters: sessions to enhance (a) self-sufficiency and empowerment (e.g., computer training, job preparation, healthcare access, access to reentry program for previously incarcerated), (b) coping (e.g., stress management, prevention programs, social support), the shelter’s social climate and establishment of rapport (e.g., games, art, music, cookouts). The three categories of sessions complement one another in a reciprocal fashion. For example, shelter residents previously exposed to stigmatizing attitudes are reluctant to request support from students within empowerment and coping sessions

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due to fear of further stigmatization; however, after rapport between students and residents is established during a recreational/interactive activity, the residents come to trust students and readily embrace sessions to enhance self-sufficiency, empowerment, or coping. Throughout the semester, service-learning students engage in reflection exercises revolving around social justice and human rights issues. Approximately 2000 residents have participated in the project, and over 300 undergraduates have assisted with the project, with many of the assisting for multiple semesters. Detailed results are presented by Reeb et al. (2019). Civic Development in Students and Opportunities for Self-Direction As presented in details by Reeb et al. (2019), validated psychometric measures (supported by qualitative data) showed that, relative to nonservice-learning students, service-learning students assisting with implementation of behavioral activation in shelters show pre- to post-semester increases in community service self-efficacy, decreases in stigmatizing attitudes, increases in awareness in privilege, and increases in awareness of oppression. We conceptualize changes in self-efficacy via Bandura’s (1978) principle of reciprocal determinism, which views “…behavior, internal personal factors, and environmental influences,” meaning that “…people’s efficacy… expectations influence how they behave, and the environmental effects created by their actions in turn alter their expectations…” (p. 346) (see review of research on community service self-efficacy by Reeb et al., 2010). To conceptualize changes in stigmatization and awareness of privilege (and oppression), we rely on Allport’s (1954) Intergroup Contact Theory to conceptualized civic-related attitudes related to stigma, privilege, or oppression change with corrective experiences via assimilation and accommodation—two complementary processes identified by Piaget and considered central in Kolb’s (2015) conceptualization of EL. As illustrated in the reflection below, the complementary processes of assimilation and accommodation in civic-related schemas are particularly striking in graduate students who work relentlessly on the project.

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A Graduate Student’s Reflection Given her extensive project-related experience over four semesters, including research, clinical practicum, and AmeriCorps work, Amanda’s reflection is valuable evidence of the impact of this project. She writes, It is one thing to read about trauma and homelessness in a textbook, but hearing about it firsthand makes it vivid, disturbing, and unforgettable. Working on this project has provided a different experience from my past volunteerism (e.g., serving home-cooked meals on streets of Chicago) and employment (e.g., working with adults with severe mental illness in a group home, caring for elderly adults with dementia in a health care setting). This practicum/research experience is different because I have one-on-one (and small group) discussions with residents, and they share their experiences in this “safe space” because of our established rapport. In the shelter, residents often resist expressing emotions due to a fear of appearing weak; however, in our “safe space,” they share vulnerabilities and hardships openly and readily support one another. One resident shared stories about being abused as a child and, starting at around age 10, being kicked out of his house for periods of time as punishment. Although he served in the military for a significant time period as an adult, he has needed to resort to living in a shelter at least five times, and he relates stories of being kicked out of stores (and other public places) for trying to stay warm. Another resident with two small children shared that she was pregnant, being abused by her boyfriend, and just relapsed in taking opioids following a recent discharge from a rehabilitation clinic. This resulted in a report to Child Protective Service. These stories – unfortunately common at the shelter, often involve a turbulent home environment during childhood, recurring traumas as an adult (“revictimization”), discrimination, and legal complications problems (often related in one way or the other to homelessness). Along the way, many of them experience mental illness and/or substance abuse. As I listen to their stories, I can understand why scholars draw the conclusion that trauma, homelessness, psychological problems, and substance abuse are “interconnected in a cycle of reciprocal determinism” and serving as “risk factors for one another” (Snow & Reeb, 2013, p. 119). Many residents do not have anyone to talk to in their life, and some have commented that sharing their stories promotes healing. Many conversations occur within the context of sessions developed to enhance empowerment, coping, or shelter climate. By being compassionate and empathic, I facilitate a “safe space” at the shelter. As a practicum student, I find the benefits

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reciprocal; that is, I learn from them as much (or more) than they learn from me. I reject the commonly held belief that all (or most) of these individuals are mentally ill, addicts, and/or irresponsible/lazy. Many stories reveal that homelessness was not caused by mental illness, addictions, or characterological problems; instead, homelessness often resulted from a “rough patch” (e.g., lost job, health problems, death of spouse, domestic violence, legal complications). Many Americans fail to realize that one expensive emergency could leave them homeless (or perhaps they are in denial). Although many shelter residents work full-time, they can’t afford a life outside of the shelter, due to low wages and/or lack of health care coverage, combined with other problems. This work enhances awareness of one’s own privilege. I don’t have to worry about having clean clothes that fit, good food to eat, a supportive family, freedom, or transportation. Although I enter businesses to take respite from the cold, employees never kick me out or threaten to call the police. Is it because of my clothing isn’t shabby? Or because I don’t carry a bulky, tattered backpack? Earlier, I commented on a resident who was abused and kicked out of his home at age 10. When I was 10, in contrast, I dressed up as a pioneer woman for “Pioneer Days” at school and received an extra recess for passing a math test. I was naïve regarding the harshness of “rugged individualism” or survival without resources or support systems. Reflection on my privilege increased my compassion for others, and it increased my capacity to empathize with underprivileged individuals (and to assist and support them), as they strive to overcome obstacles in pursuit of “a better life.” Introspective reflection also strengthened my capacity to supervise and assist other students pursuing unique individualized studies within the context of our broad project.

The ongoing project’s infrastructure provides students with opportunities to conduct individualized studies pertinent to their own interests and career plans. The following are two examples: First, a graduate student’s M.A. thesis found that, as shelter residents volunteered to assist with a shelter farm, they showed decreased state anxiety. (This study occurred in our collaboration with the Ohio State University Agricultural Extension to develop an urban farm on the grounds of a shelter in a food desert, with over 1800 pounds of produce harvested to enhance nutrition of shelter residents). Second, an undergraduate completed a study on the efficacy of teaching American Sign Language in homeless shelters, and she also lined up resources for deaf residents. Both studies were presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association. The first student mentioned

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is in a Ph.D. Program in Clinical-Community Psychology, while the second is pursuing a graduate degree in Audiology. These project-related opportunities for students coincide with a core EL thrust; for instance, in Kolb’s (2015) discussion of the “Foundational Scholars of Experiential Learning,” he concludes, “Common to all three traditions of experiential learning is the emphasis on development toward a life of purpose and self-direction as the organizing principle for education” (p. 17). Community-Related Benefits and Developments Research utilizing well-validated psychometric instruments and qualitative methodology (Reeb et al., 2019) yields three general patterns: First, residents perceive sessions as immediately beneficial, remarking on activities that include the themes of meaningfulness, importance, worth of repeating, and enjoyableness. Moreover, during their shelter stay, residents perceive our project as contributing to their hope (e.g., “There is more hope when they come to see us. Even the air in the room…seems lighter while…classes are…taught…The day somehow seems better for them having been here.”), empowerment (e.g., “I appreciate the opportunity to…go online to get important things done, [such as] apply for school, social security, & FAFSA…”), quality of life (e.g., “activities…improve the quality of living for…these women…[T]he peaceful atmosphere …is a safe place to forget your troubles a bit…Keeping us focused on positive activities instead of negative aspects of life”), purpose/meaning in life (e.g., “UD Students have been an incredible help to me… This…program has…been a blessing…Because of these amazing people, I’m going to counseling again, I’m in college and I’m doing…a lot better…I’m very grateful…”), well-being (e.g., “These activities are very much needed for people [with] depression… or anxiety…I have been off…medications for…weeks, and the activities… helped me to cope with the lack of medication… Thank you…for your support and interest in…my life!”), social/emotional support (e.g., “Excellent chance to connect with others, chance to give and receive encouragement…”), and shelter social climate (e.g., “students make the shelter a far better place…Brings us together to socialize and laugh…”). Currently, we are pursuing systemic impact by encouraging the broad utilization of behavioral activation in homeless shelters, with plans to collaborate with organizational advocacy initiatives (e.g., American Psychological Association,

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National Coalition for the Homeless, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty). Strand, Cutforth, Stoecker, Marullo, and Donohue (2003) described three categories of principles guiding community-campus partnerships, including principles guiding partnership initiation (e.g., agree about goals and strategies, trust and mutual respect), partnership processes (e.g., share power, communicate clearly, remain flexible), and partnership outcomes (e.g., satisfy mutual interests/needs, enhance organizational capacities, adopt long-range social change perspectives). These principles are illustrated in written comments in letters and conference presentations by a previous Executive Director of St. Vincent de Paul, Mr. David Bohardt. He writes: As the Executive Director of St. Vincent de Paul, I strongly support the Behavioral Activation Research Project for Homeless Shelters. For a number of years, Dr. Roger Reeb and I have worked in partnership on this project. Our project is an ideal example of participatory community action research, because we have collaborated on every phase of the project (conceptualization, planning, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of findings). One of the major reasons for the project’s continued success is that our campus-community research partnership is characterized by mutual trust and respect, shared values (and forward-thinking ideals), shared power, regular communication, and genuine friendship. The project is implemented in the Gateway Shelter for Men and the Gateway Shelter for Women. Due to the project’s documented efficacy, and despite our budget constraints, St. Vincent de Paul has made substantial financial contributions to cost-share strategies to sustain the project over the years… Under Dr Reeb’s supervision, a multitude of students (graduate and undergraduate) implement a wide array of behavioral activation sessions designed to enhance empowerment/self-sufficiency, coping, and the shelter social climate. Our research documents [numerous benefits for shelter residents]…and…enhancements in personal growth for students who assist in implementing the project…Because our project fully utilizes this student service-learning pedagogy, the project is cost-effective. Given the negative life experiences of our guests, the baggage that they carry, the impossibly high bar to qualify for various types of needed services, their job skill deficits, the responsibility for children that many of them carry, their continuing struggles with mental health problems (often complicated by alcohol and drug abuse), and their incredibly complicated and often non-supportive families, what service or program, given our cost

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constraints, is our best opportunity to improve the outcomes for our shelter guests? My answer: the Behavioral Activation Research Project. In my opinion, this project provides a model for homeless shelters in our country. St. Vincent de Paul is highly committed to the Behavioral Activation Project, and I look forward to collaborating with Dr. Reeb for years to come.

Conclusion About 25 years ago, I honored the request of Abnormal Psychology students for an EL experience to complement learning, launching my career-long use of service-learning pedagogy. At the time, I had no idea that service-learning pedagogy would flourish to become a high-impact educational practice (Kuh, 2008) demonstrating numerous benefits for students’ learning and civic development. With a scientist-practitioner perspective, I integrated service-learning with PCAR in an ongoing project in homeless shelters. In general, all aspects of my work (teaching, research, and service) became increasingly integrated and transdisciplinary in nature. Through two interrelated processes—reciprocity and reflection—my work continues to expand and increasingly characterize EL themes (Kolb, 2015), such as action-oriented research, pragmatism, participatory democratic values (e.g., incorporation of multiple perspectives), purposeful development in self and students, change with experience via assimilation and accommodation. I endorse Kolb’s (2015, p. 312) view that, “The challenge of lifelong learning is above all a challenge of integrative development.”

References Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Bandura, A. (1978). The self system in reciprocal determinism. American Psychologist, 33, 344–358. Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton, NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Bringle, R. G., Reeb, R. N., Brown, M. A., & Ruiz, A. I. (2016). Service learning and psychology: Enhancing undergraduate education for the public good. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

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Cruz, N. L., & Giles, D. E., Jr. (2000, Fall). Where is the community in servicelearning research? Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 7 (Special issue), 28–34. Furco, A. (1996). Service-learning: A balanced approach to experiential education. In B. Taylor & Corporation for National Service (Eds.), Expanding boundaries: Service and learning (pp. 2–6). Washington, DC: Corporation for National Service. Hou, S., & Wilder, S. (2015). Changing pedagogy: Faculty adoption of servicelearning: Motivations, barriers, and strategies among service-learning faculty at a public research institution. SAGE Open, 5(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10. 1177/2158244015572283. Kolb, D. A. (2015). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Minkler, M., & Freudenberg, N. (2010). From community-based participatory research to policy change. In H. Fitzgerald, C. Burack, & S. Seifer (Eds.), Handbook of engaged scholarship: Contemporary landscapes, future directions: Volume 2: Community-campus partnerships (pp. 275–294). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Minkler, M., & Wallerstein, N. (2003). Community-based participatory research for health. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Moore, T. L., & Ward, K. (2008). Documenting engagement: Faculty perspectives on self-representation for promotion and tenure. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 12(4), 5–27. Porpora, D. V. (1999). Action research: The highest stage of service-learning? In J. Ostrow, G. Hesser, & S. Enos (Eds.), Cultivating the sociological imagination: Concepts and models for service-learning in sociology (pp. 121–133). Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. Prilleltensky, I. (2008). The role of power in wellness, oppression, and liberation: The promise of psychopolitical validity. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 116–136. Reeb, R. N. (Ed.). (2006). Community action research: Benefits to community members and service providers. New York: The Haworth Press, Inc. Reeb, R. N., et al. (2019). Participatory community action research in homeless shelters: Outcomes for shelter residents and service-learning research assistants. Manuscript in review for publication. Reeb, R. N., & Folger, S. F. (2013). Community outcomes in service learning: Research and practice from a systems perspective. In P. H. Clayton, R. G. Bringle, & J. A. Hatcher (Eds.), Research on service-learning: Conceptual models and assessment (pp. 389–418). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

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Reeb, R. N., Folger, S. F., Langsner, S., Ryan, C., & Crouse, J. (2010). Selfefficacy in service-learning community action research. American Journal of Community Psychology, 46, 459–471. Reeb, R. N., Sammon, J. A., & Isackson, N. L. (1999). Clinical application of the service-learning model in psychology: Evidence of educational and clinical benefits. Prevention and Intervention in the Community, 18, 65–82. Reeb, R. N., Snow-Hill, N. L., Folger, S. F., Steel, A. L., Stayton, L., Hunt, C., … Glendening, Z. (2017). Psycho-ecological systems model: A systems approach to planning and gauging the community impact of engaged scholarship and service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 24, 6–22. Snow, N. L., & Reeb, R. N. (2013). Social stigma and homelessness. Journal of Psychological Practice, 18, 104–139. Stanton, T, K., Giles, Jr., D. E., & Cruz, N. I. (1999). Service-learning: A movement’s pioneers reflect on its origins, practice, and future. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Strand, K. J., Cutforth, N., Stoecker, R., Marullo, S., & Donohue, P. (2003). Community-based research and higher education: Principles and practices. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Tress, B., Tress, G., & Fry, G. (2006). Defining concepts and the process of knowledge production in integrative research. In B. Tress, G. Tress, G. Fry, & P. Opdam (Eds.), From landscape research to landscape planning: Aspects of integration, education, and application (pp. 13–26). Dordrecht, NL: Springer.

CHAPTER 7

Experiential Learning in Sustainability: Opportunities, Building Partnerships, and Student Engagement Felix Fernando

Scholars and practitioners count on education to lead us toward a sustainable future. Addressing complex issues such as climate change, food insecurity, forest degradation, disaster and risk reduction, obesity, and poverty requires citizens who can engage, discuss, provide input, and act while integrating multiple domains of knowledge (Heinrich, Habron, Johnson, & Goralnik, 2015). As Redman (2013) outlines, “equipping students with the skills and confidence to take action and become active participants in shaping their future is of prime importance to sustainability” (p. 5). Yarime et al. (2012) claim that the field of sustainability “aims to understand the complex and dynamic interactions between and within natural and human systems” (p. 101) in order to transform and develop

F. Fernando (B) Hanley Sustainability Institute, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_7

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human-nature environments in a sustainable manner. Sustainability challenges and issues cut across diverse academic disciplines, ranging from natural sciences to social sciences and humanities (Yarime et al., 2012). The departmentalized and discipline-based structure of post-secondary institutions make the effective teaching of an inherently interdisciplinary subject such as sustainability a complex challenge (Belkhir, 2015). “Nonetheless, this challenge is one that must be addressed urgently if we are to equip our students with the capacity and the skills necessary” (Belkhir, 2015, p. 73). Sustainability scholars have pointed to EL as a teaching pedagogy that empowers, engages, and motivates students while helping to break down the disconnect between application and education (Sipos, Battisti, & Grimm, 2008; Redman, 2013). I think this is the critical role that EL can play in sustainability education. EL in sustainability can help students deconstruct disciplinary barriers or integrate multiple disciplinary dynamics to address challenges and issues related to sustainability. For example, addressing lack of food security issues requires an interdisciplinary effort representing agriculture, food systems, policy, nutrition, and business, etc. Sustainability education through the lens of EL exposes students to the need to integrate and adopt an interdisciplinary approach. This chapter will first briefly outline the importance and the role of EL in sustainability education. Then the chapter will describe in detail the opportunities, challenges that need to be addressed, ways to engage students, and evaluate EL in a community-engaged setting. The key ideas outlined in this chapter describe my experiences and lessons learnt from developing and activating a community-engaged EL Internship Program. The Internship Program exemplifies a community-academic (Dayton Regional Green and the Hanley Sustainability Institute at the University of Dayton) partnership that aims to foster EL in sustainability while also nurturing and enhancing local sustainability initiatives. Communityengaged EL approaches are becoming increasingly popular among academics and scholars as a way to expose students to real-life sustainability challenges and contexts. Therefore, the book chapter will be insightful and constructive to a broader audience.

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Importance of Experiential Learning in Sustainability Chapman, McPhee, and Proudman (1995) contend that EL is a challenging, active, and student-centered process that impels students toward opportunities to take initiative, exercise responsibility, and make critical decisions (Chapman et al., 1995). EL exposes students to real-world learning contexts and experiences and could involve any of the following activities: service-learning, applied learning in the discipline, co-operative education, internships, project/team based, and experimental activities (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). Sustainability is a solution-oriented field. EL opportunities allow students to gain hands-on experience linking knowledge to action toward sustainability (Brundiers, Wiek, & Redman, 2010). Linking knowledge to action requires students and stakeholders to ask critical questions (what works, what does not, why?) and give constructive feedback (how could it work and why?). Through these processes, students learn to develop sustainability strategies and programs in the actual context of existing community processes, values, politics, and traditions (Brundiers et al., 2010). EL is an effective pedagogy relevant to developing complex worldviews critical for approaching sustainability challenges that have a mix of causes and effects (Heinrich et al., 2015). As regular classroom assignments usually do not involve collaboration between students and community partners, EL opportunities create a sense of accountability (Brundiers et al., 2010). Transformative learning in the context of higher education requires major shifts in university structures and learning environments to enable critically reflective, inter/transdisciplinary, experiential, and place-based learning to emerge (Sipos et al., 2008). Sustainability education needs to nurture engaged citizens by moving beyond discipline-based knowledge and empowering action toward sustainable outcomes (Heinrich et al., 2015). Therefore, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are central features of sustainability education, which requires active collaboration with various stakeholders and exposing students to out-of-classroom experiences (Yarime et al., 2012). EL helps students bridge classroom learning and real-world applications, which transforms inert knowledge into knowledge-in-use (Eyler, 2009).

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Sustainability degree programs aim to develop key competencies in sustainability, including problem-solving skills, critical thinking skills, understanding interdisciplinarity, engaged citizenry, and the ability to collaborate successfully with experts and stakeholders (Brundiers et al., 2010). Building competencies in stakeholder engagement includes equipping students with the skills and resources to partake in collaborative decisionmaking, mediate conflict among opposing perspectives, and negotiate diverse stakeholder interests (Brundiers et al., 2010). In order to promote open discussion that allows diverse perspectives to be heard and acted upon, the learning atmosphere should facilitate collaboration and community engagement while fostering interpersonal skills (Brundiers et al., 2010). EL is a constructive way for students to develop key competencies in sustainability. However, students do not automatically build competencies when engaging in such opportunities (Brundiers et al., 2010). Brundiers et al. (2010) outline three principles that need to be incorporated into EL programs to be effective within pertinent academic programs: (1) Collaborative design: Each EL opportunity must be carefully designed, and all partner organizations and stakeholders involved need to agree on its various components. Achieving agreement requires time invested in building networks, clarifying roles, responsibilities, outcomes, and expectations. (2) Coordination: EL opportunities should build upon each other. Faculty members should collaborate with each other on integrating preparatory activities into courses. (3) Integration in general introductory courses: Since incoming students are usually unacquainted with the concepts and practices of EL, they need to be introduced to EL models, methods, and tools. By doing so, “faculty members who incorporate an EL opportunity into their courses will not need to give students that introduction nor have to teach an additional course” (Brundiers et al., 2010, p. 320). Through community-engaged EL, students can apply their classroom learning to address a sustainability issue and engage with stakeholders in the community to develop constructive solutions. Community-engaged EL provides opportunities for students to apply theory to practice and builds interpersonal skills for engagement with stakeholders, both of which are critical for sustainability. Community-engaged EL approaches are often place-based so the learning experience engages in the context of the students’ own lives. Engaging students in active and applied learning emphasizes the importance of action and engagement in their lives

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(Redman, 2013). Therefore, it is clear that EL, especially communityengaged EL, has a significant and critical role in shaping sustainability knowledge and skills.

DRG-HSI Internship Program Background Dayton Regional Green (DRG) is a Montgomery County, Ohio organization with a vision “for the Dayton region to be the most vibrant economy and healthy environment in the Midwest to Live, Work, and Play.” DRG is comprised of three pillars: livability, economic impact, and natural resources that represent the people, profit, and planet dynamics. Initiatives of each pillar are activated through numerous action teams: livability (consists of Connecting to Nature, Green Transportation, and Arts, Education and Culture action teams), economic impact (consists of Green Market Development, Waste Reduction, Efficient Buildings and Climate Change, and Health Care action teams), and natural resources (consists of Land, Air, Water, Wildlife and Habitat, and Food Access action teams). Each action team is made up of pertinent public officials, private businesses, and interested community members acting in a voluntary capacity. Some action teams are more active than others in pursuing aims and initiatives focusing on the greater Dayton region. However, planning and implementing these initiatives require research, resources, and logistical support. Hanley Sustainability Institute was created with a goal of a more sustainable campus and community and becoming a leader in sustainability education. Through deepening existing partnerships and developing many new partnerships on and off campus, the Hanley Sustainability Institute works with the University and Dayton community to progress toward the University of Dayton’s mission to work for the benefit of society, and foster the University’s reputation as the “University for the Common Good.” Working with community stakeholders and the DRG Director, I was instrumental in creating the DRG-HSI Internship Program to reinforce local sustainability initiatives while creating EL opportunities for University of Dayton students. The Internship Program is a hybrid EL model

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integrating features of service-learning and pre-professional career internships. The goal of the Internship Program was to reinforce DRG sustainability initiatives through community-engaged EL. The Internship Program was activated as a 12-week summer Internship Program. In the proceeding sections, I will outline several lessons learnt about building partnerships, framing opportunities, program structuring, student engagement, and program evaluation. As the University of Dayton was gearing up to launch a Major in Sustainability, another aim of the Internship Program was to create a platform that can inform and exemplify community-engaged EL for future sustainability students, and to identify the challenges and barriers that need to be addressed in collaborating and working with community stakeholders to nurture sustainability initiatives. The DRG-HSI Internship Program is a good model of communityengaged EL in many ways. Every facet of the learning experience is planned, designed, and activated in collaboration with community stakeholders. It is similar to an internship in that students are using and reinforcing their knowledge and skills, but different in that it is in a community service setting rather than at a specific organization (Mertz & Quesenberry, 2018). As the faculty adviser, I had less involvement during the project implementation, while the community adviser/mentors played a significant role during the project phase. The learning environment was field based, with students working in the community with action team members and other pertinent stakeholders. Finally, for the first two iterations of the internship, there was no defined curriculum. However, the learning goals and the knowledge acquired were clearly defined.

Stages and Steps in the Internship Program Mertz and Quesenberry (2018) present a Consulting Model of Student Engagement. While the EL context described in this chapter doesn’t represent a consulting context, the model presents a starting point to describe the steps and stages in the DRG-HSI Internship Program. Understanding the Background and Recognizing the Opportunities The discussions for the Internship Program between the DRG Director and I started largely because many DRG action teams were experiencing a lack of support and resources in goal setting and pursuing targeted

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sustainability initiatives. While some action team members represent connected organizations that align with the scope of the action team, the voluntary nature of participation presented challenges to time and resources. For example, several employees from the Five Rivers MetroParks constitute the Connecting to Nature action team along with other interested community members. While the aims and goals of the action team align with some programs and aims of the Five Rivers MetroParks, there is no perfect overlap. Some action teams are also not very active because of lack of support and resource constraints. Therefore, there was a strong need for a program to reinforce and support local sustainability initiatives and efforts of the action teams. I also recognized the opportunity to translate the community need to an EL opportunity for University of Dayton students. However, several challenges needed to be addressed before the program became a reality. Developing the Broad Outlines of the Program One of the first things that needed to be done was to establish a MOU between the Hanley Sustainability Institute (University of Dayton) and the Dayton Regional Green (Montgomery County). As the Internship Program entails students working with DRG action teams, many logistical, accountability, and overall resource considerations had to be addressed. Since the focus of this chapter is on EL dynamics of the program, I do not intend to describe the logistical and resource dynamics in detail. The MOU outlined the level of financial resources that would be committed to the program each summer, a timeline, operational responsibilities for all connected parties (DRG, HSI, action teams, and students), and the roles for all connected parties. Framing the Experiential Learning Opportunity and Learning Context Once the outlines of the MOU were established the next step was to develop a call to solicit action team proposals. The most important focus of the call was to clearly communicate to the action teams the requirements of the proposal. The action teams were required to develop a project proposal that would address a local sustainability challenge or nurture a local sustainability initiative and identified tangible impacts. The project scope needed to be achievable and realistic within

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the 12-week time frame. In addition, and most importantly, the proposal needed to clearly outline the EL dynamics, such as the learning opportunities, targeted skills and knowledge, community adviser/mentor, student responsibilities, and how final student learning outcomes would be evaluated/presented. The learning opportunities had to be communityengaged rather than pre-professionally based. The DRG Director and I worked with the action teams to make sure these requirements were clear and to ensure the community-engaged EL requirements were met. For example, one of the learning opportunities identified by the Efficient Buildings and Climate Change action team was: to Gain exposure to a number of Dayton-area private sector companies of different sizes and types all of which provide energy and sustainability services and careers. Job shadow each member of our action team for a day.

As this learning opportunity represents a typical pre-professional career internship, such learning opportunities were not considered within the scope of the program. Instead, emphasis was placed on learning opportunities where the students would work with community members and local stakeholders. For example, one of the learning opportunities identified by the Connecting to Nature team was: that the Intern would gain experience from engagement and leadership within the Leave No Child Inside social movement.

Another learning opportunity identified by the Food Access action team was to Educate the public about best practices regarding food use, including how to use sell by dates, how to recognize signs of spoilage, how to tell when ‘less than perfect’ produce is edible, and when it pays to buy in quantity.

These learning opportunities enable students to work with community stakeholders and gain knowledge on important sustainability focuses such as food waste reduction and benefits of green spaces and was the focus of the Internship. The action teams developed 6 proposals in 2017 and 4 proposals in 2018. However, it must be noted that the learning opportunities of the internships were not linked to academic credit or student learning outcomes of specific courses as there was no Sustainability Major

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at the time. As the University moves forward with launching the Sustainability Major in the Fall of 2019, next steps of the program will focus on integrating and aligning the Internship learning opportunities with student learning outcomes and sustainability competencies. As outlined by Brundiers et al. (2010), co-designing and collaborating with relevant community stakeholders when framing and constructing the EL experience is critical to ensure that the students will be immersed in a community-engaged learning setting and will have the support, direction, and mentorship for successful completion of the responsibilities assigned. The collaborative process reflects “an attitude and approach to working in a collegial partnership” with community groups and organizations “with some humility and respect for their knowledge and ways of knowing” (Mertz & Quesenberry, 2018, n.p.). The community mentor/adviser plays a critical role in the learning experience and ensuring the student gains the intended knowledge and skills. Therefore, it is important to clearly communicate to the community partners that they will act as the community mentor and to clearly identify and define the roles and responsibilities of the community mentor. At the proposal development stage, it is important to ensure the scope of work is realistic and attainable within the specified time period. I worked with the action teams to ensure the scope of work was well defined. Chapman et al. (1995) argue that if experiential education is supposed to be student-centered, the role of the teacher is to provide minimum necessary structure. In other words, the faculty’s role is to give just enough assistance for students to be successful, but no more. For example, the initially submitted project proposal of the Land action team described the scope of work as follows: The intern will review jurisdictions in the Great Miami and Little Miami Watershed to determine the type of zoning for urban agriculture. Accessing zoning regulations of jurisdictions can be done mostly on the web but occasional follow-up with zoning officials may be necessary.

The scope of work statement above does not outline the relevant jurisdictions (cities or townships), the number of jurisdictions that will be examined, what specific zoning ordinances will be reviewed, and what specific information will be collected. Examining zoning regulations of all of the jurisdictions in the Great Miami and Little Miami Watershed

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is an enormous task that cannot be completed within the 12-week time frame. In addition, most students are not exposed to zoning ordinances or what they entail. Accordingly, I invested adequate effort to ensure that what will be done and when it will be done were clearly defined during the proposal development stage. I left adequate flexibility for the action team and the student intern to figure out how it will be done. Therefore, the DRG Director and I worked with the action team to revise the scope of work to pick 10 jurisdictions to examine and clearly outline what specific information will be collected. I also worked with the action team to ensure the intern will be provided a list of resources on where to find the zoning ordinances. Similarly, it is important to clearly define the roles, goals, and responsibilities of the student and to ensure the roles and responsibilities of the student are well-matched with the project description and expected project outcomes. For example, the project description of the Green Market Development team outlined that: The intern will help develop a Sustainability Mentor program to connect schools participating in Bring Your Green Challenge with college students and/or professionals in a variety of sustainability fields. With the help of a Sustainability Mentor, students of participating schools will have the opportunity to learn from the knowledge and guidance of their mentors as they compete in the Healthy Schools Bring Your Green Challenge.

Accordingly, the intern’s roles and responsibilities were outlined as follows: the Intern will help develop the outline for the Mentor program. Identify the network of mentors to draw from; develop the “Call for Mentors” process; develop tools for a marketing plan targeted towards participating schools; and identify various potential programs for students and teachers’ engagement. The goal is to have the mentors identified and ready to go for the school year starting fall 2017.

Once the action team proposals were finalized, they were evaluated to select the projects that would be funded with intern support. Financial constraints meant that not all of the projects could be funded, or, in some cases, the total hours requested could not be funded. I relied on the expertise of other faculty and staff at the Hanley Sustainability Institute to review and evaluate the action team proposals. The proposals

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were evaluated based on several criteria such as the extent to which each proposed project would address a local sustainability challenge or nurture a local sustainability initiative; EL potential of the project (the skills and knowledge the interns will gain); the tangibility and achievability of the project; whether the roles of community mentors and the students were clearly defined; and the educational and leadership training value of the proposed project. Four projects were supported with interns in 2017 and two projects were supported in 2018. In cases where the total hours had to be revised, I worked with the action team to revise the scope of work accordingly. Student Recruitment and Selection Students were selected through a competitive application process. Once the internship details were finalized, I was responsible for promoting, recruiting, and primary screening of interested students. Not having a pool of Sustainability Major students to draw from was a challenge that I had to address but should be resolved with the launch of the Major in Fall 2019. I relied on e-mail lists, targeted communication to potential students, and relevant student clubs to recruit the interns. Interested students were required to submit a cover letter and a resume outlining why they were interested in the internship, how the skills and knowledge they possess could contribute to the success of the project, and how they envisioned the learning experience would enhance their skills and future aspirations related to sustainability. The aim was to recruit passionate students that had some sustainability skills and knowledge, and who would benefit from the EL experience. Applying for the Connecting to Nature internship, one student described in their cover letter: how As an Education Assistant at Beech Creek Botanical Gardens, I engaged with approximately 20 children to help further their interest and knowledge of the environment. I am currently enrolled in the Introduction to Sustainability, Energy, and the Environment course which sparked my interest when considering future careers in the field of sustainability. Through these engagements, I am a perfect addition to the Dayton Regional Green Organization.

Another student wrote that

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I am also currently collaborating with the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions to create a composting site on their Agraria campus. I believe that I would add value to the Bring Your Green project because of my interest in marketing and sustainability and my belief that both are important to create awareness in the community of our responsibility to the environment.

I screened the student applications to ensure there was a good fit and directed the applications to the action team for interviewing and final selection. As the faculty adviser of the Internship Program, the majority of my responsibilities were focused on stages A, B, C, and D outlined above. Project Implementation Mertz and Quesenberry (2018) outline that throughout the internship phase, faculty advisors stay informed about how things are going via status reports, interim deliverables, and short meetings. The faculty adviser is not, however, a member of the team and does not contribute to the project (Mertz & Quesenberry, 2018). I made sure to regularly check in with the DRG Director and when needed with the community mentor to ensure things were progressing smoothly. I also asked to be copied on all the communications related to each intern. Other than that, my involvement was minimal during this stage. At the end of the internship, the interns were expected to compile a project report or make a presentation to pertinent stakeholders. For example, the Food Access intern presented the findings on agricultural zoning for the 10 jurisdictions to the Food Access team, which then continued the work after the internship was over. Project Evaluation, Reflection, and Identifying Opportunities for Future Joplin (1995) contends that experience alone is insufficient to be called experiential education, and it is the reflection process which turns experience into EL. The process is often called an “action-reflection” cycle. As the DRG-HSI Internship Program exemplifies a community-engaged EL setting, it is important to get feedback from both the students and the

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action teams to enhance positive learning and community service outcomes. A form to provide feedback on the program was sent to all the community mentors. Feedback was solicited on project summary, project accomplishments reached, how the intern contributed to project success, the action team’s next steps, and intern evaluation (strengths and areas for improvement). Providing lasting value to community partners should be a key objective of any community engagement effort (Mertz & Quesenberry, 2018). The mentor reflection forms described how the projects enhanced local sustainability and how the interns contributed to project success. For example, the Connecting to Nature action team described how the project contributed to local sustainability, finding that Promoting the Connection to Nature award will help bring nature into our schools, libraries, hospitals, etc.…In the long run, this project will help the environment by nurturing an appreciation for nature in children that will someday lead them to make green decisions for their communities.

On how the intern contributed to project success, the same report noted that Through this process, the intern brought a fresh perspective and helped us perceive how these materials would be viewed from someone not familiar with our movement. The intern also developed resources to accomplish some data management tasks associated with updating our MVLNCI partner list to improve communications regarding the award and other MVLNCI Initiatives.

Exemplifying the success and contribution of the Internship Program, the report noted how the action team plans to pursue interns in future cycles, as Gaining support to continue the DRG-HSI Internship for our Connect to Nature action team is a high priority and will be especially productive if returning interns can be encouraged as the learning curve will be shorter on the front end. Longer term interns will build community connections which are invaluable with networking on promotion and support for the award for award candidates.

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Chapman et al. (1995) contend that the EL process can best be described “as a series of critical relationships: the learner to self, the learner to teacher, and the learner to the learning environment” (p. 233). Experiential methodology opens doors to numerous relationships and develops in the students “an appreciation, understanding, and involvement with ideas, other people, and environments that can be both similar and different from the students’ own experiences” (Chapman et al., 1995, p. 236). Such understanding is critical to sustainability education. For example, one mentor reflection report also noted how the internship experience nurtured an intern’s understanding of interconnectedness and how such understanding would shape future sustainability aspirations of the intern as described below Intern and I have discussed how this intern experience can help his career goals which may include being a college ecology professor. He does see value in understanding the relationship between human communities which influence the long-term ecological systems. I provided him with a positive Letter of Recommendation.

Feedback from the interns was sought through e-mail. However, intern reflection and feedback were not structured compared to the community mentor reflections. Lack of a Sustainability Major and concomitant lack of integration of the Internship Program with specific courses presented significant challenges to soliciting intern feedback related to the contribution of the Internship Program to advancing sustainability competencies. This would be an area for improvement as the program moves forward. Intern feedback highlighted the challenges of community advising when the advisers were volunteers and did not represent an anchor organization of the action team. The Launch of the Sustainability Major in Fall 2019 and simultaneous changes in pertinent community context such as the City of Dayton’s goal to create a sustainability plan presenting significant opportunities to expand and advance the DRG-HSI Internship Program in the Summer 2020 cycle. The City of Dayton’s sustainability planning efforts present an opportunity to expand the Internship Program from DRG action teams to City departments and connected organizations. Since many City departments and connected organizations act as anchor organizations to DRG action teams, this transition or expansion should not represent a major shift to the Internship Program. Directly working with different City of

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Dayton departments to advance sustainability initiatives should provide opportunities to better structure and deliver the intern advising responsibilities. I am currently working with pertinent internal and external stakeholders to address the areas of improvements outlined above, to integrate the Internship Program with sustainability competencies, and to offer more opportunities to students by engaging community partners such as the City of Dayton. The information outlined above and the quotations provided demonstrate the success of the DRG-HSI Internship Program as a community-engaged EL program in sustainability. The stages and steps outline the usefulness of Internship Program and how it can be replicated in other contexts related to sustainability.

Improving the Learning Environment and the Outcomes for Community Partners The DRG-HSI Internship Program exemplifies how institutions of higher education can connect with the community through the use of the institutions’ precious resources (students) for reciprocal benefit (Cardillo, Kuglin, & Holt, 2017). However, the EL experience and the outcomes for DRG action teams can be improved in many ways. These are the next steps and issues to be addressed as the Internship Program moves forward. A. The number of action teams supported through interns is limited by the funds available. Identifying additional funding sources (such as grants) and ways to cost-share could definitely increase the number of internships. B. There was no lack of action team interest. However, it was challenging for some action teams to develop proposals that had a clear community-based EL component, carefully defined community mentor roles, and a structured learning environment. Educating and collaborating more closely with action teams could lead to better community-engaged EL proposals. C. There was limited integration between the EL outcomes of the internship program and the student learning outcomes of specific sustainability courses. As the Sustainability Major moves forward, next steps would identify how the DRG-HSI Internship Program

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could be linked with the Major and how the Internship Program could enhance EL opportunities for Sustainability Major students. This would also enable better preparation of students for the EL experience and would facilitate a structured reflection process for the interns. Structured reflection would help students link experience with theory, and thereby deepen their understanding and ability to use what they know (Eyler, 2009). Once these two steps are taken, the DRG-HSI Internship Program would meet all three principles outlined by Brundiers et al. (2010): collaborative design, coordination, and integration in general introductory courses. D. EL opportunities can align well with and help students achieve key competencies in sustainability. This would be another important focus as the Sustainability Major moves forward. The mentor reflection reports also outlined several skills that would enhance the ability of the interns to contribute to the success of the projects such as grant writing skills and strong PR skills. These skills should be considered in designing course learning outcomes.

Conclusion Sustainability is an inherently transdisciplinary field. While students can learn theories and concepts of sustainability in class, EL is critical to expose students to true-to-life challenges in different spatial and socioecological contexts to build a tangible sense of sustainability (Beard & Wilson, 2002). Based on a community-engaged Internship Program, this chapter details the lessons learnt on building partnerships, framing opportunities, program structuring, student engagement, and program evaluation. The information and the supporting quotations exemplify how the DRG-HSI Internship Program could inform and act as a model of EL in sustainability education. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the DRG Director Lamees Mubaslat and the community mentors. Without the leadership, initiative, and insight of the DRG Director, this Internship Program wouldn’t have been possible.

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References Beard, C., & Wilson, J. P. (Eds.). (2002). The power of experiential learning: A handbook for trainers and educators. London, UK: Kogan Page. Belkhir, L. (2015). Embedding sustainability in education through experiential learning using innovation and entrepreneurship. Higher Education Studies, 5(1), 73–80. Brundiers, K., Wiek, A., & Redman, C. L. (2010). Real-world learning opportunities in sustainability: From classroom into the real world. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 11(4), 308–324. Cardillo, A., Kuglin, C., & Holt, A. (2017). Using collaboration between undergraduate and graduate students as a catalyst for experiential learning in a community-based environment. Small Business Institute National Conference Proceedings, 41(1), 149–166. Chapman, S., McPhee, P., & Proudman, B. (1995). What is experiential education? In K. Warren, M. Sakofs, & J. S. Hunt (Eds.), The theory of experiential education (3rd ed., pp. 235–248). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. Eyler, J. (2009). The power of experiential education. Liberal Education, 95(4), 24–31. Heinrich, W. F., Habron, G. B., Johnson, H. L., & Goralnik, L. (2015). Critical thinking assessment across four sustainability-related experiential learning settings. Journal of Experiential Education, 38(4), 373–393. Joplin, L. (1995). On defining experiential education. In K. Warren, M. Sakofs, & J. S. Hunt (Eds.), The theory of experiential education (3rd ed., pp. 17–22). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing. Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2017). Experiential learning theory as a guide for experiential educators in higher education. ELTHE: A Journal for Engaged Educators, 1(1), 7–44. Mertz, J., & Quesenberry, J. (2018, November). A scalable model of communitybased experiential learning through courses and international projects. Paper presented at the World Engineering Education Forum—Global Engineering Deans Council, Albuquerque, NM. Redman, E. F. (2013). Advancing educational pedagogy for sustainability: Developing and implementing programs to transform behaviors. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education, 8(1), 1–34. Sipos, Y., Battisti, B., & Grimm, K. (2008). Achieving transformative sustainability learning: Engaging head, hands, and heart. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 9(1), 68–86. Yarime, M., Trencher, G., Mino, T., Scholz, R. W., Olsson, L., Ness, B., … Rotmans, J. (2012). Establishing sustainability science in higher education institutions: Towards an integration of academic development, institutionalization, and stakeholder collaborations. Sustainability Science, 7 (1), 101–113.

CHAPTER 8

We Are All Students: The Moral Courage Project as a Model for Transdisciplinary Experiential Learning Natalie Florea Hudson and Joel R. Pruce

The Moral Courage Project (MCP) is an innovative experiential learning (EL) program in which students seek out stories of ordinary heroes at sites of human rights crises in the United States. Thus far, student teams have traveled to Ferguson, Missouri, and El Paso, Texas, to conduct interviews and produce multimedia materials that include traveling exhibits, interactive websites, and a podcast series. In each iteration of the program, we select a cohort of undergraduate students from multiple disciplinary backgrounds through a competitive process to constitute a team that remains intact for at least one full year. Learning takes place in essentially three phases: within a conventional course, while traveling in the field, and in a

N. F. Hudson (B) · J. R. Pruce Department of Political Science and the Human Rights Studies Program, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. R. Pruce e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_8

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project-based independent study, all of which requires a serious commitment of time and energy. As such, the program is a model of EL pedagogy that emphasizes student ownership and initiative. Fundamentally, MCP challenges students to take multiple nontraditional sources of knowledge production seriously; faculty members are not the sole authorities in terms of expertise and information. Further, the research seeks out voices that are often marginalized in the US social and political landscape and holds up those voices as powerful and authoritative. In this way, the learning environment becomes fluid, power dynamics shift, and the education can become transformative. When the learning space opens like this, all participants can be vulnerable in ways that the classroom inhibits. As this case shows, EL can also create an opportunity for faculty and practitioners to be co-learners alongside students. MCP overlaps across multiple areas of EL, not quite fitting perfectly into any of the conventional forms but drawing on several: study abroad (Hopkins, 1999, pp. 36–41), internships (Parilla & Hesser, 1998, pp. 310–329), service learning (Furco, 1996, pp. 2–6), civic engagement (McCartney, Bennion, & Simpson, 2013), project-based learning (Wolk, 1994, pp. 42–45), and community-based opportunities (Mooney & Edwards, 2001, pp. 181–194). Among our native academic areas, EL in the context of human rights education commonly takes shape as fact-finding clinics (especially prevalent in law schools), immersion and travel programs, and role-play exercises (Banki, Valiente-Riedl, & Duffill, 2013; Bond, 2001; Krain & Nurse, 2004; Krain & Shadle, 2006; MarlinBennett, 2002). In political science, examples include exit polling, policy making, electoral candidate debates, and global crisis simulations (Berry & Robinson, 2012; Boeckelman, Deitz, & Hardy, 2008; Brewer & Hayllar, 1993; Kanner, 2007). As we discuss below, experimenting with inter- and transdisciplinary methods compels us to innovate beyond and across these boundaries that mark experiential education more broadly. We begin this chapter by taking note of our privileged positions as white academics employed by a private institution where both experiential learning and human rights education are among the leading priorities for university’s senior leadership. This unique space has afforded us tremendous opportunity to experiment with EL in bold, sustained, and even politically controversial ways. As full-time faculty members in a traditional political science department, we have the distinctive opportunity

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to engage with and teach in one of the few human rights studies undergraduate degree programs in the country. This is not only a privileged space for interdisciplinary teaching and research, but it is also a field of study that lends itself to applied, community-engaged, and/or experiential learning. This teaching pedagogy seeks to empower, engage, and motivate students to connect traditional classroom education with lived experiences; thus, EL provides an intentional process of experience and reflection about the experience in order to develop new knowledge and skills (Lewis & Williams, 1994). In working with students who choose to major or minor in human rights studies, we are constantly working with students to examine how their education positions them for realworld impact. The MCP, which we will examine in detail throughout the chapter, is an outgrowth of this culture and an attempt to facilitate an applied learning opportunity outside the traditional internship or volunteer format. That is not to say that such work does not involve significant challenges, as this chapter will also discuss, but we do recognize that our institutional space, as well as our research and teaching interests, gives us certain access and opportunities that may not be available at other institutions or with other fields of study. MCP has allowed us as teachers, scholars, and advocates to learn alongside our students in innovative ways. We are driven by a desire to keep learning and wade into uncharted territory. We are motivated by our commitment to understand the most egregious human rights violations and provide some sort of response in the form of political advocacy and public engagement. MCP has been a creative and productive, as well as privileged, space for us to experiment and challenge ourselves personally and professionally. While this learning space can be uncertain and emotional, it can also be transformative. We hope that the process of learning—and all the challenges and complexity that it entails—is as impactful for us and our students as the content of the knowledge we actually gain and the outcomes we produce. This chapter begins with a brief description of the origins, goals, and overall process of the MCP as it has evolved over the last four years. Then, we turn to what we find to be the most distinctive features that drive this EL design, and finally, we consider the challenges of doing this kind of work in higher education and on some of the intense issues that constitute the field of human rights. We conclude by considering how EL has created space for us to rethink how we learn, who is learning, and what we value most about the learning process.

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Origins of the Moral Courage Project The program emerged from a collaboration between the University of Dayton Human Rights Center and PROOF: Media for Social Justice and its founder, Leora Kahn. Leora is a photo editor and visual storyteller who pitched the idea for a student-focused initiative that institutionalizes PROOF’s model of human rights advocacy. For over a decade, PROOF has worked in post-conflict zones to document human stories that add depth and complexity to the narratives surrounding catastrophic events. University decision-makers (deans, chairs, and program directors) supported the idea because they saw the potential to meet multiple missiondriven goals: an applied research project centered on scholar-practitioner collaboration that features a one-of-a-kind EL opportunity for undergraduate students and generates a stream of academic productivity, yielding valuable dividends in terms of faculty development. This account may sound transactional, and it is true that certain university, college, and departmental imperatives informed how we went about our process; but describing the bureaucratic decisions that shaped the MCP is simply honest about how things get done in higher education. Now through two cycles, and in preparation for a third, we have developed a model for executing the MCP. Our success hinges on our capacity to position ourselves at the center of a human rights crisis, to confront a polarized debate, and to explore ways to humanize and elevate those individuals working to promote dignity. To pursue this goal, we begin in the fall of the academic year by selecting a site and conducting initial research as well as a reconnaissance visit to the location, for the purpose of developing face-to-face relationships. Simultaneously, we recruit undergraduate students from a wide range of majors and backgrounds and select our team through a competitive application and interview process. Popular majors have included political science, human rights studies, English, communication, and art and design. Creating a diverse team is crucial since our projects have addressed questions of discrimination in various forms. In the spring, the students enroll in a course dedicated to our preparation for fieldwork—time spent learning outside the controlled setting of the classroom where one can directly observe and interact with people in the everyday places and habitats where they work and live. The fieldwork we engage in marries qualitative research methods with a journalistic approach. In class, we focus on concepts essential to human rights

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and storytelling, content specific to our topic and location, and research methods such as ethics, interviewing, and media production. Students explore potential interview subjects and familiarize themselves deeply with the place in which we will immerse ourselves. It has been our practice to conduct a smaller version of the project during the semester in our own city, to practice and implement what we were learning, while focusing on important issues in the local context. After the semester, we spend two weeks in the field, living in and around the community, equipped with audio recorders and cameras, shuttling ourselves around in rental cars. Students work in pairs and student photographers and faculty float as necessary. Teams have pre-identified subjects, but things also evolve fluidly as we meet new people and learn more about the place than we could understand remotely. We conduct interviews in public spaces and in peoples’ homes, with careful attention paid to capturing solid quality audio and encouraging our subjects to tell stories about themselves, their work, and their motivations. Upon return, students enroll in a course focused singularly on production, tasked to work through the materials we collect, transcribe, organize, conceptualize, and design. We produce across multiple platforms and mediums, including traveling exhibitions, a podcast series, websites, and printed materials. While the core work is performed by the student team members with the supervision and assistance of facilitators, these processes also involve additional external collaborators, like audio engineers and graphic designers. Once the outcomes are complete, we promote the work and secure hosts for the exhibit, such as college campuses and public libraries. Our first MCP team traveled to Ferguson, Missouri, in 2016, to learn about racism, protest politics, and police violence from people who had witnessed and shaped the 2014 uprising that followed the killing of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson; the resulting work based on thirty-five interviews is called, “Ferguson Voices: Disrupting the Frame.” In 2018, we assembled a new team to examine threats to immigrant rights on the border in El Paso, Texas. From the fifty interviews we conducted, the team produced, “America the Borderland,” mostly following the initial formula. From round one to round two, we made many improvements to the program, paying more attention to self-care, instituting a journaling program, facilitating daily discussion, and implementing other elements intended to impact team cohesion and guided reflection. In El

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Paso, we deliberately partnered with local nonprofit organizations, and we broadened our faculty team to include a professor of photography. Reflection as an essential EL tool is central to our practice as facilitators. Similar to Yeganeh and Kolb (2009), reflection for us is a technique for learning that involves time for intentional mindfulness, both in meditative terms and in socio-cognitive ways that emphasize cognitive categorization, contextual analysis, and situational awareness (pp. 13–18). Each MCP cycle concludes with writing a formal final report, many productive conversations, and journaling sessions about what we did well and what we could do better. As we prepare for our third cycle, we continue to reflect on what makes it a unique and effective model of EL. We find three qualities that distinguish the MCP, which will provide the structure for the remainder of this chapter: the inter- and transdisciplinary methods we employ; the immersive fieldwork we engage in; and the advocacy component that results from our work. Taken together, these features of MCP embrace the ethics and principles embodied in the notion of “communitybased global learning” (Hartman, Kiely, Boettcher, & Friedrichs, 2018). We hope our approach can build upon this notion and be instructive to others seeking to develop programming of this nature.

The Distinctiveness of the Moral Courage Project It’s important we state from the outset that the evolution of the program is the product of forethought and planning, as well as accident and luck. Reflections on our successes and missteps contribute to the process of improving student experiences and work outputs. With the perspective of two cycles behind us, we have recognized these features are not only distinct but truly fundamental to what the program is and why it has been so powerful for students, faculty, and the communities in focus. In order to retain the personal style of the chapter, the grounded reflections contained in these sections are based foremost on our own experiences and observations over the course of four years working on the MCP. Our assessments of student experiences and outlooks similarly rest on our own observations based on extensive interactions with students also over this time period.

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Inter- and Transdisciplinarity As individual researchers, we borrow and steal from multiple disciplines when considering methodological decisions; so to do this for a different sort of project like Moral Courage was a natural choice. How and when these methods are applied in work differentiates inter- from transdisciplinarity. For our first iteration in Ferguson, we applied an interdisciplinary framework (Miller et al., 2008, p. 46). For instance, we recruit students from multiple majors and prepare the team by studying a broad series of texts, from political science and international relations to cultural studies and communication. Taken together, we are confident that a diverse and dynamic preparatory phase equips the team with a multitude of tools that we can draw upon along the way. We have no inherent preference for the methods of our native disciplines and, as many scholars today, acknowledge how much richer work can be when it crosses boundaries. The crossing of boundaries and import of another discipline to help existing research is what makes the work interdisciplinary. In El Paso, we moved toward a more transdisciplinary model (Klein, 2014, pp. 68–74). Transdisciplinarity points us to the stage at which multiple disciplines become involved. To pursue a line of inquiry from a transdisciplinary perspective requires bringing people from different disciplines around the table from day one. Here, it is critical that multiple disciplines are co-constructing the problem/questions from the very beginning by allowing the ways which problems/challenges (and their solutions) are framed to transcend disciplinary boundaries in order to offer an approach that cannot easily be assigned or identified as one or two disciplines: “to transcend” in this context means more than simply “to cross.” Transcend implies something qualitatively different by cultivating and establishing a new blended approach designed specifically for the problem at hand. As individual researchers, we extend our disciplines in the service of the larger project and even identify external sources of knowledge and authority among community members and practitioners. Thus, we embrace the decentering of authority and the democratization of knowledge and power (Greenwood & Levin, 1998). As political scientists, we recognize the value brought to bear by colleagues in other departments as well as practical skills and approaches introduced by graphic designers, photographers, and sound engineers to interpret and animate the work.

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With this as our preference, we appreciate that real-world problems demand transdisciplinary approaches because nothing in society is contained in one compartment. If EL prioritizes being and engaging in the world—doing work outside of the classroom that has the potential to transform society—transdisciplinary approaches are essential to the process, especially when the collaboration is addressing complex societal challenges (Vanasupa, McCormick, Stefanco, Herter, & McDonald, 2012, pp. 171–184). On a practical level, this means expanding student skill sets. In our case, political science majors learn the value of photography and images, English majors learn about policy formation, art majors learn the power of writing and telling stories with words, and human rights studies majors learn how to conduct ethically informed interviews and audio production. More conceptually, this also involves fostering a certain mind-set to problem-solving that values multiple, diverse, and even contrasting ideas on how we ought to approach “real-world” social problems. Immersion In certain ways, the MCP is like summer camp with a purpose. It is an intense cultural immersion with lasting effects for students. Following fifteen weeks of a structured course, the team spends an intimate two-week period together. During our immersion, we travel to destinations that are not across the world, but far enough to feel remote and uncertain; surely in the case of El Paso, it felt very distant from our midwestern university. In addition to geography, the sites are substantively different from Dayton, where we are based during the academic year, as well as being different from the types of places our students tend to grow up (midwestern suburbs and exurbs). The combinations of these unfamiliar traits and a collective goal are powerful. Sometimes, the work feels a bit unstructured, but it always feels important, making the time our team spends together a central component to the project and the learning. In the field, the students live together, which means sharing bathrooms and making coffee for each other first thing in the morning (we have also learned that sometimes they stay up very late!). Negotiating personalities and sharing space (and equipment and rental cars) have led to interpersonal conflict, though not as often as we anticipated. This context requires students to learn about one another quickly, adapt, and figure

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out how to communicate in order to get the work done. As this environment risks trending toward conflict, we have also seen tight relationships form which warms our hearts as teachers but also, we believe, improves the students’ abilities to conduct this often-difficult work. We facilitate, to some degree, bonding through team-building exercises which include discussions of the day’s events and games that direct students to reflect and share. This aspect of the program we developed is based on the lessons we learned in Ferguson, where we, mistakenly, downgraded the importance of self-care for the team and each of its members in favor of an impulse to cover as much as possible in that two-week period. In El Paso, we made significant efforts to have it both ways: to capture a great deal while also focusing on health, cohesion, and critical reflection. With the extra layer of intensity represented by the work itself—listening to stories of trauma—our immersion is thorough and profound. Finally, there is a temporal dimension to the immersion. The success of this project in large part relies on a long-term commitment to the process by both faculty and students. As noted above, for us the project is at least a two-year commitment—from ideation to dissemination of the multimedia outputs. Students invest at least twelve months, and many are involved much longer. We recognize this is a gift/privilege to have an extended period dedicated to this work. So, the immersion is two-part: a relatively short amount of time in the field and a much longer time immersed in preparation before the fieldwork and production after the fieldwork. The intensity and value of this latter immersion not technically in the field are not to be undervalued. Part of this value relates to the cohesion and closeness of the student team, and part of it is about rethinking what constitutes an immersive experience (Zeichner, 2010, pp. 88–99). Back in the classroom, a new dynamic emerges by virtue of the shared experience and the heightened sense of responsibility to share the stories we collected. Human Rights Advocacy We intentionally set out to create work that confronts dominant narratives that surround contemporary crises related to human dignity, justice, and equality. We aim to lean into the controversy and contribute by foregrounding the voices of people typically left out of debates: those directly impacted and personally affected, yet socially and politically marginalized.

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The goal is not only to complicate the narrative by introducing new perspectives, but actually to disrupt mainstream discourse on the issue— whether that be police brutality, racism, immigration, border security, and so on. Narrative analysis allows us and our students to learn about the power of stories, the negative impact of one-dimensional, simplistic, stereotypical roles and identities, and the ways in which alternative narratives can change attitudes, behaviors, and perhaps even policy (Ackerly, 2011; Gregory, 2006; Pruce & Budabin, 2016; Schaffer & Smith, 2004). Part of the complicating aspect of seeking out various narratives is emphasizing where possible intersectionality and how human rights violations can be experienced quite differently even among similar individuals in the same community. It may seem either arrogant or naive to think that a photo exhibit or a podcast can change the world, and it would be, but our theory of change argues that cultural shifts are possible and that we are morally obligated to contribute what we can with what we have, given where we are. Scholar Brooke Ackerly (2011) describes a theory of change through a “connected activism” approach for human rights enjoyment that is both empirical and normative: “social change happens through collaboration across different skills and roles” (pp. 221–239). Toward this end, we utilize multimedia production for public scholarship and engagement. We have long group conversations about tone, style, presentation, and audience. Are we producing for “the choir,” those already convinced, or do we hope to reach that open-minded cousin? What would it mean to try to speak to that neighbor with the yard sign that makes our skin crawl? Through these discussions, we make decisions that reflect our strategic goals. We attempt to present material in an honest, accessible, and compelling manner, centering the voices of our interview subjects with our own feelings and experiences in the distant background. As authors and creators, we still frame everything, but our consciousness of voice and positionality drives aesthetic choices. These vary somewhat depending on platform, but our orientation generally relies on the assumption that first-hand accounts are the best possible format for veracious, intimate, and gripping content with the potential to persuade. We do not mean to intimate here that our students all share the same ideology or partisan preference, nor that our audience must be bought into our belief system in order to enjoy the material. With human rights as our framework, our basic principle is that all human beings possess inherent dignity that must be respected. Human rights align with multiple and overlapping doctrines (religious, political, and otherwise), but

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there is still a baseline upon which human rights defenders all agree (Donnelly, 2007, pp. 281–307). Once this fundamental value is set out, it is beholden on individuals living in communities to pressure governments to follow through on their obligations to protect human rights. In this sense, human rights provide a framework for action that, while nonpartisan, is not neutral to questions of abuse and vulnerability. As distinctive as these three elements may be, they are not seamless or effortlessly fluid. Rather, because they represent new and novel approaches to educational programming, we are often initially met with skepticism and reluctance. As well, because we are students in this process too, we constantly discover things that we could be doing better. The next section addresses the flip side of this coin by exposing ourselves as fallible beings, learning-by-doing, and, hopefully, improving along the way.

Facing and Learning from Challenges Innovating Across Disciplines For as ambitious as we may want to be regarding transdisciplinary collaboration, there are inherent obstacles, many of which quickly drill down to academic minutiae. These challenges are not insurmountable, though they are the product of institutional rules, processes, and incentives that have developed over time and will take significant effort to reshape. If universities value experiential learning, immersion programs, and experimental pedagogy, as ours does, then changes will have to be made to cultivate a more permissive and more creative environment for transdisciplinary education, research, and in our case, advocacy. For instance, scheduling classes that coincide with or occur in the same location, yet are managed by two departments requires logistical coordination that is above and beyond that which is necessary to deliver conventional courses. Similarly, preparing new courses and developing team-taught approaches demand a commitment of time in advance of the semester to get things off the ground and organized. In theory, there will be less work in the second or third iterations, but we’ve learned that that is not necessarily the case. We must be nimble as this sort of learningby-doing often relies on improvisation and last-minute planning weekto-week. Of course, conducting a course “on the fly” is not ideal, but sometimes it is necessary, and it is more difficult to do so when two other

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faculty members are involved. Moreover, there are finer details about how these courses count and for which majors and which department gets credit for which students. Without overstating the centrality of mundane bureaucratic business, the more obstacles that exist, the less likely new instructors are to experiment and the more work it is for those who do. Driven by the imperative to experiment, failure is a common experience. While “failing fast” is a mantra of the corporate and entrepreneurial sectors, failing in teaching has distinct consequences. By “failure,” we mean to capture various outcomes that can generate negative feelings among the students. For instance, self-guided learning in terms of project work is built on uncertainty and forces students to really think and even struggle with the learning. Often uncertain space comes across to students as lack of preparedness, and our experience suggests that students are not accustomed to less structure and more open-endedness. As educators, we know that struggling is an important part of the learning process (Sofie, Loyens, & Rikers, 2008, pp. 411–427). As students, floundering is uncomfortable and maybe undesirable. Even if, down the road, students will be better off for it, in the short term, frustrated students can be unhappy, anxious, and feel as though something is going wrong. The dilemma for faculty, and speaking from our own experience, in this case is that unhappy and anxious students tend to write negative evaluations at the end of the term. For a tenured faculty member, perhaps some below-average semesters can be tolerated. For junior or contingent faculty, below-average semesters could place their employment on the line— a dynamic that is exacerbated for female faculty and faculty members of color for whom, as research shows, the evaluation process is already fraught with bias (Fan et al., 2019; Mitchell & Martin, 2018). We would not want to create a situation in which only tenured, white, able, male faculty can experiment with EL programs, which means that institutions must adapt their assessment practices. This may include how measures for tenure and promotion are developed and how creative approaches to teaching are valued in their own right, without relying so heavily on the reactions and standard evaluations of undergraduate students. Navigating the Fieldwork Costs and Barriers to Participation The intensity and power of our program have relied on immersing ourselves in a site that is unfamiliar and geographically distant, but there are multiple costs to bear. The first cost is financial. Transportation, gear, and

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lodging for a team of ten students will cost thousands of dollars and even, like ours, when the university budgets for it, there are additional expenses we ask the students to carry, like their flights and food. Right away, by placing a price tag of $500 on the program, we may exclude some students from even showing up to an early meeting. Furthermore, our students must be able to be away from home for two straight weeks, which presumably excludes students with parental or other caregiving responsibilities and students who work full time. We frequently discuss if replicating an immersion experience close to home is possible and this is an idea worth exploring. Being away from home also exacts emotional costs. We travel in May, which means we have all just completed a grueling year, and rather than taking time off, we pack up and work long days for two additional weeks. Students (and faculty) are burnt out. Physical and intellectual exhaustion coupled with the weight of seeking out and listening to stories of trauma amplifies emotional stress. Under these conditions, we must be hyperattentive to the toll taken on the mental health of the students. These lessons in particular we learned following our first program in Ferguson. Thus, we put in place processes to alleviate some of these tensions, including daily discussion sessions, personal journaling, and one-on-one checkins. In addition to students’ health, their work could likely suffer as well, jeopardizing the team’s success. Protecting against both negative consequences is absolutely essential and clearly among the two most crucial responsibilities team leaders have. When this goes well, it will be the result of the relationships built among team members. The heaviness of uncertainty and stress can be alleviated when the team trusts each other. When we can be vulnerable together without fear of retaliation or consequence, we lighten the load for each other. Trust-building begins during the semester, becomes an acute focus in the field, and translates into lasting relationships upon return. For us, this level of trust and affinity with students has generated among the most profoundly rewarding experiences we have ever had as teachers and mentors. Gauging the Limits of Advocacy-Based EL Our core assumption that drives our work in the multimedia space is that, if people hear the voices of impacted populations and learn about the work of “upstanders,” they will be inspired to act to promote human

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rights which can in turn have a cascading effect across society. Upstanders are those who refuse to be bystanders, individuals who take risks to make important contributions in their communities during moments of crisis. The advocacy component of MCP aims to test this core assumption with the stories of the upstanders we meet. The impact of such advocacy work ideally would be assessed at several levels: at the policy level of the particular issues, at the community level where we did fieldwork, and at the campus level including student learning for MCP participants as well as for the wider campus community. Of course, impact is complex and measurement at all these levels would require a much longer-term time investment and financial commitment, and at this point, we have rightfully focused our efforts at the third level. We have experimented with assessment through both formal student evaluations and informal reflection assignments and activities. We do know that our students are being impacted and can keep in touch with them over time to identify how their personal and professional trajectories were shaped by their participation in the program. Assessments show that engagement with MCP shapes career paths for students around certain human rights issues, develops the skill of storytelling for the purpose of advocacy, and created opportunity for students in postgraduate work and study. We also know anecdotally that the MCP project has raised awareness on campus around certain human rights issues that would not have otherwise occurred. We also have heard from individuals featured in our work how much it has meant to them to be included and for their stories to be documented. We receive positive feedback, but that does not necessarily speak to the broader effect we hope to have. We collected written notes from visitors to our first exhibit that provide reflections in the form of brief comments on post-its, but it still feels incomplete and inadequate. We discuss designing and executing an advocacy strategy in which we position our work with activists across the country, in order to focus attention on a policy item coming up for a vote, for instance. Attempting to scaffold the release of work and deploy it with specific political targets in mind would be in line with our mission and would give us a clearer context for thinking about impact. This remains a focus as we plan and prepare for our third project. When our team returned from El Paso in 2018, news of family separation spread from the border and made headlines nationwide. We had collected stories from human rights defenders intimately familiar with the

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issue, but we struggled to leverage the interest and newsworthiness of the topic. We were so moved by what we had learned and so convinced of the value of our materials that we expected to penetrate the media environment with the urgency that we felt at the time. The reality is that breaking through as amateur producers is difficult but also perhaps unrealistic that any sense of impact would be observed in the short term. If indeed our theory of change is linked to cultural shifts, we are committed to a longer time horizon, one which we can influence.

Conclusion As faculty members, we are socialized to believe we are authorities. Our training prepares us to deliver material to young, developing minds. In the classroom, we are the centerpiece behind a podium, sometimes on a pedestal. In our writing, we are the objective arbiters of truth. Our teachers largely taught like this and this is how we learned to learn and learned to teach. With the privileges of job security and institutional support, we can challenge these norms, pushing ourselves to adopt new methods in our research and our teaching. The MCP is a model for transdisciplinary and experiential learning in which we are also students. When we began, we considered the multimedia production element of the project as the core but also as something that was separate from our work as scholars. Increasingly, we are focused on podcasts and exhibits as forms of public scholarship that aim to reach a broader audience and weigh into social issues as a form of advocacy, but still can be taken seriously and considered in the same breath as a journal article (Cantor & Lavine, 2006). As mentioned in the previous section, doing work that is outwardly facing, rather than insular or niche, is so obviously important in this current moment and we, as scholars, have an obligation to contribute. Systems of hiring, tenure, and promotion have not caught up to emergent trends in public scholarship. Junior and contingent faculty bear risks in pursuing work like that described in this chapter and we, as ranked faculty, understand the responsibility of validating and supporting public scholarship. Through this exploration, we continue to develop and grow into these new areas. None of this would be possible without our students from whom and with whom we learn so much. Similar to Fernando, Borello, and Small in this collection, we escape the role of singular authority by decentering our processes. Our learning spaces, on campus and in the field, are

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horizontal and at times messy. We expose ourselves as not only fallible but vulnerable. We do not know everything and so often we are literally studying subjects for the first time in front of our students. It is not uncommon to be emotional around our students. At times, we lack confidence, composure, and certainty. In the moment, we attempt to embrace these vulnerabilities, though it is uncomfortable. In the classroom, we are open with our students about things we do not know, from course content to program logistics. In the field, since we work on a team, we can rely on each other to debrief and share out tough moments. These qualities cultivate a difficult environment for students too, who are used to structured, hierarchical modes of learning. We don’t shy away from difficulties and nor do our students who come to see this is as an exercise in character-building and exit the program empowered, empathetic, invested, tough, and action-oriented. And that points to the most lasting lesson we learn from our students: their passion, youthful vigor, energy, and sense of pragmatic idealism. Qualities that tend to wear away over time get revived, and we learn again why we do this work.

References Ackerly, B. (2011). Human rights enjoyment in theory and activism. Human Rights Review, 12(2), 221–239. America the Borderland. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www. americatheborderland.net/. Banki, S., Valiente-Riedl, E., & Duffill, P. (2013). Teaching human rights at the tertiary level: Addressing the “knowing–doing gap” through a role-based simulation approach. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 5(2), 318–336. Berry, M. J., & Robinson, T. (2012). An entrance to exit polling: Strategies for using exit polls as experiential learning projects. PS Political Science & Politics, 45(3), 501–505. Boeckelman, K., Deitz, J. L., & Hardy, R. J. (2008). Organizing a congressional candidate debate as experiential learning. Journal of Political Science Education, 4(4), 435–446. Bond, J. (2001). The global classroom: International human rights fact-finding as clinical method. William Mitchell Law Review, 28, 317. Brewer, B., & Hayllar, M. R. (1993). An experiential approach to learning about the development of public policy. Teaching Public Administration, 13(1), 19– 27. Cantor, N., & Lavine, S. D. (2006). Taking public scholarship seriously. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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CHAPTER 9

Dinner in the Desert Kitchen: Reflections on Experiential Learning Through Food, Art, and Social Practice Glenna Jennings

You enter the converted warehouse space with a can of beans and few expectations. You make your way past artist studios and, oddly, a tropical fish shop to climb a few flights of stairs. Proceeding down a hallway full of framed photographs, each labeled with a starting bid of thirty dollars, you are greeted by two university students at an art gallery entrance. They exchange your non-perishable good for a green, wooden token that fits nicely in the palm of your hand. They also give you a small, sleeved photograph displaying a can of sardines bathed in late afternoon sunlight. On the back of your gift is a sticker bearing the event’s logo: a red and white can that conjures Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup image and reads Dinner in the Desert Kitchen (Fig. 9.1). There is, however, no kitchen present in the gallery space. A number of guests are awkwardly gathering around a long table with mismatched chairs. This banquet table is surrounded on all sides by art installations

G. Jennings (B) Department of Art and Design, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_9

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Fig. 9.1 Installation of Dinner in the Desert Kitchen II: Just Add Water (Personal Photo from Author)

depicting various foods and landscapes. The white walls have also been largely covered in a warmly toned wallpaper that, along with a worn armchair and antique lamp in the corner, creates a domestic feel in the otherwise institutional space. Upon close examination, you see that the wallpaper offers statistics in the curves of its playful design: “In 2016, 66% of households served by Feeding America had to choose between food and medical care; Fresh produce rescued from stores nationwide in 2016: 1.25 billion pounds” (Weinfield et al., 2014). After browsing art that reflects some of the realities behind this food security data, you take your seat next to two strangers, a professor from sustainability studies and a representative from the local food bank. The organizers have offered you a menu of questions about food customs and practices, which you tackle with your new friends as food begins to arrive. Your green token gets you a steak dinner served on a china plate. You are embarrassed when your neighbor presents a yellow token in exchange for a rather lackluster plate of pasta and salad. You are then horrified when your other neighbor, bearing a red token, receives a frozen spaghetti

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Fig. 9.2 Student-designed dinner plate (Photo Credit: Hadley Rodebeck, 2017)

dinner straight out of the box. She has to ask around for utensils, as none are readily provided to her. As the night progresses, you will learn that your green token represents the affluent areas in historic redlining maps from the 1930s, while your less fortunate neighbors had to make do with colors reflecting the neighborhoods marked as less desirable by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (Nelson et al., 2019). You will discuss how the national legacy of redlining has etched blight, inequity, and systemic injustice into the lands of the city where you live. You will learn that your city of Dayton, Ohio, is particularly challenged with food insecurity (Fig. 9.2). While your main course is nearing the end, you will be interrupted by a troop of students brandishing large serving dishes of rice, beans, and tacos from a local, immigrant-owned business. This final course provides enough to feed both the 16 “special guests” at the banquet table and the general exhibit visitors still in attendance, who have been purposefully excluded from the dining experience that you are now told has served as

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both art performance and social sculpture. You will learn that this Mexican food was provided free of charge, while both a large, national chain and a local, high-end grocer declined donations to the event because it was “a bad time of year.” You will leave the event with your small photographic edition and another image you won in the art auction for $80. This ghostly landscape of Lake Erie will make a great gift, because this “bad time of year” marks two weeks until Christmas. The scenario above is culled from several renditions of Dinner in the Desert Kitchen, an annual student-organized event produced by the University of Dayton’s Art and Social Practice course in conjunction with its campus community partners. Using aspects of both project-based and community-based experiential learning, this event aims to raise awareness of food insecurity on local and national levels. As co-founder of the event, my goal is to place such learning in the service of food justice efforts by working with key organizations that include a local food bank, a developing member-owned grocery store, and a nonprofit organization working to eradicate hunger on a global level. Several years before our first event took place, we formed The Desert Kitchen Collective as part of the first socially engaged art (SEA) course at our university, which is located less than two miles from a food desert. The United States Department of Agriculture defines this term as “parts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas [and] largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and healthy food providers” (“Documentation,” 2015). In 2014, this term was less recognized at our institution, which is largely white and draws a majority of its students from the middle to upper-middle classes. When discussing food deserts with friends and colleagues, both in Dayton and beyond, I was often met with curiosity and disbelief. After all, I had recently relocated from an actual desert near San Diego, California, to the Midwest, where food is often thought to be in plentiful mass production. However, our first cohort of students discovered that Dayton was ranked as the 4th hungriest city of its size in 2012, and that pockets of food insecurity exist within both its poorest and more economically secure neighborhoods (Food Research and Action Center, 2013). We also learned that Dayton bears another troubling distinction as one of the most segregated cities in America, a list on which it remains at number 15 as of 2017 (Sauter, Comen, & Stebbins, 2017).

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In our world, the work of deconstructing white privilege was still developing as the lifelong mission it needs to be. In our world, food deserts were still puzzling and exotic. And any reality that still provokes such adjectives may be in need of an educational agenda that thoughtfully and ethically includes community-based experiential learning. Questions emerged: How might a Department of Art and Design take the lead in establishing a sustainable curriculum that enacts experiential learning (EL) across multiple disciplines within and outside the arts? How might this curriculum effectively engage with off-campus community partners and communicate beyond academia? How can learning across racial, cultural, economic, and social divides be truly collaborative and of benefit to all parties involved? While tackling some of these questions to develop the Art and Social Practice course, I collaborated with sociologist, Dr. Ruth ThompsonMiller, whose focus is Critical Race Theory. We had decided to co-teach and cross-list this course with the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice Studies. Such a roster of disciplines was an intimidating introduction to cross-disciplinary teaching. Yet I had long hoped to more effectively incorporate social justice into my photography curriculum, and we worked to integrate sociological methodologies into our course design. We each faced distinct challenges within a sociocultural climate that increasingly puts large sectors of social groups at odds as we confronted very real historic and systemic inequities. Yet we believed that we share common denominators across sections, and the need for bodily sustenance is one of them. My co-educator and I decided that food could be our intersectional platform to address racial inequities resulting from a system that is far from broken. Our common nutritional needs would help unveil a system that is, arguably, functioning at maximum capacity to deprive roughly 40 million Americans of a basic human right (Weinfield et al., 2014). Below, I will discuss the ongoing work of applying aspects of both project-based and community-based experiential learning opportunities through Desert Kitchen Collective and its annual event Dinner in the Desert Kitchen (DDK). I will detail the challenges and successes of forging partnerships between university courses and community members and attempting to communicate and collaborate across academic disciplines. Along the way, I aim to reveal information about how our community partners, including Hall Hunger Initiative, the Dayton FoodBank, and

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Gem City Market, have helped Dayton move from #6 to #42 on the national hunger ranking in such a short period of time (Food Research and Action Center, 2013).

Defining Goals, Laying Groundwork While designing the 2014 Art and Social Practice course with my sociology colleague, we were still struggling to populate a course on a subject which many students and faculty knew little about. SEA, whether as genre or process, often resists categorial definition. In general, social practice art, a term I use interchangeably with SEA for the purposes of this chapter, functions through “collaboration, participation, dialogue, provocation and immersive experiences [as] organizations seek to embed themselves within the communities among whom they work” (Froggett, Little, Roy, & Whitaker, 2011). This trend has been labeled the “Social Turn” in contemporary art and reflects a shift by which artists are often critiqued based on the ethics and inclusiveness of their collaborations, rather than solely on the quality of an artistic product (Bishop, 2006). While SEA practices emerge from an established historical framework of socially motivated avant-garde creative practices, their focus on social encounters, human togetherness, and dialogical exchange challenge conventional notions of art (Kester, 2004). This focus on community inclusiveness also has its detractors, many of whom see no difference between SEA and social work or activism. Others contend that community inclusion is a weak critical basis for defining and evaluating art, and that SEA often produces “feel good” works with little capacity for demonstrable impact (Bishop, 2012). For my purposes as both artist and educator, I see the value in a creative social engagement that may highlight process over product in the act of establishing relationships between my students and outside communities. As one of my recent Art and Social Practice students aptly stated, “I have found that there is a strong emphasis on process in social practice art. This makes it very difficult to identify beginnings and ends. It’s hard to categorize the final destination in this type of artwork because the act of engaging in community action is often the art itself.” Establishing a concrete issue through which to address the potential, open-ended applications for project-based social practice art is (the subject is Establishing) crucial for getting students to appreciate this emphasis on process. When we brought to our first small group of four passionate art

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students the idea of focusing on food insecurity, they were given several weeks to propose other themes. The student to professor ratio of this first cohort allowed us to establish a rapport of trust and mutual understanding on a more intimate level than has often been possible in subsequent courses. Thus, we were able to spend time on deep discussion around a multitude of SEA case studies, while also introducing theoretical and historical ideas connecting art and sociology through key texts and readings. On concluding this introductory work, the students agreed on food justice. We then collaboratively formed Desert Kitchen Collective, which has become a loose, non-hierarchical coalition of students, educators, and advocates striving for food justice in our region. One of our students coined our preliminary project title “Conflict Kitchen: the Desert Front,” which derived from Pittsburgh’s Conflict Kitchen, “a restaurant that serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict” (“About,” 2019). The precedent communicated easily, as the University of Dayton has a long history of addressing human rights on an international scale. We also have many programs that mobilize students in efforts of community-engaged or service learning on local and regional levels. However, we felt that, in general, academic institutions often focus on the “over there” rather than the “right here at home.” In efforts to direct our creative vision, we collaborated with a third art and design faculty member, Issa Randall, whose multimedia artwork addresses race and identity with emphasis on local contexts. While students conducted interviews in the field under sociological mentorship, the artist educators helped the group apply this social science data and discovery to more open-ended art and design production. The field interviews provided the students with community-based learning in off-campus locations, where they were able to discuss the experiences of local residents whose lack of private transportation results in lengthy bus trips to grocery stores and limited nutritional choices. Several of the participants discussed their diets and related health issues with the students, providing context beyond what could be grasped from readings and statistics. Working in the art studio provided experiential training with photographic equipment that helped us produce content for The Corner Market Report, a student-produced zine that showcased their research in the form of journalistic stories and visual essays. In short, the first year served as an incubator for what would become Dinner in the Desert Kitchen. Rather than taking immediate action to visually represent individuals in at-risk

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communities, our classroom-based collective focused inwardly on research and object-based art making that could help raise awareness within our campus community. As instructors, we felt the need to establish relationships with outside partners before beginning deeper fieldwork that would put students in contact with vulnerable populations. However, the students’ fieldwork collecting data in the community through interviews and observation has become a key component of our community-based experiential learning approach. Their teamwork in producing and integrating SEA and design toward a cohesive product for public distribution, such as the zine, reflects our ongoing approach to project-based learning. One former student, now attending graduate school for art after working with Teach for America, states: Mini-group projects in an average undergraduate class are not enough to give students a real sense of what it is like to work with others on longterm, collaborative goals. Contributing to the genesis of a project helped us collectively understand the stakes and the big picture as we planned, brainstormed, argued, and shared successes as a class. In my experiences since graduating, this class presented a closer picture of what it is like working in grassroots community organizing than any other course. It not only gave me a realistic understanding of the process of social practice, but also demonstrated how to contribute to the beginning of a legacy. This was not just a semester-long school project; it was going to continue after we left and ideally have a real impact on the surrounding community. Thus we had to make sure our approach, newsletters, ethics, and branding could be a sustainable model.

Below I will address how working across further disciplines has helped us develop the ongoing model that the first cohort member mentions.

A Transdisciplinary Model: Working Both Across Disciplines and Outside the Institution Art departments have traditionally been sites of experiential learning that involve hands-on skill development; drawing, painting, and other studio works occur with the instructor as an active observer and critic. The process of critiquing artworks involves a participatory model, in which students observe, critique, and reflect on one another’s artworks in open conversation. There are a number of models and styles involved in the

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critique process, but most of these are generally new to students participating from outside the arts. This classroom-based experiential approach in my own discipline does not wholly constitute the kind of community-based work we do with socially engaged art, which involves moving outside the confines of a peer group housed safely within the white walls of its studio. However, it does situate experienced art majors and their educators with potential to succeed in the communicative, interpersonal approaches required by certain socially engaged fieldwork. Additionally, artists are generally accustomed to borrowing from other disciplines in order to research and produce their artwork. Art projects which can, one might argue, draw from a vast array of topics and disciplines. Within interdisciplinary art practices, artists often import ideas and methodologies from other sources, exporting products but not skills or processes back to the supplier. We often develop effective relationships with our suppliers and exchange ideas openly through interdisciplinarity, but we do not trade places in the exchange. In many cases, this import/export model is effective for conducting experiential learning in the arts, even when co-teaching across disciplines, because the expertise and skills of the respective source disciplines remain intact. We borrow and learn from one another before returning to our respective disciplinary homes to complete the work. Dinner in the Desert Kitchen began with, and continues to apply, such an interdisciplinary model. However, as we gain further experience with academic collaborators and trust from community partners, opportunities emerge to both import and export ideas, methodologies, time, and labor. I consider this to be work toward a transdisciplinary model, another term that is applied widely with a range of working definitions branching out from Jean Piaget’s coining of the word in 1970 (Bernstein, 2015). In general, transdisciplinary work “seek[s] a transcendence of disciplinary perspective into a broader framework…that involves practical engagement with ‘local and regional issues of concern’” (Stock & Burton, 2011). Drawing from several working models, I favor those which see transcending academia in order to work directly with non-university-affiliated partners and organizations as integral to transdisciplinarity. Of course, the work of sustaining community partnerships resides with the educators, as the students complete the course, graduate, and move on. However, we have found that many students go on to collaborate with our partners through other courses, as food justice has become a prevalent theme in a

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range of disciplines at our university. As another student from the most recent cohort comments: I find that my experiences within Art and Social Practice transcend beyond the walls and framework of the classroom and the events put on through the course. As a current student in a sociology Food Justice course, I continue to work alongside Gem City Market…my experiences working directly with Dinner in the Desert Kitchen provided me with a foundation to not only explore more areas myself, but also to encourage others to get involved.

A Pedagogical Framework: Socially Engaged Art and Food Our decision to use food as a common denominator is by no means novel. Artists have used food as a formal medium and/or a conceptual means for centuries, with modernism, conceptual art, and various forms of sociallyengaged genres instilling food-based art with its current status as a catalyst for social performance, political commentary, and/or community exchange (Bottinelli & D’Ayala Valva, 2017). As the stuff of everyday life, events around food offer fuel to institutional critique, and questioning systems of power is important to our project. In the past, one major target of such critique was the art museum itself, which represented elitism and conformism, and continues to lack representation from marginalized communities. Museums in the west have responded to the continuing upsurge in socially-minded art practices with community outreach and exhibitions that highlight social issues or feature social practice artists (Carrigan, 2017). One such event was Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art, which took place at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art in 2012, traveling to several other US sites through 2015. According to FEAST curator Stephanie Smith, these food-based works result both from and in …a tangible shift in social practice toward a reengagement with the (formerly dismissed) gallery or museum. This newfound, if belated, receptiveness on the part of the institutions to work in such an open-ended, collaborative manner is not only a reflection of social art’s undeniable momentum in an age of global calamity, but also of the efforts of a generation of mostly European curators connected with what came to be known as the “new institutionalism.” (Smith, 2013)

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This term reflects a moving away from the traditional, self-contained exhibit and toward a model in which the exhibition was also conceived as a social project and operated alongside discursive events, film programs…integrated libraries and books shops as well as journals, reading groups, online displays…and residences. The uses of these formats remain adaptable and open to change: production, presentation and reception/criticism were not successive and separate activities; they happened simultaneously and frequently intersected. (Koln & Flückiger, 2013)

One result of this new institutional approach has been the growth of artists serving as curators and forming their own galleries and collectives to forge spaces outside the saturated art market. To achieve this type of project, the University of Dayton supported the Department of Art and Design’s acquisition of an art space in the warehouse mentioned in the introduction. The space is a traditional white-walled gallery used solely to display student work in a public venue off-campus. The site is located near Downtown Dayton and attracts a diverse public demographic to its monthly open studios and special events. For studio art courses, it provides vocational learning as students learn to produce and promote their own exhibitions, while interfacing with the public and preparing work for sale. Our social practice course also offers this opportunity to art students. However, our emphasis on community relationships rather than the art market aims to attract and include wider audiences through community-based rather than strictly vocational learning. Again, food serves as a common denominator among a wider array of potential collaborators and often helps to engage more reluctant participants in difficult conversations around polemic social issues at our annual event.

Project-Based Learning in Action: from Borders to Bridges, an Event Narrative Since our first public exhibition, art auction, and dinner performance in 2016, we have moved from working with two academic courses and a single community partner toward developing a network of relationships with additional organizations and individuals in the food justice community. More recently, we have also moved deliberately toward highlighting

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the assets and contributions of our local immigrant communities, a narrative that emerged when free rice and beans fed the hungry guests at our inaugural event. The focus on food in Art and Social Practice has become central to the course, as students now often enroll expecting to address this topic. Thus, we can also open up to connecting new themes and directions. Over three events, which have included collaborating with a studio art course and a class on sustainability and eco-art, we have established the following elements as central to the annual event: • Dinner Performance: A set group of “special guests” (14–18 volunteers or invitees from diverse sectors of the campus and community) are invited to dine in the gallery with a menu that reflects our theme, highlights systemic inequities in food systems, and/or celebrates local cuisine. • Art Exhibition: Student-produced works are integrated into a multimedia gallery installation that highlights photography, but also includes interactive and participatory artworks. The exhibition serves as the periphery to the dinner performance, where a general audience may observe the table as another piece in the overall exhibition. • Art Auction: Student photography from both art and non-art majors is curated into a silent auction with all proceeds to benefit a community partner. The works are selected in a process that involves both faculty and students, while students oversee the process during the event. • Collaboration with Studio-Photography Course: Students in Professor Julie Jone’s upper-level photography course Digital Processes II contribute artwork to our exhibition and auction based on assignments that relate to our annual theme. The two courses meet for critiques and curatorial planning several times during the semester. • Ceramics Component: Through a collaboration with fine arts professor Geno Luketic, our annual dinner is served on dishes that bear thematic student designs from graphic design majors who work with the ceramics professor and, when possible, his ceramics students. In order to consolidate a complicated project with many moving parts, I will focus on the process behind the 2018 event, Dinner in the Desert Kitchen III: From Borders to Bridges.

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In 2017, I was involved in separate projects addressing issues at the US-Mexico border and became an active member of Latinos Unidos, a local alliance united to support the local LatinX. Latinos Unidos is affiliated with Welcome Dayton, a nonprofit organization that “promotes immigrant integration into the greater Dayton region by encouraging business and economic development; providing access to education, government, health and social services; ensuring equity in the justice system; and promoting an appreciation of arts and culture” (“What is Welcome Dayton,” 2015). My work in this realm inevitably touched my role as an educator, and we began to plan course visits to Art and Social Practice from my Latin American colleagues. As our campus remains divided politically, I was aware that this topic could cause some unease among my students. While the inclusion of immigration as a core curricular issue was set prior to the course, students were given a choice as to how they would ultimately integrate the theme of Borders to Bridges into the final event. After my experience with the Moral Courage Project (see Chapter 8, this volume), I was confident that using storytelling and interviews with our immigrant partners would at the very least help them clarify their existing views, if not develop more refined understandings of both cultural and political aspects of immigration. As one student comments on the experience of hearing direct testimony from our immigrant partners both in class and during off-site field interviews: Not only did I learn more about immigrants, but I was also able to directly communicate with individuals who have faced incredible hardships as a result of the strict regulations placed around immigration.” Through work with Latin American restaurants and food services, this student realized that, “art and politics are correlated in a sense that one can influence the other. Both are everywhere, and reference one another. The artwork created within our class started a conversation within our department and although small, that conversation then began to spread beyond those four walls.”

This integration of political conversation continued to focus on food insecurity, as students were also visited by representatives of Gem City Market, who we continue to partner with each year. Our partners discuss issues such as redlining and the disinvestment in our local African American community by implementing the activity Race Card, a racial wealth

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gap simulation developed by Bread for the World (“Racial Wealth Gap Learning Simulation,” 2019). After their introductions to food justice and immigration, small groups were assigned to attend specific off-campus events hosted by our partners and to produce photographs and articles for inclusion in Desert Dispatch, a publication that has become the 6th addition to our annual project-based experiential components. This 30-page magazine was funded by the college and offered to the public at the 2018 DDK for donations to benefit Gem City Market. Using the 2014 Corner Market Report as a precedent, Desert Dispatch provides a concrete home for the semester-long project, offering an object that can both archive and share our research and artwork with a wider audience. Of course, adding yet another component to an already busy production schedule was a challenge. After producing our annual promotional posters and social media campaign in the second month of class, all students were assigned to collaboratively create content for the magazine. They also chose to sew table cloths for the event, which were made of textiles both donated by Latinos Unidos and collected from their own homes. Our plate designs were culled from the national seals of the four countries from which we provided our “special guest” meals: Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, and El Salvador. The students used this plate-design motif to create wallpapers on which to hang our annual auction prints. All of these art-based components come together in the final weeks of class, while the magazine is also being edited and laid out. There were some disagreements and misunderstandings during this process, largely resulting from the difficulty of gaining consensus on the magazine design. As one student comments: I had a lot of anxiety going into that final week and wondered how so many different stories and art works would come together. I could not fully understand the impact of the event until it was happening. But seeing that in the actual gallery made all our work worth it!

In order to understand both this student’s anxiety and pride, I invite you back into the warehouse where you entered this essay. This time, you have arrived as a community volunteer. You heard about the event at Dayton’s annual Food Summit and offered to help with guest service. You once again have your canned good and receive several photographic editions of landscapes and still life for your kind participation. As you enter the

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space an hour before showtime, students and faculty are busily arranging five round tables where this year’s dinner will take place. You meet Emmanuel, the Salvadorian chef who will be preparing pupusas on site for the general public. You take your seat next to his table to help collect the donations that will go to the Gem City Market representatives who are setting up their own table in a corner of the gallery to sell member ownerships. You ask after the professor, and a young woman tells you that she is in her studio prepping the meals with the students. She adds, “I graduated last year, but have come back to help out,” before running off to assist the greeting table at the gallery’s entrance. As a local band strikes up music in the foyer, the public begins to arrive and peruse the silent auction, pencils in hand. You see students guiding “special guests” to their respective tables and note some confusion as they attempt to grasp their role in this whole process. The gallery has moved to a space down the hall, and the general atmosphere is louder, larger, and more chaotic than that first year. Yet as the night proceeds and the pupusas disappear, you note that the crowd is well-fed and at ease. The professor arrives to offer a speech on the meal’s theme and encourage the special guests to consult their conversation menu. At the end of the night, some of these menus remain untouched, but one grouping has grown and is busily discussing what public services and programming may help Gem City Market become a more active place of community. By the time you reach the artwork, the bids have gone too high for your budget. In spite of the darker lighting and the inclusion of the auction in the midst of the active exhibition space, all of the work has sold out. You grab a free copy of Desert Dispatch and head home for the holidays.

Conclusion: Reflecting on Assessment and Sustaining Partnerships The anecdote above communicates the overall tone of this event but does little to address some of the challenges we continue to face. It is difficult to assess just how the event has impacted the students, our community partners, and the general public. Because the event occurs at the end of the semester, on the last day of official classes before finals week, there is little time to reflect as a group. Students are tasked with assessing themselves on a quantitative rubric that asks them to honestly evaluate their intellectual, creative, and collaborative efforts and products. They are asked to define and provide examples of the course’s learning outcomes

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around community, practical ethical action, diversity, and social justice. They next provide a narrative reflection that details their contributions and provides feedback on the overall experience in terms of project-based and community-based EL. These responses, along with several other earlier journal assignments, which include photography, case studies, and personal reflections, provide the materials for overall course assessment, which also contains both quantitative and qualitative rubrics. As the University Student Evaluation of Teaching occurs in the weeks leading up to the event, these final reflections generally reflect a more positive overall assessment of their experiences, as the event itself can be transformative by providing students with physical, tangible artifacts through which to gauge their overall learning. Some student comments above are taken from these reflections, while others are part of a longer-term project I have initiated by providing guided questions to alumni and former students. As Marianist teaching values the cultivation of “Enduring Understandings,” the answers I receive from students who are now working professionally are valuable, as these young professionals may no longer feel the need to tell me what they believe I want to hear. Though these data may be biased because students who choose to respond are often working in the arts or in nonprofit sectors, I will continue this outreach in order to improve course content and promote the Art and Social Practice course as a valuable experience for those who wish to work in a broad range of socially engaged vocations. Some examples of changes that have been based on both student and community partner feedback include the timeline for publishing Desert Dispatch and the integration of community partners into the final event. Our first issue was difficult to edit and publish in the context of a single semester, so we now have funding to hire a graphic design student to complete the layout in the Spring semester in conjunction with mentorship from both social practice and graphic design instructors. Our Gem City Market community partners also expressed that their table at the most recent event felt a bit separate from the exhibition, which was partly due to the new gallery lighting and layout. This year, I was able to appoint a DDK intern to work on event planning, community outreach, and social media promotion through an independent study. Along with the other students from all three contributing courses, this intern is generating ways to more effectively include GCM volunteers into the actual exhibition space and to provide a more guided, conversational activity for the table guests.

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It is important to note that this economic and institutional support is a privilege, and students are asked to confront their relationship to class and race privileges through an intersectional lens throughout the semester. As mentioned in the introduction, the acknowledgment and dismantling of white privilege have been an underlying goal of this course since its inception. However, it remains challenging in our campus and political climate, in which both white students and students of color can initially feel singled out in distinct ways. At various points in the semester, almost all students express their feelings around this issue either in-group discussion or in the more private context of written reflections, which provide me the opportunity to communicate with them individually through detailed, personalized commentary. Student comments often express that this individual feedback is one of the most valuable aspects of the course and has helped them to “feel heard” and “work out [their relationships] to race and social differences.” Again, some will simply tell me what they believe I want to hear. Others, however, go on to work in the greater community and continue relationships with our community partners in volunteer or membership capacities. As one student comments: Overall, I learned how difficult planning and acting within the community can be, but also how rewarding it is. This class really helped Dayton to feel like my home. The more I went out and met members of the community, the more it felt like I belonged here. I have new friends and new perspectives about the city that I did not have at the beginning of the semester, and I am excited to continue working in the Dayton community.

I conclude with what has been, for me, the most important question asked in the introduction: How can learning across racial, cultural, economic, and social divides be truly collaborative and beneficial to all parties involved? As I recently stood up at a Gem City Market community meeting to announce this year’s 4th annual DDK at the Dayton hub of Central State University, a historically black college, I was met with recognition and practical questions about the location of the event and the food to be served. DDK has become well known in our small community, and the partners now expect to meet our students throughout the fall programming of their own events and meetings. That said, I remain concerned about how we can truly be fair-trade partners in our relationship. Our small event contributes only a minute fraction of the GCM working budget. We can ultimately do little to combat the segregation that has

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contributed to the lack in our community, and our art can do nothing to provide legal assistance to the many immigrants who face deportation and systemic discrimination. However, the small act of raising awareness and changing the visual landscape around these important issues plays an ongoing role in our efforts to change student perspectives and remain active in the local community through art as advocacy. As one GCM organizer puts it, “Glenna and her students keep showing up and have become part of the GCM community, which is more than just a market, it’s a movement.” Showing up is a large part of experiential learning, and it can often be more rewarding than volunteering or providing charity. Showing up is how projects are designed and completed. Remaining present is how community relationships are sustained and movements are built. As our community members do the important work of eradicating hunger and accompanying our immigrant neighbors, our socially engaged projects will continue to get students to show up, learn, create, and experience difference through active togetherness.

References Bernstein, J. H. (2015). Transdisciplinarity: A review of its origins, development, and current issues. Journal of Research Practice, 11(1). Retrieved from http:// jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/510. Bishop, C. (2006). The social turn: Collaboration and its discontents. Artforum International, 44(6). Retrieved from https://www.artforum.com/print/ 200602/the-social-turn-collaboration-and-its-discontents-10274. Bishop, C. (2012). Artificial hells: Participatory art and the politics of spectatorship. London: Verso. Bottinelli, S., & D’Ayala Valva, M. (Eds.). (2017). The taste of art: Cooking, food and counterculture in contemporary practices. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press. Carrigan, M. (2017, August 30). What happens when social practice art meets the market? Artsy. Retrieved from https://www.artsy.net/article/artsyeditorial-social-practice-art-meets-market. Conflict Kitchen. (2019). About. Retrieved from https://www.conflictkitchen. org/about/. Feeding America. (2014). Hunger in America 2014 national report. Chicago, IL: Feeding America. Retrieved from http://help.feedingamerica.org/ HungerInAmerica/hunger-in-america-2014-full-report.pdf.

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Food Research and Action Center. (2013). Food hardship in America 2012: Data for the nation, states, 100 MSAs, and every congressional district. Retrieved from http://www.frac.org/wp-content/uploads/food-hardship-july-2018.pdf. Froggett, L., Little, R., Roy, A., Whitaker, L. (2011). New model visual arts organisations & social engagement. Retrieved from http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/ 3024/1/WzW-NMI_Report%5B1%5D.pdf. Kester, G. (2004). Conversation pieces: Community and communication in modern art. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kolb, L., & Flückiger, G., (2013). New institutionalism revisited. On Curating 21. Retrieved from http://www.on-curating.org/issue-21.html. Nelson, R. K., Winling, L., Marciano, R., Connolly, N., et al. (2019). Mapping inequality. In Nelson, R. K. and Ayers, E. L. (Eds.), American Panorama. Retrieved from November 6, 2019, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/ redlining. Racial Wealth Gap Learning Simulation. (2019). Bread for the World Institute. Retrieved from https://bread.org/library/racial-wealth-gap-learningsimulation. Sauter, M., Comen, E., & Stebbins, S. (2017, July 21). 16 most segregated cities in America. 24/7 Wall St. Retrieved from https://247wallst.com/specialreport/2017/07/21/16-most-segregated-cities-in-america/6/. Singer, T. (n.d.). Art and food: Better together? Art Papers. Retrieved from https://www.artpapers.org/art-and-foodbetter-together/. Smith, S. (2013). Feast: Radical hospitality in contemporary Art. Chicago, IL: Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago. Stock, P., Burton, R. J. F. (2011). Defining terms for integrated (multi-intertrans-disciplinary) sustainability research. Sustainability, 3(8). Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/8/1090/htm. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. (2015). Documentation. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. What Is Welcome Dayton (2015). Welcome Dayton. Retrieved from http://www. welcomedayton.org/about/.

CHAPTER 10

Critical Cosmopolitan Citizens: Experiential Engagement with Local Immigrant and Refugee Communities Miranda Cady Hallett and Theo Majka

Citizenship and Community-Engaged Experiential Learning Most faculty hope that our students will leave their college education with more than credentials, knowledge, and practical skills. We also aspire to foster their active and critical thinking, shape their sense of civic identity, and support them in acquiring more open-minded and inclusive social attitudes. These qualities are encapsulated in the concept of “global learning as a critical citizenship project ” (Birk, 2014, n.p., emphasis added). Birk suggests that we as educators aim to foster a critical cosmopolitan perspective among our students—a point of view that takes on the

M. C. Hallett · T. Majka (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. C. Hallett e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_10

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responsibilities of global citizenship while developing a critique of inequality and an appreciation for cultural differences. To acquire the more expansive identity and sense of connection implied by this phrase, students need to develop an attitude of cultural humility. Cultural humility involves both recognizing the relativity and the limitations of one’s own point of view and being willing to listen to others’ perspectives. For both purposes, students need to acquire a sense of the ways that human perceptions emerge from their social location and the systems of meaning and social value in which they are embedded. These meta-level cognitive skills are crucial for understanding one’s role in a global society, and they can be fostered through community engaged learning (see Hartman, Kiely, Boettcher, & Friedrichs, 2018). In this chapter, we present a case study of an experiential learning project where undergraduate students conducted interviews with leaders and representatives of local immigrant and refugee communities and with people in local organizations involved with these communities. This community-engaged project led students to see the inherent interconnections of local to global issues. The open-ended process fostered opportunities for growth in cultural humility and a sense of critical global citizenship, while the design of the project remained very accessible to students and manageable for faculty workloads. Students became aware of the numerous local immigrant and refugee communities and their contributions to the well-being of the larger community, and often developed relationships and skills that carried them into other experiences of emergent cosmopolitan citizenship. Students went on to community organizing, documentary work, policy advocacy, further research, and on-campus activism around refugee and immigrant rights. We believe that this project has fostered cultural humility and critical cosmopolitan perspectives among students, as well as contributing to practices of solidarity and insurgent democratic citizenship (Leitner & Strunk, 2014; Majka & Longazel, 2017) that are transforming the local community. In addition to fostering civic engagement and intercultural learning, the project is therefore an example of community-engaged research that directly supports community change. While most students’ participation occurs within a single semester (usually as part of a course or research practicum), their contribution feeds into an ongoing survey of conditions for immigrant and refugee communities in the region that, over the years, has had significant impacts on policies and programs for immigrants and refugees in Dayton, Ohio. When students contribute to this research

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project, they know the results will be utilized and applied. They are not only analyzing the challenges and obstacles immigrants and refugees face in becoming more fully integrating into their new community, but also contributing to the struggle to break down those obstacles.

Toward Critical Cosmopolitanism Through Cultural Humility Cosmopolitanism is an attitude of inclusiveness by definition; effectively, to be a “cosmopolitan” is to extend one’s identity and sense of ethical obligation beyond what is familiar and close. It contrasts with an ethnic or territorial notion of belonging, in which the well-being of one’s own local group is paramount and obligations to people defined as Others minimal. In her 2014 article in Diversity and Democracy, Tammy Birk defined critical cosmopolitanism as a form of inclusive global citizenship—a commitment “to think and act with a strong concern for all humanity” while “resisting abstract and overly general truths about humanity or globality, any ethic that asks us to ignore difference, and the potential erasure of local identities and smaller-scale solidarities” (n.p.). Critical cosmopolitanism therefore challenges both discriminatory constructions of Us vs. Them and resists a “color blind” ideology that asks people to ignore historically rooted differences. Such a disposition also unseats the dichotomy between “global” and “local”—recognizing that these are not separate spheres, but interconnected and relational. Adopting a critical cosmopolitan perspective requires the development of an attitude of cultural humility, which in turn requires genuine experiences of engagement across differences. For a few decades now, scholars have been promoting the notion of “cultural humility” as a more rigorous alternative to the often shallowly defined “cultural competence” (Ross, 2010; Tervalon & Murray-García, 1998). The idea is that for people to live and work effectively and inclusively in a pluralist environment, they must do more than simply learn a few habits and norms that are supposedly common to particular ethnic groups. Instead, they must learn to problematize and question our own assumptions, as well as take the time to listen to and evaluate fairly the perspectives of cultural Others. This is best served through experiential learning, which provides opportunities for such listening, and doing so across lines of difference can be transformative (Hartman et al., 2018; Rossi, 2010). As Tervalon and MurrayGarcía (1998) state in their foundational article, it can become “a commitment and active engagement in a lifelong process” (p. 118). Cultural

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humility requires self-critique, a willingness to recognize and mitigate power differentials, and an interest in forming partner relationships with underserved communities (Tervalon & Murray-García, 1998, p. 123). In her content analysis of student reflections, Ross (2010) suggests that community-engaged experiential learning has the potential to foster cultural humility of the kind promoted by Tervalon and MurrayGarcía. In her case study, the student project was year-long and involved small working groups of graduate students in a community development and planning program. Compared to the case study we discuss in this chapter, Ross’s students engaged in a much more extensive and ongoing form of collaboration with community partners (following communitybased participatory research principles), befitting their advanced educational stage and length of commitment. Nonetheless, we observed similar learning processes at work among our students, although at more basic developmental levels (see also Rossi, 2010). As we describe in the next section, they gained knowledge, attitudes, and skills that demonstrated the resilience of immigrant and refugee neighbors and moved them toward greater cultural humility. Ross argues that to foster cultural humility, the process of community engagement must be reciprocal and egalitarian. Non-paternalistic collaboration, honest communication, and true contributions to social change in partnership over the long term are the ideal relational context to support this kind of learning. This reveals one of the key links between cultural humility and critical cosmopolitan citizenship: They both involve a broadening sense of identification and ethical commitment to communities beyond the familiar. Of course, this kind of relational context requires effort and is challenging to build and maintain, especially in any way that includes students in meaningful experiences outside their comfort zone— one of the key features of well-constructed experiential learning. In the next section, we briefly describe Dayton, Ohio—the setting for this community-engaged project. Then we jump to the core of our analysis, a discussion of the interview project through which our students engaged with local immigrant and refugee communities. The rest of the chapter analyzes the impacts of this work on both students and the broader community, suggesting that this project could provide a model for advocacy-oriented community-engaged experiential learning, and highlighting the ways we believe the project fostered cultural humility and movement toward a critical cosmopolitan identity for the participating students.

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Dayton, Ohio: A Welcoming City The Dayton area began experiencing a significant increase in the influx of immigrants during the 1990s. Along with the resettlement of refugees, the percentage of foreign-born people in the city of Dayton increased from 2.0% in 2000 to 5.3% by 2015. While Dayton has a considerably smaller proportion of foreign-born residents compared to the national average (the national average being close to 14% as of this writing), it has several features that make the local area distinct. First is the relatively high proportion of people resettled as refugees. Dayton has a large concentration of Ahiska Turks, an ethnic minority from the former Soviet Union, with about 2500 in the city alone (Navera, 2019). Other refugee groups include Rwandans and more recently Congolese, among others. Secondly, like many other places in the Midwest, Dayton is a “new destination” for immigrants after a period of about 70 years (1920–1990) when relatively few foreign-born individuals made Dayton their home, and those that did were primarily professionals. Many Dayton-area institutions were not used to accommodating people from culturally diverse backgrounds, many not yet fluent in English. These characteristics make research on how local immigrant and refugee populations are adapting particularly relevant. The student-powered research described in this chapter has been shared with the broader community through four half-day conferences in 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2019 that brought together Dayton-area residents, including many leaders of human service agencies and local public officials, with leaders of immigrant and refugee communities. These community symposia presented the research findings as well as other information, and those attending discussed strategies to address the challenges, including institutional changes needed to better facilitate the inclusive integration of Dayton’s communities and the empowerment of newer residents. In this way, the research contributed not only to increasing public awareness of the presence and situations of immigrants and refugees in the Dayton area, but also to a process of long-term civic engagement, dialogue, and community mobilization for immigrant-friendly programs and policies. This illustrates that student engagement efforts can have significant impacts beyond the seeming boundaries of the projects themselves, something characteristic of experiential learning and communitybased learning but that often makes it difficult to assess or measure. The project has helped contribute to what University of Dayton’s President Eric Spina calls “a university for the common good” by building

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connections that overcome the “fear of difference that precludes solidarity with our neighbor” and thereby enabling us to create “collective change” (Spina, 2017). For example, the first two conferences mentioned above contributed to the momentum that resulted in the 2011 “Welcome Dayton: Immigrant Friendly City” initiative. The initiative was the result of ongoing efforts by members of local organizations, including religious leaders, academics and government officials motivated by moral and humanitarian concerns, plus immigrants and refugees themselves, to support new neighbors and protect their rights (Housel, Saxen, & Wahlrab, 2018; Lamping, Bertolo, & Wahlrab, 2018; Majka & Longazel, 2017). The results of some of our research (like the early survey work supervised by Linda and Theo Majka) helped inform the recommendations contained in the Welcome Dayton plan (see http://www.welcomedayton. org/about/implementation-plan/). Now well-established, the Welcome Dayton municipal program provides enormous community support with a small staff (all of whom, it bears mentioning, are either first- or secondgeneration immigrants). The office provides a nexus and forum for immigrant and refugee issues, and cooperates and collaborates with other organizations to assist immigrants in getting jobs, knowing their rights, learning to interact with community institutions, facilitating community development, building trust with local police, preparing citizenship applications, and getting accustomed to life in their new community (Hallett & Majka, 2019). It even holds an annual soccer tournament that brings together immigrants and others who form teams. Students engaged with this project often found themselves impressed by Dayton and eager to engage more with the communities that make up the city. And their work in the project undoubtedly made our city better. When those interviewed were asked if the situation in Dayton for immigrants and refugees “is better or worse than elsewhere,” a considerable majority responded that it is “somewhat better” or “much better,” and many specifically attributed this to the Welcome Dayton program. As one student wrote in a reflection, “it is the collaboration between groups that makes Dayton an attractive place to live.”

The Project: Learning While Fostering Social Change Seeking a way to expand a sound understanding of Dayton’s immigrant and refugee communities and foster learning via experience along the way, beginning in 2007 Professor Majka has involved students in his

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Immigration and Immigrants classes in research projects exploring the challenges and obstacles experienced by immigrants and refugees in the Dayton area. Joined by students in Professor Linda Majka’s Sociology of Human Rights classes, students arranged and conducted interviews with leaders and organizers of Dayton-area immigrant and refugee communities, along with staff of human service agencies who work with these communities. Students in Professor Hallett’s Anthropology of Human Rights class began participating in the latest research beginning in 2017.

Community-Engaged Experiential Learning Design: Participation and Dialogue The questionnaire was developed in collaboration with several local organizations and with feedback from several immigrant leaders, ensuring that the project was both community-driven and culturally appropriate in keeping with principles of community-based participatory research (Ross, 2010, p. 316). Interview assignments for each student included both immigrant and refugee community leaders themselves and staff at public offices and human service organizations. Additionally, some students helped organize and observe several focus groups of specific immigrant and refugee communities, including Mexican, Ahiska Turkish, Rwandan, and Burundian, all with sizeable populations in the Dayton area. Student participation is voluntary in the sense that interviewing is one of several options available to fulfill that component of the course. We felt this was important, so as not to compel students into a community-engaged research setting where they lacked a genuine interest or sufficient comfort and confidence in the process. As chair of a local voluntary organization that works on immigrant integration issues (and organized the conferences mentioned above), Majka drew on his prolific local contacts and networks for interviews. Additionally, those interviewed were asked to name others to interview via snowball sampling, a technique where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances. The sample group is said to grow like a rolling snowball. This is another way in which long-term community collaborators had input on the project in a way that included individuals who might otherwise be overlooked. The pace and the goals of the research seem to foster enough interest among community partners to create a steady rhythm of collaboration. Enough have responded each

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semester that interviews were conducted so that there were sufficient participants for students to interview. Typically, two students would administer an interview together, with occasionally one of the professors being the second, or even third, interviewer. Students were prepared for the experience in the classroom space through background readings, discussions, and documentary films, as well as brief discussions on interviewing techniques and basic research ethics. Conversations and orientation for the students pre-interview and a written reflection afterward were important components of the scaffolding for this project—crucial for community-engaged learning, and not coincidentally important to experiential learning as well (Eyler, 2009, p. 30). Although students were contributing to “real” research—that is, their results would fold into a years-long continuous research-gathering effort—the design of the student component did not require long-term commitment or dedicating the entire work of a course to the research objectives, and students were not responsible for the design or methodology of the survey. While students had to go over ethical concerns related to research and gain a basic understanding of the broad project before beginning their component, they could choose to be involved only shortterm and with manageable investments of time. Yet many also benefited from knowing what previous interviews had found. Still, it was a relatively discrete task from the student perspective, and faculty take primary responsibility for the relational work of the ongoing community partnership. These features make the project relatively simple to replicate in any environment with a vibrant immigrant and refugee community—which is to say, most places—and where there are at least a few faculty members dedicated to maintaining the community partner network over time.

Contributions to University Learning Goals The project fits with several learning goals common to university settings. One of the University of Dayton’s Institutional Learning Goals (ILG) is scholarship, where undergraduates create or contribute to a body of scholarly or community-based work intended for public presentation. Each of our participating students undertake their own small-scale research project based on the interviews and reflect on the strengths and limitations of their work. Also, interviewing contributes to students’ basic knowledge of the function of institutions in their broader community, promoting their ability to critically evaluate certain policies and practices.

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Learning goals centered on diversity and inclusivity, such as the University of Dayton’s institutional learning goal of diversity, were also advanced through the project. Students encountered people they may not have otherwise met and engaged in in-depth interviews about the experiences of immigrants and refugees. Background materials and follow-up discussions with students emphasized both the importance of critical self-reflection on the interviewers’ social location and examining biases or stereotypes they might hold about the interviewees. The interviews often provided opportunities for difficult face-to-face conversations about global inequality, racism, and systems of exclusion that many argue are crucial for the awakening of social consciousness and a sense of solidarity among students (Hartman et al., 2018; hooks, 2003; Rossi, 2010). Finally, the project contributes to the institutional learning goal of practical wisdom that includes addressing human problems and creating possible solutions. This relates to citizenship and practical ethical action, as the dissemination of results has contributed concretely to local organizing and mobilization to promote immigrant-welcoming policies at the local level. In this way, the collaborative conversations between students and community interlocutors matter beyond a grade for a course assignment. This in turn fosters responsibility and a sense of civic engagement for students, who are aware that the fruits of their work will have an impact—one of the aspects of practical wisdom. In the next section, we will illuminate the student outcomes relative to cultural humility and critical cosmopolitan citizenship by delving into their final reflection papers.

Emerging Cosmopolitan Citizens: The Broader Impacts on Student Learning All students who opted into the interview or focus group projects described their participation as a genuine learning experience. Besides illustrating class materials, some described it as transformative and explained that the experience launched them into further communityengaged research or deeper cultural immersions. Interviewing prepared several for travel to the countries of origin of some local immigrant populations, such as Mexico and El Salvador. Several said it better prepared them for participation in the Moral Courage Project, a student-produced set of documentary photographs and interviews of moral “upstanders”

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around border issues, conducted in El Paso and Juarez during the summer of 2018 (Pruce & Hudson, this volume). Some found their experiences led them toward particular post-graduate plans, such as long-term volunteering, or interest in professions such as law and social work. The project has also produced a number of senior research projects and honors theses, on the initiative of the students who chose to develop their work further. Student papers assigned after the interviews asked students to articulate and synthesize what they have learned; these assignments also contain a reflective component where almost all of the quotes in this chapter originate. The reflection-action cycle is a critical component of experiential learning (Ash & Clayton, 2009; Kolb, 1984). All the student reflections we analyzed for this chapter—apart from the 2014 graduate cited below—are from those who participated in the most recent research from 2017 to 2019. This wave of the survey investigates challenges those who have been in the United States for at least five years still face, and in addition maps and documents experiences of discrimination and bonding across ethnic and intergroup social barriers. The students in the project were not asked to interview people as generic “representatives” of their ethnic community, but rather as professionals who are leaders, resource providers, or cultural liaisons. In this way, the project was designed to give students the experience of being, as is appropriate, in the novice role and in the position of learner, thus fostering cultural humility. The interviewees, many of whom are first generation residents of the United States, are positioned as the teachers and the experts. Foremost, the project had the effect of reducing a sense of social distance between students and their interlocutors, challenging dehumanizing social constructions about immigrants and refugees. Most students commented that the interviews put a “human face” on class material. Issues and patterns discussed in the abstract in their textbooks came alive in the experiences of meeting and conversing with those they interviewed. As one student put it, I learned so much about both of their personal experiences [an Ahiska Turk and a Latina activist]. It is one thing to learn about people in a classroom, another to meet them and hear their stories firsthand…I see the richness these people bring to our society, and I also see the challenges they face.

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This was echoed by another comment, which found that “there is great value in personal stories.” These comments reflect the ways students’ experience in the project expanded their empathic universe, making them feel they are a part of a broader cosmopolitan community. Yet importantly, the comments also reflect a growing recognition of different social locations within a larger structure, with differential exposure to risks and challenges. Related to this are comments that the interviews allowed students to leave the “UD bubble” (the campus and surrounding area). As one student wrote, this …project was an invaluable experience that allowed me to visit new parts of Dayton, as well as meet and spend time with people that I otherwise would not have had the opportunity to. I took so much away from this experience. Specifically, it allowed me to hear and understand multiple perspectives. In gaining so much knowledge, I was able to put myself in the shoes of a refugee/immigrant and understand what they go through in terms of integrating in an entirely new way. I plan on sharing the knowledge as often as possible.

This contributed to what several students note was an increase in “empathy for those who are struggling as immigrants – especially those facing cultural ‘bullying.’” Several others wrote that in addition to better understanding the challenges experienced by immigrants and refugees, they also became aware of the importance of solidarity and resilience among these groups, for example mutual assistance from neighbors and the formation of community organizations. One student put the “bubble” issue more explicitly, stating that I chose this option to get more involved in the city of Dayton. When I heard about the option to interview people from the city of Dayton, I was instantly attracted. Going into my sophomore year, I have been wanting to learn more about Dayton. All throughout freshman year, I barely ventured outside the University and regretted that. I truly stayed inside the ‘UD bubble.’ I knew that the interview project would be a great way to venture into the city and learn from the people who call Dayton their home… the project was something that could help me step outside of my comfort zone.

Another wrote that

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A good thing to note was that the Dayton area is doing great things for refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo [where one of the refugees he interviewed is from]. This made me proud to be a member of the City of Dayton community.

Here, a growing sense of cosmopolitan citizenship is developed alongside, and in tandem with, local community engagement, urban civic identity, and a sense of pride. Some students expressed attitudes that are explicitly associated with cultural humility, referencing feeling inspired by their interlocutors and grateful for the opportunity to learn from them. One called it a “humbling experience, to gain inside information from persons that are actively fighting for the rights of immigrants and refugees” and added that “I will gladly help [in future projects] because human rights are most important.” Another student wrote that “the opportunity to sit down with refugees and immigrants, as well as individuals who provide services to them has been an absolute blessing. I have learned so much…” Occasionally, student reflections expressed a shift in viewpoint or in their personal willingness to be active and vocal, using their agency to promote social inclusion or to challenge prejudice. In our view, this is another important marker of the emerging sense of the duties required by cosmopolitan citizenship. For example, one student explained how This project has helped me connect the class material to real people, communities and issues in Dayton. It will change my considerations in the ballot box…. It will also change the way I speak around my friends and family. My family…often says anti-immigrant things. I think after this, I will be more likely to directly tell my family that I do not appreciate the way they are speaking about people.

As is often the case with teaching, many significant effects are only seen after the students leave the classroom. In that regard, the apparent reverberation of their experiential learning through this project in students’ future lives is remarkable. The most unique example, illustrating the dual learning goals of scholarship and cosmopolitan citizenship, is evident in the experience of a 2014 UD graduate. She observed that during the time she was interviewing [2010–2011], around 75 Bhutanese refugees were being resettled in Dayton. She was immediately interested in doing her honors thesis on this group and their experience of displacement. She wrote,

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They were left out of this study [interviews] because they had so recently been resettled. I then had the opportunity to live and study in Nepal and Bhutan in the spring of 2012 where I researched the Bhutanese refugee’s representation in the media as well as the responses of organizations such as the United Nations.

Upon her return to Dayton, she conducted a series of interviews with those who work with and for the Bhutanese refugee population. This portion of the study was to focus on the structural barriers to the Bhutanese refugees’ success as seen by those who work with them. The second portion [of her research in Dayton] took on a more ethnographic approach involving an intensive case study with one Bhutanese family. Informal meetings and interviews over the course of several months provide the perspective and voice needed to capture the lived experience of this refugee population. This was high-quality scholarship for an undergraduate—with a bit more development, her paper could easily have been a master’s thesis. Additionally, participation influenced the post-graduate plans of some students. Majka knows several who did a year of service after graduation and specifically chose programs where they worked with immigrants and refugees. A couple wrote that they wanted to concentrate on immigration either in law school or in a master of social work program. A student who grew up in an affluent suburb of Dayton wrote, “As someone who looks to work in local government, I will look to join initiatives and advance policy that benefit immigrants in our community.” One 2018 graduate with a major in psychology and a certificate in nonprofit and community leadership who engaged in the interviewing process during her last semester wrote, I hope to be involved in nonprofit management later in life. If the nonprofit I work with serves immigrants or refugees, I will more carefully consider how the nonprofit’s actions work with other nonprofit’s actions. I will try to foster more of a sense of organization in the services for immigrants and refugees. Overall, I will leave with the important and powerful reminder that immigrants and refugees are human being worthy of dignity, consideration, opportunities, and ways to be empowered, like anyone else.

This comment, and the student reflections overall, speak to the outcome of cultural humility. By deeply recognizing the humanity and capacity

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of immigrant and refugee Others—partly through collaboratively deconstructing and challenging the processes that foster inequality—students took steps toward a sense of critical cosmopolitanism citizenship. They acquired knowledge, attitudes, and skills that helped them move beyond existing identity boundaries toward a more inclusive sense of ethical responsibility.

Contingent Conclusion: Experiencing and Building a Welcoming City Writing this chapter has been a real learning experience for its authors. Systematically reviewing students’ comments has been very helpful in understanding the impact that participating in this project has had for a wide range of students. It occurs to us that other faculty could benefit from a similar practice of reading and reflecting on their students’ responses to our experiential learning projects. Reviewing the reflections systematically with an eye to students’ overall learning—not just attending to how their papers reflect content knowledge relevant to the class—illuminated the importance of shifts in our students’ attitudes, dispositions, and sense of personal and collective identity. For some, their participation stimulated solidarity with the communities represented by many of those interviewed, as well as interest in knowing more about their situations and challenges. In the end, we found that their experiences as interviewers fostered a sense of cultural humility and cosmopolitan citizenship. Almost all interviews and focus groups took place off-campus. This turned out to be an unexpected benefit for some students, as they had the opportunity to explore parts of Dayton that they hadn’t been familiar with. Most dimensions of global inequality—racialized, class-based, and gendered—are structured and embedded within the local social landscapes of communities like Dayton. Absent the opportunity and the prompt, many students from the middle class, Midwestern, suburban background that is predominant in our classrooms may never set foot across such social boundaries even in their immediate community. Participating in the study has been an excellent way for UD students to bridge social boundaries in an informed way and in a structured setting that prompts a humble approach. It has helped students understand experientially some of the issues and circumstances of immigrants and refugees, getting to know those whose lives are quite different from theirs as unique and capable individuals, rather than as stereotypes. It helped them to

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realize both how much humans have in common, and how significant structural differences are. It also has played a vital role in assisting with a long-term process of collaborative community change, as with the establishment of Welcome Dayton. This case study illustrates that although instructors cannot predetermine or predict the impacts such projects can have, we can promote positive outcomes in the long term if we construct effective experiential learning opportunities—in this case, founded in long-term collaborative relationships with community partners—and provide students with adequate preparation and reflection. In fact, given the right circumstances such projects can do far more than promote student learning. By engaging students, together with their community partners, as critical cosmopolitan citizens, such projects contribute to ongoing struggles for community justice. Our students’ contribution to the creation of the Welcome Dayton initiative and changes in many institutional practices as a consequence of the research and community symposia could not have been foreseen. Looking back, it came in part due to the open-ended and collaborative nature of the research that allowed it to take shape alongside and in collaboration with broader initiatives for social change. When seeking to instill significant and deep forms of learning, such as the fostering of attitudes of inclusivity or humility, or practicing civic engagement, faculty should take a developmental view and assess outcomes over time, even after students leave the program. As others in this volume also point out, experiential and community-engaged learning is a long-term investment. There is a value to faculty relinquishing control over the process, recognizing that for both learning and research to happen, community partners and students need to have agency and ownership. At the same time, faculty must be committed to the partner relationship over the long haul, mitigating the often-short-term nature of student engagement. Seeing students as fly-by-night players, however, does not acknowledge the ways that experiential learning reverberates in the future life choices and civic engagement of students over time. As we have shown, participation in this research with the accompanying personal contact has had a transformative impact on many students, including a greater attachment to Dayton as well as post-graduation plans and career goals for a few. Thus, not only has student participation been essential to bringing about the kinds of changes locally that have made Dayton an “immigrant friendly city,” but the experiential learning students absorbed through

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this project had other long-term and potentially transformative repercussions. By fostering their development of knowledge, attitudes, and skills associated with cultural humility, students grew into a greater sense of critical cosmopolitan global citizenship. Similar to other student projects described in this volume (i.e., Hudson & Pruce, Jennings, Uhlman, and Small), upon emerging from these experiences, students can not only see themselves as global citizens, but they can also take the next steps: recognizing their positionality in a tragically unequal world and committing to action for social justice.

References Ash, S. L., & Clayton, P. H. (2009). Generating, deepening, and documenting learning: The power of critical reflection in applied learning. Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education, 1, 25–48. Birk, T. (2014). Critical cosmopolitan teaching and learning: A new answer to the global imperative. Diversity and Democracy, 17 (2). Retrieved from https:// www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2014/spring/birk. Eyler, J. (2009). The power of experiential education. Liberal Education, 95(4), 24–31. Hallett, M., & Majka, T. (2019, April 29). The benefits that places like Dayton, Ohio, reap by welcoming immigrants. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-benefits-that-places-like-dayton-ohioreap-by-welcoming-immigrants. Hartman, E., Kiely, R., Boettcher, C., & Friedrichs, J. (2018). Community-based global learning: The theory and practice of ethical engagement at home and abroad. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge. Housel, J., Saxen, C., & Wahlrab, T. (2018). Experiencing intentional recognition: Welcoming immigrant in Dayton, Ohio. Urban Studies, 55(2), 384–405. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Lamping, S., Bertolo, M., & Wahlrab, T. (2018). Activist citizens in an immigrant-friendly city: The Natural Helpers program. Peace and Conflict, Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(3), 330–337. Leitner, H., & Strunk, C. (2014). Assembling insurgent citizenship: Immigrant advocacy struggles in the Washington DC metro area. Urban Geography, 35(7), 943–964. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2014.943582. Majka, T., & Longazel, J. (2017). Becoming welcoming: Organizational collaboration and immigrant integration in Dayton, Ohio. Public Integrity, 19(2), 151–163.

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Navera, T. (2019, May 7). Turkish center leader talks about cycle of immigration. Dayton Business Journal. Ross, L. (2010). Notes from the field: Learning cultural humility through critical incidents and central challenges in community-based participatory research. Journal of Community Practice, 18, 315–335. Rossi, J. C. (2010). “I didn’t know there were refugees in Rochester”: Developing citizenship through service-learning with refugee communities. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, 20(2), 76–89. Spina, E. (2017, April 4). Inaugural address. University of Dayton. https:// udayton.edu/news/articles/2017/04/inaugural_address.php. Tervalon, M., & Murray-Garcia, J. (1998). Cultural humility versus cultural competence: A critical distinction in defining physician training outcomes in multicultural education. Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved, 9(2), 117–125.

CHAPTER 11

Writing the History of the Dayton Arcade: Experiential Learning Through Immersion, Collaboration, and Service James Todd Uhlman

Trying Something New It has become commonplace to hear critics of higher education complain that “while transformational changes have occurred in the world of work […] it is remarkable that the methods utilized to prepare students to enter it have remained static” (Chan & Derry, 2013, p. 2). According to the critics, the didactic methods of the teacher-centric traditional learning model encourage passivity and fail to prepare contemporary students for the creative and often collaborative work environments of today (Roberts, 2016, pp. 3–6). Others assert that classroom-focused learning models ineffectively link “learning” with “living,” leaving students unaware of their role as participants in society, nor able to appreciate how their skills can impact the world (Huber & Hutchings, 2004). While these claims are debatable, a good deal of evidence supports at least some of the reformers’

J. T. Uhlman (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_11

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points (Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, & Norman, 2010; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Pelligrino & Hilton, 2012). The traditional undergraduate history seminar in which students pursue individual research and writing projects is vulnerable to the reformers’ criticisms (Harkavy & Donovan, 2005). For these reasons I, and another faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Dayton, tried something new. We utilized experiential learning (EL) techniques, an approach that might briefly be defined as learning through reflection on doing (Wurdinger & Carlson, 2010). Our plan was to have the students directly engaged in solving an historical problem, but on a scale that necessitates collaboration between them and external partners. We wanted to be focused on an issue of immediate public concern. And it was our hope that whatever work they completed would constitute a practical intervention. In the city of Dayton, Ohio there are few more pressing problems than the ongoing decay of the city’s center. An example of the problem was the 1990 closure of the downtown Dayton Arcade, a five-building shopping center built in 1904 and arranged around a glass-dome rotunda. As our plans for the class were taking shape, a coalition of grassroots preservation organizations, the University of Dayton, and redevelopment specialists were amassing $100 million in private and public funds in order to renovate the complex. Fourteen history majors in our class were asked to collectively research and write a history of the Arcade. This included conducting interviews with Daytonians who remembered the Arcade from earlier times. The recordings were to air as a radio show and be deposited at the city’s central library. These tasks necessitated collaboration with the Dayton public library system, a local public radio channel, and a grassroots preservation society. The students constructed a website to present what they had found and to serve as an easily accessible and interactive public resource. In addition, the website contained primary document galleries and lesson plans to be used by regional high school or college instructors to teach research methods using local history. It was hoped that the class’s efforts would rekindle interest in the building and thereby transform the past into cultural capital to help rebuild the city. In the process, we had three learning objectives for our students:

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1. to engage in a large, public, and therefore immersive, research project in which they must take initiative, make decisions and be accountable for results; 2. to develop collaboration and advanced integrative skills in response to the complexity and uncertainties of the project’s outcome; and 3. to foster a sense of purposefulness through service in the students by leading them to appreciate the social value and personal meaningfulness of historical research. In this chapter, I describe our efforts to achieve each of the three learning objectives and I assess the degree to which we were successful. I utilize student responses from a post-course reflection assignment to determine how well we achieved our aims. The students were asked questions such as: How did the class compare to others? What skills did they develop, if any? What were its advantages and disadvantages? What was the value, if any, of working on a website? What did the course teach them about being an historian? How did the project impact their thoughts on the social significance of the historical profession and personal responsibility? What advice would they give future students of the course? According to Doug, one of the students, the result was a “vastly different history course when compared to [others] I have taken at the University of Dayton.” For Madeline, it was “one of the most engaged learning experiences that I have had as a history major.” It “pushed me outside of my comfort zone in all the best possible ways,” said Stacy, “compared to my other history courses, this capstone required me to be more hands on and consider the different mediums in which one can learn or transmit history.”

Taking on a Difficult Task: An Immersive Place-Based Research Problem To achieve the first of our three course objectives of engaging the students in an immersive learning experience in which they must take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for results, we took advantage of what Gruenewald (2003) termed the “pedagogical power of place” (p. 620). By centering the course on a problem “more relevant to the lived experience of students,” and important to the people they meet, “accountability is re-conceptualized so that places matter to … students … in tangible ways” (p. 646). The scale of the project, and the public visibility

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that it would receive, further intensified student commitment. The plan required the successful completion of five tasks: conducting background reading, uncovering archival materials, completing and transcribing oral interviews, writing a history of the complex, and constructing a webpage. To achieve these goals, the students quickly determined they would need to work together as a team. They began by subdividing the task of researching and writing a chronological history of the Arcade. Each of the four teams began by further subdividing their periods so that each would tackle a defined time frame before knitting the findings together to form a single narrative. Together they began compiling prior writing about the Arcade for the period they were assigned. They soon discovered, as Sam wrote, that the “lack of sources available for this subject presented a new challenge” and the “secondary sources were difficult to interpret.” Being forced to rely on primary documents was a new experience for many of the students. In other classes, said Mary, “I usually was reading and researching on a wellknown topic for a paper [but] in this case I had to do deeper research as not much is known about the Arcade. I had to look at newspapers and archival items to gain a better understanding about the Arcade and it was an interesting and new experience.” To find the material they needed, students visited community archives located at Wright State University and Dayton Public Library. Even with the help of local archivists, Dennis discovered he had to be inventive. He turned to old social science studies dating from the period he was assigned that did not appear to have anything directly to do with the Arcade. The process, he wrote, bettered “my research skills” by forcing “me to use a variety of … sociological studies from outside the class” which provided clues to the social dynamics that led to public attitudes regarding the Arcade. At the beginning of each class, the students would discuss what they encountered while doing research. This interaction was a critical part of the EL emphasis on reflection that makes it different from other models of “hands-on learning.” In these sessions, the students shared ways to solve problems and consider the implications of what they had found. Free to express their opinions, a common theme was the frustrations surrounding the time-consuming process of sifting through primary materials and finding little to use. As Tristan declared in class one day, before this experience he did not know how important “stubborn persistence” was when conducting research. However, the students also often discussed the joy of discovery. Madeline wrote, “After searching for what felt like hours,

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actually finding a piece of writing that directly related to the Arcade was extremely exciting! It was an almost euphoric feeling knowing that the work you had been doing produced results.” Another main source of information about the Arcade came from interviews conducted with people in the local community. In consultation with Dayton Metro Library, the Cross-Street development company rebuilding the Arcade, and the grassroots civic preservation society called the “Friends of the Arcade,” I compiled a list of potential interviewees. The students broke themselves up into six interview teams consisting of an interviewer and support technician. They then divided the names on the list. In the weeks leading up to the class, professional-quality audio recording kits were secured from the Dayton Metro Library and purchased with grant money from University of Dayton Office of Experiential Learning. In two sessions, a producer for the local WYSO public radio channel trained the students on how to record and edit the interviews. In additional classes, the students practiced assembling the equipment and conducted mock interviews. They also collaborated in fashioning procedures for saving the recordings and wrote an interview script. Despite efforts to anticipate what was to come, the students encountered a number of problems. Making contact and scheduling interviews with the elderly subjects proved difficult. Many subjects were reluctant to answer the phone, lacked email, and were hesitant to leave their homes or have unknown people visit. Warnings from the radio production consultant about the challenges of creating good audio recordings in home environments proved correct. Transcripts of the interviews created with online software proved to be so riddled with inaccuracies and time-consuming to correct that the students largely abandoned the task. Once again, however, in-class discussion of student experiences conducting interviews proved an invaluable part of the process. Students described the challenges of securing a high-quality recording, creating trust with interviewees, and keeping the discussion on task without preventing the subject from raising points that might prove important. The students quickly learned that the subjects were eager to talk about their experiences. “I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to talk to me about Arcade,” said one. Many thought “no one cared about it anymore,” and were happy to find otherwise. The interviews also yielded a painting, photographs, poems, advertisements, and souvenir objects of the Arcade. The interviews also produced surprises. Rachel wrote, “From what people said, … the Arcade was described as neutral ground [for African

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Americans] from … the outright segregation/racist policies” common in the history of the City of Dayton. Madeline wrote that the surprises reinforced the lessons she had been taught regarding “the importance of creating … an unbiased history that included all sides, from the bottom to the top.” Most of all, conducting the interviews brought the past to life for the students. “Doing interviews of people who remember the Dayton Arcade,” said Rachel, “helped me see how alive history really could be.”

Collectively Bringing History and Learning to Life: Collaboration and Integration By midterm in the course, the time the students spent in group work increased. Most of the students had never worked in groups on a large project. They found that while working in groups posed problems, it also had advantages. For instance, some noted that group work was not always equitable, and that it was difficult to maintain continuity between sections of the essay written by different people in the group and across groups. Accustomed to what Rachel described as the “rigid” structure of most courses while simultaneously focusing on individual projects, the students felt ill-prepared to assume the level of self-direction and responsibility expected of them when working with others. “A course like this,” wrote Sam, “has many moving parts that can often be overwhelming and intimidating if you do not have prior experience with them.” Nearly all of the students, however, believed the advantages outweighed the shortcomings. “For this project in particular,” wrote Madeline, “there were an endless number of reasons that we benefited from working on a team.” “Because we had such a large number of tasks…it was so important to have teammates that you were able to work with in order to accomplish all of the tasks.” Besides the advantages of dividing the work, providing support, and generating new perspectives, collaborative work forced students to build new skills, especially around group planning, communication, task delegation, and accountability to other team members. Others saw the peer teaching component inherent in group work to be its greatest advantage. “Collaboration with peers,” wrote Doug, “enabled us to receive feedback and help others that were struggling.” As many educators have experienced, students frequently seek to minimize their work load. In one sign of the students’ maturation confronted with the challenges of this project, a proposal by the faculty members

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that they complete six graded drafts was accepted. The draft sequence was platformed and each graded on an independent scale. My colleague and I alternated reading the drafts and returned each heavily edited with the understanding that half of the subsequent grade depended upon the thoroughness with which the students’ responded. “While I had considered myself a fairly effective writer,” reported Stacy, “this capstone pushed me to become a better writer of history by being more direct in my analysis.” The task was “invaluable in helping me to understand the editing process much more fully,” wrote Julian, “…this led me to adopt a much more critical approach when drafting my papers.” Collective work was such a central aspect of the class that student assessment of their peers needed to be an important component in determining individual grades. The use of peer evaluations has many pitfalls. Students are frequently reluctant to assign poor grades and sometimes lack objectivity. We took several steps to address these problems. We ensured that there were a variety of other objective measures of student performance built into the class. We emphasized that the task of evaluating peers was an important managerial skill. We created a clear performance scale that measured a number of attributes. We limited the total number of points they could assign, thereby forcing them to make distinctions, but we allowed them to circumvent this limit if they thought it unfair by writing an argument justifying a higher grade. We also advised them that the score they assigned would not be the only measure upon which their peers’ grades were determined. Finally, we ensured the entire process was anonymous. Other aspects of the class presented challenges for the instructors. The EL approach utilized here requires faculty to relinquish a good measure of the control they hold in a traditional classroom. As the student-centered work increases, the instructors gradually take on a supervisory role in which they monitor group progress, advise teams, and troubleshoot problems that arise. Faculty must take the uncomfortable step of relinquishing control even as the increased visibility of the class enhances pressure upon instructors who must be concerned with a number of outcomes: students’ success, satisfying the expectations of external partners, and that of fellow faculty members. One response was to work more closely with the students, a result consistent with EL research that shows that “less teacher talk requires more teacher time” (Cornell & Clark, p. 94). In all of these ways, the project was at times unsettling for both the students and faculty accustomed to the privatized educational experience of

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the traditional classroom. It has been argued, however, that it is precisely in such an unpredictable environment in which the students learn from mistakes and successes, that they develop initiative and responsibility. In sum, the process of developing these skills requires that both students and instructors to venture out of the “safe harbor” of the traditional teaching model (Roberts, 2016, p. 67).

Making an Impact on People’s Lives: Purpose in Vocation and Service The third learning objective of the course was to foster a sense of purposefulness through service in the students by leading them to appreciate the social value and personal meaningfulness of historical research. The goals of writing a history for public consumption on an issue of local importance, and working with civic partners and local interviewees, were designed to produce this end. That said, we saw the development of the website as critical to the realization of the project’s public service dimension. The students’ audio interviews, archival research, and narrative history of the Arcade would be displayed on the website. Placing these on a website transformed the traditional academic work product of a seminar into a resource for the community and contributed to ongoing efforts to improve the public good by supporting redevelopment in the downtown, while spurring in the students an appreciation of professional vocation (Moon, 2004, pp. 18–23; Sobel, 2005). The decision to build the website was also the boldest move beyond the educational anchorage of the traditional course structure for a history class. To be successful, the student’s had to learn a variety of new skills. This required careful planning on the part of the instructors. Early in the course students began a series of exercises designed to quickly and efficiently teach them how to build a website. They each constructed personal pages which later became part of the overall site. In-class discussions devoted to the website phase of the project initially revolved around the writing groups’ efforts to transfer their essays to the website. In these meetings, however, the students also decided to build additional pages: a quiz, a timeline, a collection of primary document galleries, a gallery of related links, as well as pages devoted to the contributors and acknowledgments. Gradually web building crews began to plan and construct these pages.

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Not surprisingly, building the website proved challenging but also highly rewarding. Not having previously learned the skills needed, the students were nervous, and about half of the students’ reflection exercises contained negative remarks about producing the website. Two complained it limited the time they had to conduct research, and several that it was an unfair burden. As a solution, some of the students recommended future students be introduced to the process in earlier classes. Nonetheless, the majority of students, even those who had critical responses, emphasized the advantages of building a website. Many agreed with Sam who observed it helped “to distribute our work to a wider audience.” Although Kirk “at times” found the task “frustrating,” “in the end, it was very rewarding as I got to actually publish my work (while not officially) to a potentially large audience, exhilarating!” Mary felt she was “actually putting the work into creating something that others are going to see and, hopefully, learn from.” “While building the website was challenging,” Doug concluded, “it was my favorite element of the course because it makes our research project meaningful.” As these examples suggest, the students’ belief they were contributing to the Dayton community positively impacted their views of what they had done. Echoing the sentiments of most others, Mary argued that “being able to do this project has made me feel as though I was able to not only contribute to the UD’s community, but also to the city of Dayton.” Stacy explained that although: our research, writing, and website was on the Arcade, it was also about the city of Dayton. Working on the Arcade project taught me about the mutualistic relationship that a historical structure, like the Arcade, has with a city like Dayton. … In preserving the history of the Arcade, we are also preserving the hard work and memories of people across the city that have come and gone.

On the most basic level, many were excited that their work was connecting them to the world. “As a Dayton native,” wrote Madeline, I really enjoyed researching the Arcade and learning about the history of Dayton. I loved calling up my dad and telling him about the crazy things I learned about the city and hearing how excited he got about it! Both of my parents have experienced the Arcade when it was open, so they always wanted to stay up to date on what I was researching and what people I was interviewing.

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“The research project,” said Doug, “taught me the importance of public history. It taught me the important role historians have as public educators, to craft histories that serve the public good.” As Kirk put it, in the past he had often felt “down about the major I chose” because what he did seemed disconnected and unimportant. “However, this class made me realize the potential importance I can have in my own community if I am committed to preserving its history, I can actually make a difference.” Without a doubt, one of the key factors in these responses was Gruenewald’s (2003) “pedagogical power of place.” After studying the Arcade, Rachel noted that: What seemed to me like just a mall at first was actually a social issue for a lot of people. Getting to do interviews and research on the Arcade, I got to see why people loved it so much and think its re-opening will help revitalize the city. As such, this experience helped me see that as a history major talking about this Arcade, it was my social responsibility to show the Arcade as it once was to the people of Dayton. This also lets other people who don’t know or support the re-opening of the Arcade realize the potential of what it could be.

While it led students to care about Dayton, and to see how their actions mattered, the project also made them grasp that the vocation of history did something much bigger than what they previously understood. Learning how much it meant to Daytonians, wrote Julian, “I could not help but feel some sense of social responsibility to put my skills—the historian’s craft—to use to preserve something of this history. If the Arcade renovation plans had failed, then the website that my classmates and I helped create would have been the only remnant of the Arcade left.” The enthusiasm of students was shared by the community partners with whom they worked. As anticipated, completing the website made what the students had done immediately accessible to others. An archivist at the public library was amazed by collection of primary documents the students had put together and declared her intention to recommend it to K-12 students doing research on Dayton. After seeing the site, one of the city’s leading conservationists declared it “the best study of the Arcade that has been done.” In the first year and half since becoming public, the website has attracted over 1500 visitors. The coalition rebuilding the Arcade thought so highly of the results, they requested we teach a second class on the topic and expand the content on the website. They are also

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planning to construct a display on the inside of the renovated complex featuring the students’ research.

Advantages of the Experiential Learning Approach Students concluded that the class successfully achieved the three learning outcomes, that is, to give the students an applied, real-world understanding of historical work; develop the students’ capacity to solve problems faced when conducting a collaborative, multi-task, and integrative research project; and foster in them a purposeful sense of vocation and community action. It also developed highly transferable skills. “I think this course was a good measure for how we will do in the working world,” stated Dennis. For those more interested in history as a profession, it opened up new possibilities that they hadn’t imagined. “It taught me that history can be approached and done in so many ways,” observed Stacy. “From archival research, to oral history, or digital history, there are many avenues in history for students to thrive … that do not always require the traditional essay writing that many students are accustomed to.” Comments reveal this heightened appreciation was linked to an enlarged recognition of purposefulness, and in a way that confirms the value of the pedagogy of place and EL more generally. The project, Sam noted, connected “[me] to the greater Dayton community which had previously been neglected in my studies [because, living on campus, it] is easy to ignore at UD.” “Dayton has a rich and complex history,” he continued, “which I now value much more as a result of this project.” Asked what he would tell students about this class if he had the chance, Sam’s response shows how significant community-engaged learning experiences can be for students on campuses that are geographically close to, but culturally separated from, cities in which they are situated. Although it was not the intent of the course, the project led some of the students to reflect on pedagogical problems that had formed the reason why we had undertaken the project in the first place. Some of the students believed the class pointed to deficiencies in their education. Given the value he and others saw in building the website, Denis wondered why he had not been asked to do this before. He observed that “the internet is going to become a large source of information every single day and it is important that we use it.” “The task of working on a website is undervalued at UD,” observed Jack more directly. In sum, he and other students

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expressed the belief that the way history was taught needed to change in order for the profession to stay relevant. Another student who was entering local government after graduation believed “it should be important for the history profession to stay up-to-date with social media platforms and dissemination of information. The nature of this course framework does a good job of putting students in that up-to-date environment.” For another student planning to pursue graduate study in history, the course awakened a different set of concerns. The project made him think more explicitly about the future of the profession. The nuts and bolts of making the project work “made me aware of how important it is to convince others of the value of historical work—in order to secure necessary funding. I believe this balance between knowledge for itself, and tangible benefits for an intended audience is the most important lesson that I learned from this seminar.” I came away from the course with four conclusions regarding the value in history classes of using EL methods. First, traditional classroom experiences ill-prepared the students to distinguish useful primary sources from other materials when looking within collections. Similarly, their lack of direct experience conducting researching and writing history that is based on primary documents from archives left them unaware of the need to creatively seek evidence that would answer their questions when the most obvious types of sources they would use were unavailable. In this course they encountered these problems directly. Second, using EL methods encouraged the students to be more self-reliant and engaged with their peers. As a result, they felt that they had a more authentic learning experience. Third, using EL methods not only developed the skills expected of the traditional seminar, but did so in a manner better suited to the needs of many students who will not become historians. Finally, responses to the course by students and the public suggest the use of EL methods might better serve the major by highlighting the advantages of the historical enterprise.

References Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching (1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

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Chan, A., & Derry, T. (Eds.). (2013). A roadmap for transforming the collegeto-career experience. Retrieved from https://prod.wp.cdn.aws.wfu.edu/ sites/74/2013/05/A-Roadmap-for-Transforming-The-College-to-CareerExperience.pdf. Gruenewald, D. A. (2003). Foundations of place: A multidisciplinary framework for place-conscious education. American Educational Research Journal, 40(3), 619–654. Harkavy, I., & Donovan, B. M. (Eds.). (2005). Connecting past and present: Concepts and models for service-learning in history (2nd ed.). Sterling, VA: AAHE and Stylus Publishing. Huber, M., & Hutchings, P. (2004). Integrative learning mapping the terrain. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Kolb, D. A. (2015). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson. Moon, J. A. (2004). A handbook of reflective and experiential learning. New York: Routledge. Pelligrino, J., & Hilton, M. L. (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Research Council. Roberts, J. W. (2016). College context: What it is, how it works, and why it matters. New York: Routledge. Sobel, D. (2005). Place-based education: Connecting classrooms and communities. Great Barrington, MA: Orion Society. Wurdinger, S. D., & Carlson, J. A. (2010). Teaching for experiential learning: Five approaches that work. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

CHAPTER 12

Power, Access, and Policy: Reflections on the Women’s Center Internship Program Lisa J. Borello

Higher education institutions are inherently gendered organizations, manifesting in gender imbalances in institutional leadership, differential access and persistence in degree programs, pay inequity, and other forms of gender-based discrimination throughout the life of the institution (Acker & Van Houten, 1974; DeWelde & Stepnick, 2015; Sayce & Acker, 2012). These historical gender inequities—made sharper by the intersection of other social identities including race, age, and sexual orientation—persist in policy development and execution, reinforcing structural inequalities and cultural practices in academia that disadvantage women (DeWelde & Stepnick, 2015). While workplace policies and practices are felt throughout the institution with specific consequences for women-identified faculty and staff, they are made largely invisible to students. Although students are not immune from experiencing the impact of gendered institutional practices in the classroom vis-a-vis faculty representation or sex segregation

L. J. Borello (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_12

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in degree programs, among others, institutional decision-making often operates independently of student input and critique. In the development of a policy-focused internship program for students, I sought to disrupt these divisions by using the university itself as the foundation for problembased learning. Bridging problem-based learning approaches (Duch, Groh, & Allen, 2001) with feminist theory and praxis (Kark, Preser, & Zion-Waldoks, 2016), this chapter explores my personal experiences developing and facilitating a year-long internship program in the University of Dayton’s Women’s Center. This internship gave students an opportunity to create and revise new and existing policies related to work-life balance, within the frame of a specific, real-time university need. In providing a real-world problem with the potential to have a marked positive impact on employees at the university, I aimed to create not only a unique and transformational experiential learning opportunity for students, but also sought to develop a sustainable model resulting in a more gender-equitable campus.

Feminist Praxis and Problem-Based Learning Numerous scholars (Hora, Wolfgram, & Thompson, 2017; Simons et al., 2012) have emphasized the value of internships as a crucial “real world” complement to classroom learning, resulting in critical skill development and increased employability, as well as increased cultural competency (Gushue, 2004). Similarly, feminist scholars (Bethman, Cottledge, & Bickford, 2018; Davie, 2002) have written about the role of Women’s Centers as vital spaces that provide invaluable opportunities for students to engage in meaningful social justice activism. Women’s Centers— which began opening at universities across the country in the 1960s and 1970s in response to the women’s movement—also function as advocacy organizations to promote systemic change and improve the climate for women on campus, as well as provide access to needed resources (Byrne, 2000; Wetzel, 1988). By their unique placement within higher education, Women’s Centers also enhance the goals of feminist pedagogy and provide a space for intellectual empowerment, where “learning and knowledge are jointly constructive, integrative, and complex” (Byrne, 2000, p. 49). Feminist pedagogy is both a methodological and theoretical practice that encourages critical consciousness-raising and social transformation, as well as is defined by its “commitment to incorporating the voices and experiences of marginalized students into the academic discourse as

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well as educating all students for social justice and change” (Mayberry & Rees, 1997, p. 57). The relationship between Women’s Centers and Women’s Studies/Women’s and Gender Studies academic programs provides another avenue to sharpen the connection between the curricular and the co-curricular through field placements, shared educational programs, and coalition building. Feminist praxis and pedagogy are inherently experiential in nature (Mayberry & Rose, 1999; Naples & Bojar, 2013), but its problems are not necessarily neatly defined, organized, or easily solved. Still, the tenant of problem-based learning is useful to frame the methodological underpinnings of this internship program. Under the umbrella of experiential learning, project-based learning (PBL)—also described as “inquiry-based learning”, “problem-based”, and “discovery-based” learning—is a core methodology in experiential education. Duch et al. (2001) define PBL as a teaching methodology in which “complex, real-world problems are used to motivate students to identify and research the concepts and principles they need to know to work through those problems” (p. 6). A connection to a real-world problem is a critical component to providing a meaningful PBL experience. A strong PBL problem must motivate students to seek a deeper understanding and require students to make reasoned decisions and defend them; the problem should build on and connect to previous knowledge and still be complex enough to require a collaborative approach in order to solve it (Duch, 1996; Duch et al., 2001). PBL promotes critical thinking skills and helps students develop problem-solving and communication skills, as well as the ability to work both independently and in teams. While PBL has the potential to transform student learning, it requires instructors to shift their own pedagogical approaches and teaching practices, as well as create authentic, meaningful problems for students.

Designing the Internship: Background and Generating the Policy Problem This inaugural policy-focused internship was a partnership between the Women’s Center and Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) program, where it counted as credit toward the academic major or minor or could be applied toward general credits for any major. Our goal in facilitating this partnership was to bridge feminist theory and praxis, that is, connecting classroom discussions to on-the-ground action, leading to

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social change. We also wanted to give undergraduate students exposure to career options—to be able to see the utility of a degree in the humanities, to shadow a professional engaged in gender-focused work, and to explore the multiple workplaces in which a social justice mindset was a necessity. It was also an important collaboration between our units which, despite being co-located in the same physical office space, had not created such an arrangement in their shared history. When we began conceptualizing this partnership in early 2018, the WGS program had just celebrated 40 years at the University of Dayton and the center celebrated 15 years. While the two units had long maintained a strong working relationship, new leadership in both the WGS program and WC provided an opportunity to re-imagine its partnership and create new avenues to strengthen student learning on campus; the internship program also had strong support from the Dean’s Office in the College of Arts & Sciences, which paved the way for us to offer academic credit to students participating in this program. I designed this internship with several guiding principles and assumptions in mind. First, the student experience does not function in isolation of university business operations—instead, students operate within a broader institutional structure of which decision-making has a real impact on their education. Policies and practices around hiring and promotion of tenure-track faculty, for example, do have an impact—both directly and indirectly—on what and how students learn. Second, while structural inequalities are entrenched and pervasive throughout society, inequitable institutional structures are not static—they can and will shift and evolve over time. Policy is one way in which inequitable structures are preserved (or dismantled). Third, some policies are explicitly gendered (i.e., maternity leave) and others are seemingly gender-neutral but still have implications for gendered bodies (i.e., telecommuting). Our task was to unravel both and identify ways in which either form could potentially contribute to gender-based inequities in the workplace. Fourth, while gender was our central tool of analysis, we explored policies using an intersectional framework meaning we took into account multiple interlocking social identities. Finally, students are both learners and knowers, and we must utilize and value their knowledge, as well as provide opportunities to help them build knowledge. Using the University of Dayton’s definition of “equity,” that is, the process of modifying structures and practices that have intentionally or unintentionally advantaged or disadvantaged groups of people, we sought to create policies, practices, and traditions that support just outcomes for all genders.

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The internship was competitive, and students had to apply and interview for a spot in the program. While being a women’s and gender studies major or minor wasn’t a requirement for being selected, students had to have had at least a preliminary understanding of gender-related issues and a desire to engage in social justice-related work. Policy experience also wasn’t a necessary prerequisite—it was more important that students had a willingness to learn and were able to work collaboratively on complex problems, as well as work independently. In its inaugural year, we selected three women undergraduate students to participate in the internship program.

Identifying Our Problem My initial goal in building this program was to simply provide students insight into how policies are developed and implemented at the university level and to develop critical thinking skills that would be beneficial for the university in some way. In the midst of creating this internship program, a “live” problem emerged that challenged me to re-imagine the internship and the work the students would do. By way of background, shortly before I arrived at the university in 2017, the institution experienced a flurry of leadership changes, including a new President, new Provost and inaugural Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion—all with a shared commitment to positioning the University of Dayton as a university for the “Common Good” with a strategic focus on diversifying the student body and workforce, and in creating an affordable and accessible institution where all students could thrive. Amidst a wave of several institutional-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, a university working group comprised of both faculty and staff (of which I was a part) had just completed a report identifying recommendations for recruiting, retaining, and promoting underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and women faculty and staff. From that report, a small subset of priorities was identified, including a directive to: “Critically evaluate current policies and benefits related to work-life balance, and develop a list of specific, feasible recommendations for policies and practices that promote gender equity.” From there, our real-world, real-time problem was born, as was the institutional need that allowed students to engage in an authentic and complex problem of deep institutional significance. The timing could not have been more ideal.

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The interns had to take a very large social problem—gender inequity— and identify a small subset of recommendations centered on work-life balance to solve it. And they had to enter into the problem knowing that policy alone could not address the full scope of gender-related concerns within our institution. This required a rich understanding of the organizational structure of our university, an understanding of the subtleties in roles at the university (staff vs. faculty, tenure-track faculty vs. non-tenuretrack faculty, exempt staff vs. non-exempt staff), as well as an ability to tease out the nuances between policy development and implementation, accounting for its unintended consequences and costs, and its potential for differential distribution given the decentralized nature of our campus. What I didn’t take into account initially was that students also had to learn about the challenges of being both a working professional and a caretaker—a role they were not familiar with as traditional-age students without their own children or dependents to support. Students began to understand the magnitude of the problem early on as we began unpacking the myriad of issues facing women in academe.

Structuring the Internship Program I didn’t expect the problem to be solved in a week or month. Knowing we had an entire academic year to tackle this larger problem, I organized this internship like a course—including creating a syllabus each semester that established learning goals, outlined required readings and set deadlines for our main deliverables. Learning goals included: (1) gain a greater understanding of gender equity issues within higher education (and other employment sectors); (2) develop understanding of how policies are developed within a university environment; (3) understand best practices related to benchmarking research; (4) create guidance documents to assist policy makers with applying a gender lens in the development of policies; and (5) make meaning of your experience through participation in experiential learning lab and written articulation of work experience on resume. We met as a team weekly and interns each spent 6–10 hours each week in the Women’s Center over the academic year. Interns first began with a deep dive into the issues facing women in academe—spending the first few weeks reading relevant research and case studies on work-life balance concerns, representation in leadership positions, tenure and promotion, and gender bias in the classroom. We then

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reviewed current university policies. Our discussions centered on complex questions: Why does policy matter? What is aspirational versus what is achievable? What are the costs of implementing vs. the cost of not? In what ways do power and privilege materialize in policies? As they began to develop a foundational understanding of university operations and governance, the nature of the internship began to shift to a specific deliverable related to this institutional mandate. To begin generating the tools needed to solve the very complex problem with which we were charged—as well as provide students with an opportunity to see university decision-making ‘in action”—the interns spent the year meeting with multiple senior leaders, including the Vice President of Human Resources, the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion, the Associate Provost for Faculty and Administrative Affairs, President of the Academic Senate, the Equity Compliance Officer, and numerous other leaders from legal affairs, human resources, and the academic units. Campus experts shared their perspectives on the costs of policy implementation, how to get stakeholder buy-in, the process for reviewing academic policies, best practices for benchmarking, lessons learned from previous policy roll-outs, and the legal landscape. They were also required to attend Academic Senate meetings and meetings held by the University Policy Coordinating Committee, the primary group responsible for reviewing and approving new policies and changes to existing policies. For many, this was their first foray into understanding the university is an organization with its own infrastructure, practices, and policies. By the end of the first semester in the program, interns worked collaboratively to conduct benchmarking of 19 work-life balance-related policies and family-friendly practices at 32 peer institutions and aspirational institutions (those universities and colleges known as leaders in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts). By the end of the academic year, interns drafted a revision to the university’s existing telecommuting policy, a new family leave policy including the institution’s first-ever paternity leave that also expanded leave for other caregivers, and produced an analysis of flexible work schedules. The interns had to present their final recommendations to senior leaders, as well as defend the choices they made. At the time of this writing, the proposed policies were still under review by the university’s senior administration.

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Reflections on Facilitating Student-Led Policy Work At the end of the academic year, I asked the three interns to each draft a written reflection of their experience. One student wrote: The internship allowed [us] to see into a completely different world ‘behind the curtain.’ My perspective has shifted massively since before the internship started. I have learned so much about myself in a professional setting, UD, gender equity, higher education administration and policy making.

One student described the internship as “more impactful than any class you would take,” adding “this experience allowed me to see possible job opportunities for myself outside of what I had previously thought possible.” A third reflected on specific skill development: “I believe I have become more confident and secure in my ability to speak candidly about an issue to authority figures….my writing and researching skills have improved drastically. This has helped me convey my thoughts to others in a more productive and thoughtful way.” It was tremendously rewarding to see the ways in which students made meaning of their experiences and grew personally and professionally in different ways, and the ways in which they work effectively together and built off each others’ strengths. All three expressed an interest in a career in policy after completing the internship. When the interns began this experience, they had a limited understanding of how higher education institutions operate. Looking back on my own experiences as an undergraduate, I didn’t either—in fact, I didn’t truly understand the function of institutions outside of my classroom experience until I had been working in higher education for several years. I reflected on this often over the course of the year, of the ways we in higher education intentionally or unintentionally create these invisible divisions between the student experience and the employee experience, and the ways we seem to operate in isolation of each other even in the same physical space. As a sociologist, I approached this internship as an opportunity to “make the familiar strange” (Mills, 1959)—that is to critically interrogate what seems known, in this case, the university itself. As a result, I sought to disrupt norms around the student experience—one typically framed

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as protected by and separate from institutional authority and decisionmaking—to allow students to become agents of change. But what happens when institutions and its agents expose their own vulnerabilities to students? On a basic level, engaging in this work was predicated on the assumption that current policies and practices at the university were not sufficient or, in their present state, were somehow reinforcing gender inequity. This opened the door to exposing students to climate concerns expressed by employees, which revealed inadequacies in our institution’s current practices. While I was transparent about these realities, I also felt compelled to temper these discussions, often framing them as endemic to higher education at-large. As a sociologist, I wanted them to always consider the broader social, historical, cultural, and political context, not to just consider this as a local problem. Still, I wrestled with an inherent tension around the need to allow students to engage this problem through their own lens, not mine, while also preserving my core job function to advocate on behalf of women-identified faculty, staff, and students. I also needed to manage institutional politics. I wondered if I too was protecting the institution and my role within it? And what or who was I protecting? While Women’s Centers—and similarly situated identity centers—function in part to disrupt institutional practices and policies (Patton, 2011), its work is also embedded within patriarchal institutions and must confront the contradictory and paradoxical demands of functioning both with and against these structures while also providing learning opportunities for students. Kark et al. (2016) write: “Pursuing gender equity and a feminist agenda within organizational contexts creates a need to cope with competing demands. As the complexity and ambiguity of the environment grows, leaders of social enterprises experience increased pressures to manage embedded dualities and contradictory demands” (pp. 295–296). It is in this space of tension and paradoxical demands which challenged me to view my own role not only in facilitating this internship but in the university at-large. At times, it was a careful dance as I struggled to make meaning of the experience: How do I negotiate the tension of my own role—as one that critiques existing systems and structures, while simultaneously operating within them? And how do I (de)sensitize students to the challenges in living in this space of tension? How do I empower students when I myself am restrained by institutional limits? I was entering into this partnership as a relatively new member of the campus community with the strategic long-term goal of expanding the reach and scope of the center’s efforts beyond services and programming

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into research and policy work. I felt well-equipped to manage this change, but it was a stark contrast to the way the center was run over the course of its 15-year history on campus. I sought to provide interns with a meaningful experience and the opportunity to work on an authentic problem that had the capacity to make a significant impact on the university. But this also presented a challenge in that it created a tension in traditional notions of hierarchical and gendered decision-making at the university. In other words, who gets to create and implement policy, and who is implicated in it? The Women’s Center had historically only served in a consultancy role when it came to policies that affect women-identified students, faculty and staff, rather than occupying a central role in decision-making. Shifting this framework, essentially flipping hierarchy on its head, was, ironically, only made possible because of the student involvement in this work. As a student-centered institution, our campus has long been open to hearing student voices and engaging in innovative teaching practices. In fact, engaging students in this project was enthusiastically received by senior leaders who welcomed the interns’ ideas and unique perspective and frequently expressed their appreciation for the interns’ efforts. This response emphasized, at least to me, the necessity of involving students in this work. Still, because policy-making is a complex endeavor, requiring a multi-tiered vetting system in existing structures and committees, there were limits to how far we could carry this project. While the interns understood the inherent limitations—i.e., that their suggested policy revisions would not be approved or implemented automatically—there was still some institutional disappointment to manage.

Conclusion Experiential learning opportunities not only provide transformational spaces for student learning, they also have the capacity to transform institutions themselves, as well as the practitioners that guide these efforts. But this transformation is only possible if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to expose the inherent messiness of our own organizations and be transparent around ways we as practitioners must function within existing structures—visible and invisible—to affect and sustain positive change. For identity centers in particular, engagement with students through internships can deepen our own practice as we co-create knowledge and work collaboratively toward creating a just campus community.

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Problem-based learning, combined with feminist approaches to knowledge creation, has the potential to solve institutional problems, not simply abstract ones. But the challenge in focusing on high-stakes, live problems are multi-fold and perhaps not always easily accessible depending on the institutional context. At UD, the relational aspect of the campus, the generosity of institutional leaders, as well as the emphasis on providing experiential learning opportunities for students, coupled with a time-sensitive institutional need, presented a perfect storm of opportunity and access. This may not always readily available to others, nor potentially to me in the future. The challenge for me—and other practitioners building similar models—is to replicate and sustain this program by presenting an original problem that is meaningful for students and the institution—both have to see the necessity and value in the partnership to continue. Finding an institutional problem that is both manageable and of significance is an important component, requiring creativity and adaptability. Still, this internship model provides a useful framework for deepening student’s competencies in critical thinking, writing, and communication, while exposing them to gender equity issues of which they have the capacity to change for the better.

References Acker, J., & Van Houten, D. (1974). Differential recruitment and control: The sex structuring of organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 19(2), 152–163. Bethman, B., Cottledge, A., & Bickford, D. (2018). University and college women’s and gender equity Centers: The changing landscape. New York: Routledge. Byrne, K. (2000). The roles of campus-based women’s centers. Feminist Teacher, 13(1), 48–60. Retrieved August 1, 2019 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 40545931. Davie, S. L. (Ed.). (2002). University and college women’s centers: A journey toward equity. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. De Welde, S., & Stepnick, A. (2015). Disrupting the culture of silence: Confronting gender inequality and making change in higher education. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Duch, B. (1996). Problems: A key factor in PBL. About Teaching, 50, 7–8. Duch, B., Groh, S., & Allen, D. E. (Eds.). (2001). The power of problem-based Learning: A practical, “how to” for teaching undergraduate courses in any discipline. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

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Gushue, G. V. (2004). Race, color-blind racial attitudes, and judgments about mental health: A shifting standards perspective. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 51(4), 398–407. Hora, M. T., Wolfgram, M., & Thompson, S. (2017). What do we know about the impact of internships on student outcomes? Results from a preliminary review of the scholarly and practitioner literatures. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved August 1, 2019 from http://ccwt.wceruw.org/documents/CCWT-reportDesigning-Internship-Programs.pdf. Kark, R., Preser, R., & Zion-Waldoks, T. (2016). From a politics of dilemmas to a politics of paradoxes: Feminism, pedagogy, and women’s leadership for social change. Journal of Management Education, 40, 293–320. Mayberry, M., & Rees, M. N. (1997). Feminist pedagogy, interdisciplinary praxis, and science education. NWSA Journal, 9(1), 57–75. Mayberry, M. E., & Rose, E. (1999). Meeting the challenge: Innovative feminist pedagogies in action. New York: Routledge. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Naples, N., & Bojar, K. (2013). Teaching feminist activism: Strategies from the field. New York: Routledge. Patton, L. D. (2011). Promoting critical conversations about identity centers. In P. M. Magolda & M. Baxter Magolda (Eds.), Contested issues in student affairs: Diverse perspectives and respectful dialogue (pp. 255–260). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Sayce, S., & Acker, J. (2012). Gendered organizations and intersectionality: Problems and possibilities. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 31(3), 214–224. Simons, L., Fehr, L., Blank, N., Connell, N., Georganas, D., Fernandez, D., & Peterson, V. (2012). Lessons learned from experiential learning: What do students learn from a practicum/internship? International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 24(3), 325–334. Wetzel, J. (1988). Women’s centers: The frameworks. Initiatives, 51(2/3), 11– 16.

CHAPTER 13

Beyond Skepticism or Compassion: A Critical Pedagogy of Gender-Based Violence Jamie L. Small

Gender-based violence is one of the most pressing social issues of our times. Yet undergraduate students often approach the problem from a place of either skepticism or compassion. Even when presented with startling empirical data and poignant first-person narratives, students tend to remain entrenched in these polarized—and frankly unproductive— positions. In this chapter, I discuss how experiential learning (EL) offers a pathway for deepened intellectual engagement by helping students to situate their own lives in relation to gender-based violence. This chapter is a case study of an EL project that I ran in a Sociology of Gender course. I partnered with a local domestic violence resource agency, and so I wrote the syllabus with a focus on this substantive issue. The EL project was comprised of multiple components, each of which enabled students to expand and apply their knowledge. In this chapter, I first describe the logistics of the EL activities, and then I discuss how this sustained engagement across different modalities pushed students to re-situate their

J. L. Small (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_13

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own lives in relation to gender-based violence. Students reported that for the first time, they saw violence operating in the lives of their friends, family members, and even in their own families of origin. Prior to this pedagogical experience, many had simply not noticed. To be sure, this intellectual process was decidedly not about personal disclosure or therapeutic recuperation. However, by locating themselves within social systems of gendered violence—as opposed to maintaining positions as outside observers—students created richer knowledge. This dude got a gun pointed to my boyfriend’s head. I’ve got a restraining order on him. The police told me to call you when I see him. I gave you the address. Can’t you just send somebody out there? I’m scared. He’s got a gun. I can’t talk. I can’t talk. I’m in a bad situation. —LaShonda Childs, phone call to 911 dispatcher

LaShonda Childs had been trying to sever ties with Trendell Goodwin, her ex-boyfriend, for many months. Eleven years her senior, Goodwin had bit, hit, slapped, burned, and held Childs captive at gunpoint. He had harassed her by social media and phone—texting or calling sometimes dozens of times a day, according to her mother—long after she broke up with him. Childs filed a personal protection order in February 2018, but she recanted two months later, saying that he was a good man even though he had made mistakes.1 Despite evidence of severe violence and with the intervention of law enforcement, Childs had not been successful in deterring Goodwin’s escalating aggression. On a Tuesday afternoon, Goodwin confronted Childs and her new boyfriend on the west side of Dayton. It was early October, just three days before Childs’ eighteenth birthday. As Childs and her boyfriend attempted to drive away from the conflict, Goodwin fired a gun into the passenger side of the Chevy Impala. After a bullet struck her in the head, her boyfriend raced her to the nearby Grandview Medical Center. She died later that night. One of my students told me about Childs’ death the following week in class. We happened to be touring the Artemis Center, a domestic violence resource agency located in the heart of downtown Dayton, for class that day. I had scheduled the field trip to illuminate the intersection between our intellectual work on gender-based violence and its real-world connections. But I did not anticipate just how much those lines would blur over the course of the semester. My student had grown up on the same side of the city as Childs, and she was just a couple years older than her. It was a

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case that hit close to home. As we were touring the Artemis Center, she wondered if Childs had ever sought services there. Our guide could not reveal this information due to client confidentiality, but the question itself revealed how our classroom space was not insulated from the horrors of violence. Media coverage of Childs’ death focused on a haunting social media post that she had made less than two weeks earlier.2 Embedded in a long statement, she wrote, “If you see the signs don’t ignore it y’all. Domestic violence is real not just in movies.” Childs had an acute understanding of the reality of domestic violence. Yet with some notable exceptions, my undergraduate students do not understand its gritty reality when they arrive in my classes. They tend to approach the issue of gender-based violence from a place of either skepticism or compassion. Even when presented with startling empirical data and poignant first-person narratives, students tend to remain entrenched in these polarized—and frankly unproductive—positions. In this chapter, I discuss how EL offers a pathway for deepened intellectual engagement by helping students to situate their own lives in relation to gender-based violence. My students reported that for the first time, they saw violence operating in the lives of their friends, family members, and even in their own families of origin. Prior to this pedagogical experience, they simply had not noticed. To be sure, this process was decidedly not about personal disclosure or therapeutic recuperation. However, by locating themselves within social systems of gender-based violence—as opposed to maintaining positions as external observers—students created critical feminist knowledge.

Gendering Violence Gender-based violence is a pervasive social problem. I define it as any sort of interpersonal, institutional, or symbolic violence that works to discipline individual’s gendered selves. It may manifest as hate crimes, sexual assault, reproductive coercion, or relationship abuse. The World Health Organization estimates that 35% of women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime (WHO, 2013). In the United States, nearly 50% of female homicide victims are killed by a former or current intimate partner (Catalano, Smith, Snyder, & Rand, 2009), and young women who are racial/ethnic minorities are at disproportionate risk of lethal violence within an intimate relationship (Petrosky et al., 2017). The adverse effects of gender-based violence are myriad, including

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economic, health, and social consequences. Yet while women and children comprise the vast majority of victims, men and boys also experience gender-based violence. For instance, sexualized hazing among teenaged boys maintains rigid hierarchies of masculinity through violent acts. In this chapter, I concentrate primarily on intimate partner violence (IPV), sometimes known as domestic violence (DV), because this was the focus of our community partner.

Curricular Mechanics I built this experiential learning project into a 300-level Sociology of Gender course. It was comprised of a three-pronged curriculum: (a) a tailored syllabus; (b) community engagement; and (c) project-based learning. The course enrolled 32 students who were largely social science or humanities majors, and we also had a sizeable minority of business, engineering, and education majors. The project could be scaled up for larger classes, although I would recommend against implementing it in large lecturestyle classes, as the instructor needs to maintain bandwidth to do frequent check-ins with students due to the difficult content. I connected with the executive director of the Artemis Center several months before the start of the semester. Once she was committed to working with us, I designed the syllabus to focus significantly, although not exclusively, on gender-based violence. Students read cutting edge sociological research on genderbased violence, and in lectures, I directed them to consider competing theories on the role of violence in maintaining gender-based oppression. We watched the PBS Frontline documentary, A Death in St. Augustine, which tracks the often hidden problem of police officer-involved domestic homicides. My discussion below emerges from my vantage point as the instructor, and I also draw on students’ voices based on their submitted coursework. Their identities are concealed with pseudonyms and by scrambling any potentially traceable details. Community engagement was the second component of this EL project. The objective was to help students see how professionals and organizations in the community respond to gender-based violence. We had two guest speakers come to class, and we did a field trip to the Artemis Center. Our guest speakers were the executive director of the Artemis Center and a seasoned officer in the police department. Historically, feminist advocacy organizations and law enforcement agencies have often had contentious relationships with one another. In Dayton,

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their working relationships are reportedly strong, but nonetheless, these two representatives offered competing perspectives on gender-based violence. I intentionally selected them to demonstrate to students that organizational structures and priorities impact tremendously how professionals conceptualize the issue, its victims, and its perpetrators. Our speakers attended class on different days, and the students swiftly picked up on the different ideologies at play. Because this class was comprised largely of advanced learners, they were prepared to engage with points of evidence that sometimes appeared incompatible. In turn, we used those disjunctures as teachable moments to think more deeply about the issue. The field trip to the Artemis Center, which is located two miles north of campus, gave students the opportunity to see the actual workspaces in which their advocacy takes place. They occupy four floors of a downtown office building, and their rooms are furnished with comfortable yet ordinary materials. The students got to see the food pantry, the children’s therapy room, and the telephone hotline desk. Seeing these spaces firsthand, and observing the security measures required, brought antiviolence advocacy to life in a way that sociological texts and lectures simply cannot accomplish. We did the tours in groups of eight students (two guides and two time slots), which facilitated questions and conversations as we moved through the space. We toured in the evening after regular business hours to minimize the likelihood of running into clients. Notably, our class met once per week for 2.5 hours; this longer block of time made it significantly more manageable to coordinate these special events. In addition to the tailored syllabus and community engagement opportunities, I layered project-based learning onto our semester’s work. Project-based learning facilitated deep engagement for students once they had gained foundational knowledge. I crafted two different projects that students completed in small groups of five. First, the course received $1000 in grant funding from the university; $200 went toward honorariums for our guest speakers, and the remaining $800 was earmarked for donation to the Artemis Center. The student teams were tasked with conducting a needs assessment; developing a project plan; and then writing competitive grant proposals recommending how to use the funds. Grant writing was a new skill for most students, so they learned about a new genre of persuasive writing. Moreover, due to the friendly competition between groups and the fact that we had real money to spend, their engagement with our guest speakers was increased. Although modest in

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relation to their annual budget, the financial resources also meant that we were able to achieve a greater degree of reciprocity with our community partner. Many critics argue, persuasively, that service-based learning too often perpetuates asymmetrical relationships between universities and the under-resourced communities (either domestically or internationally) with which they partner. Financial resources can help to mitigate these power differentials, to some degree. Second, the student teams created mini-documentary films that addressed gender-based violence. Like the grant proposal, most students had little experience with scriptwriting, filmmaking, or editing. Nonetheless, they were eager and industrious in approaching this new task. Their creativity was remarkable. We screened and discussed the 4–6-minute films on the last two days of class. This experiential learning project held students to high expectations. They were immersed in learning about difficult material; they had to produce academic work in non-traditional formats; and they had to navigate the challenges of working in teams. Moreover, there were many unknowns at the beginning of the semester, which is an intrinsic feature of engaging external stakeholders. My personality type is such that I enjoy the pedagogical surprises, navigating challenges, and seeing the fascinating things that students come up with when they are given lots of latitude. At the same time, I recognize that some students are unaccustomed to self-directed learning. Thus, sustained student commitment requires intensive coaching and frequent narration about the process of discovery. I reminded students regularly that the open-ended nature of our projects was intentional, and I encouraged them to approach the work with a spirit of curiosity. Although this did not completely assuage the concerns of more regimented students, it did invite them to remain engaged in the course. Also, because the small groups were randomly assigned, it meant that personality types tended to balance out. I provided considerable time in class for students to workshop, which enabled them to develop their ideas and troubleshoot problems in a collaborative learning environment.

Situating Violence In 2001, therapist and activist Frank Baird organized the first Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event in southern California. The event featured men walking around in high-heeled shoes to understand, in some small measure, the difficult life experiences of women. Since that first march, the event has ballooned in popularity and become one of the most well-known

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and successful campaigns against gender-based violence. Baird made it a flagship project under his nonprofit corporation, Venture Humanity, and organizations around the country—from college fraternities to anti-violence groups—use this model as their annual fundraising event. Indeed, much of the pedagogical literature on gender-based violence focuses on classroom methods to increase students’ empathy (Clevenger, Navarro, & Gregory, 2016; Murphy-Geiss, 2008). Despite the galvanizing potential of such events, this is decidedly not the kind of work that I envisioned for my students. Although the Walk a Mile model attempts to shift the focus from sympathy to empathy, which is important, it still stops short by locating violence at the interpersonal level. Wearing uncomfortable shoes may increase men’s understanding of the pain of feminine subjectivity (although some critics question even this basic premise), but it still elides the structural dimensions of gender-based violence. Instead, my pedagogical objective was to create an understanding of “situated locations” with my students and our interlocutors (Lal, 1998): that is, we live in a social system that is structured by gender-based violence, so we need a knowledge of how these dynamics permeate our lives. It is wholly insufficient—not to mention alienating—to approach the issue by categorizing people as only victims, perpetrators, or saviors. Here, I discuss how students began to situate their lives in relation to gender-based violence over the course of the semester. None of the students vocally expressed overt skepticism about the existence of gender-based violence (although this perspective certainly emerges in my lower-level courses), but many of them were also not necessarily cognizant of how close the issue was to their own lives. Two students in particular discovered new ways of understanding their own lives through the pedagogical process. First, partway through the semester, one student was engaged in casual conversation with a family member, and she was telling her about this course and our collaboration with the Artemis Center. This information prompted her cousin to reveal that she had been experiencing severe family violence and had sought support services. This family secret came as a complete surprise to my student. In her final reflection paper, she wrote, “Throughout the beginning of the course, IPV was just another social problem we discussed in class. I didn’t have a connection to this issue at all…after my conversation with my cousin, the issue of domestic violence took on new meaning and significance for me. The final project became even more important because I actually knew one of the clients who would benefit from the resources

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our $800 grant proposal would provide. Domestic violence now had a face. A face of someone I love.” Here, the student’s increased knowledge and her willingness to insert the topic into casual conversation created a set of social conditions in which her cousin no longer felt compelled to hide her victimization. In a second case, a student’s understanding of her family of origin dynamics evolved over the course of the semester. “I do come from a home where verbal abuse was present during periods of my childhood, but it was never something I understood as unjust or abusive until taking this course. I can see now the inequality that women in my home and family have faced by aggressive and abusive partners.” Rather than normalizing it as ordinary (Hlavka, 2014), as she had done previously, this student was finally able to see and name the harm of verbal abuse. In addition to re-conceptualizing prior life experiences, the pedagogical process also enabled students to see their current worlds differently. Partway through the semester, one student described a situation with her roommate whose boyfriend was excessively controlling. At first, the housemates had pegged the fifth roommate as shy and anti-social; she spent most of her time either in her room or with her boyfriend. Having not known her very well prior to living together, the remaining housemates had no baseline by which to assess her seemingly odd behavior. Finally, though, the fifth roommate revealed the stress that her boyfriend’s abusive behavior caused. Here is how my student described this moment in her final reflection paper and the group’s collective capacity to respond in a compassionate fashion. At the beginning of the semester, I did not think that a class topic on IPV would have a direct impact on my life. However, this class aligned at the perfect time for my life…two of the roommates expressed their intense distaste for her boyfriend. A situation in the past had put them in a threatening encounter with Matthew…one night in particular, the roommates were all drinking wine and watching a movie. We had all finished our first glass and went to pour our second. Jane said that she could not have another drink…Jane said Matthew would be mad at her for drinking without him. Jane then had an emotional outburst about how she has been feeling all year. With tears flooding her face, she told us that she was in an abusive relationship. The conversation shifted and after she had explained all of his abusive behavior to us, a plan of action was created. Jane decided she would break up with Matthew the next day.

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These students responded to Jane’s narrative of victimization in a nonaccusatory and open-ended way. This is crucial as research indicates that the recovery process for victims of violence varies tremendously based on the tenor of initial responses to their disclosure. To be sure, it is unknown how Jane experienced this interaction, and the situation most likely did not resolve itself as tidily as narrated above—it often takes women multiple attempts to disentangle themselves from abusive relationships. But nonetheless, these students had the capacity and nimbleness to respond to their roommate’s disclosure due to their baseline knowledge about the patterns of abuse. The other important element of this case is that, based on my student’s description, there is no evidence of physical abuse. Thus, it is a good reminder that emotionally abusive and controlling behaviors can be deeply traumatic and harmful. It can be all too easy to fixate on the sensational cases of severe physical violence, which effectively erases more subtle iterations of violence. Students were not necessarily blank slates they when entered the classroom in late August. Several of them had previously been in abusive relationships, and they were able to name them as such. In these cases, they were already profoundly aware of the impacts of gender-based violence. Their prior experiences meant that their personal and intellectual reflections during the semester were deeply entwined. For instance, one student approached me after class at the beginning of the semester and revealed, nervously, that her ex-boyfriend had stalked her and repeatedly threatened her with severe violence. She had already sought support services on campus (and his threats were not current), but she was still anxious that some of the course material could be emotionally difficult for her. Because she was eager to stay enrolled in the course and seemed to have robust self-awareness, I agreed to be lenient on attendance. She decided, perhaps wisely, to skip out on our dialogue with the police officer and on watching a documentary film about domestic homicides. In her final reflection paper, she wrote: My perception of IPV has changed drastically, and my understanding of my own connection to the issue has deepened. This class was almost therapeutic to me in several ways as it helped me to face some of the trauma I had experienced in my past relationship and move forward with a greater understanding of what happened and why.

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Another student had been in an abusive relationship in high school, which I only learned about at the end of the semester, and she had largely come to terms with the trauma since it was some years in the past. Yet she also reported in her final reflection paper that the pedagogical process was therapeutic. She wrote, “Before this class, I never spoke of the abuse, or wrote my feelings down, for fear of being judged and the shame I still feel. After taking this class, I’m not afraid to talk about my experience any longer. Hearing student’s supportive comments and reactions over the semester made me realize that my experience is nothing to be ashamed of and that I am far from alone…after this class, I feel empowered. I know that I will never forget this experience; it is a part of me.” Although our intellectual work should certainly be distinguished from therapy, that the students were able to relate to the course material in this deeply personal way clearly enhanced their engagement and learning.

Enacting Violence There is a paradox in deploying an EL approach to study gender-based violence. The process necessarily invites acts, images, and narratives of violence into what would otherwise be a nonviolent learning community. Typically, I strive to create feminist, non-hierarchical, student-centered classrooms, and this approach to pedagogy is premised on a foundation of peacefulness and deep respect for all people. Yet, in guiding students to dismantle their positions as external observers and situate themselves within systems of gender-based violence, we must engage directly with violence. Interestingly, students more readily aligned with victims of violence rather than perpetrators. In fact, by the end of the semester, I reflected that we had had very little deep dialogue about agents of violence—whether they were individuals or institutions. For instance, in their final reflection papers, no one wrote about enacting violence, even though many students wrote about observing and experiencing violence. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given the stakes involved in disclosing one’s own prior acts of violence. Yet this absence is revealing, and it underscores two moments of violence that did emerge in the classroom space over the course of the semester. The first moment occurred when a police officer visited our class. I had invited her to speak about domestic violence from the perspective of law enforcement, and she joined us in early November. She ended up speaking about a range of issues, from domestic violence to women in policing

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to finding one’s vocation. The students loved her gregarious personality and no-nonsense approach to social situations. We organized the desks in a circle; the students peppered her with questions; and she regaled us with her stories from the field. She shared one story about arriving on the scene of a domestic violence call from earlier in her career. As she told it, the victim had clearly been physically assaulted, with a bruised and bloody face, and her batterer was still towering over her when police officers arrived. In a frenzy of violence, the batterer continued going after his victim, even with cops on the scene. He required restraint. Our speaker described how she stepped in, took hold of the batterer and pulled him back from his victim, and then threw him onto a nearby couch. The students chuckled as she described his landing on the couch with a flop. The following week in class, the students and I debriefed our conversation with the police officer. Overall, the students were thrilled to dialogue with a professional who had so much experience in the field. But one student, who was particularly inquisitive, brought up this story about the seemingly violent restraint of an alleged criminal. He observed that she seemed to derive pleasure in taking down the batterer, and he wondered about that. In essence, he was asking which social conditions legitimate an act of violence, and he was asking about the possibility of experiencing pleasure in enacting violence. These are difficult and important questions. Of course, the logics of policing require the use of necessary force for the given circumstances (a politically contentious delineation, to be sure); unlike in feminist pedagogy, there is no expectation that police work will be nonviolent. Moreover, it is certainly possible that our guest speaker was embellishing the details to fit the proverbial “war story” genre. Yet in crafting the narrative in this way, a rather different characterization of violence emerged in our classroom space. We began to push beyond the dominant and over-determined narrative of domestic violence that commonly circulates in cultural discourse. We began to see acts of violence as more complex than can be accounted for with moralistic dichotomies of good versus bad. Inadvertently, our dialogue with the police officer opened rhetorical space for us to explore the epistemology of violence. The second moment occurred at the end of the semester when students screened their mini-documentary films in class. I gave them broad parameters in this portion of the project; my objective was to create an opportunity for them to apply their knowledge in a creative format. How they went about doing this was up to each team of students. Most teams produced non-fiction films that focused on raising awareness of some specific

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aspects of domestic violence. For instance, two teams took the initiative to return to the Artemis Center and interview staff members, which generated journalistic-style documentaries. One team, however, wrote a fictional script and then acted it out on screen. They crafted a plot intended to dispel the myth that heavy alcohol use causes (or excuses) physical violence. As such, they wrote a script that focused on two different heterosexual couples—one wealthy and one working class—that were experiencing struggles in their relationships. In the first couple, the man drank heavily, whereas the woman drank heavily in the second couple, and they made the non-drinking man be the violent one. Teams were comprised of four students each, so in this group of two men and two women, they each acted out one of the roles on camera. They filmed the domestic scenes in their own student houses on campus. By all accounts, the default leader of this team was the woman who ended up playing the fictional victim in their film. Watching this film in class was difficult. The students portraying the wealthy couple played their roles particularly well. After showing the working-class couple peacefully resolve their economic challenges, the camera cuts to the wealthy man walking home from work. He strolls in the kitchen to find the woman cooking a spaghetti dinner in the kitchen. He immediately berates her for not picking up a mail delivery. As she defends herself, he angrily tosses some of her cooking ingredients into the sink. They move to the table and he describes his difficult work supervisor. The woman drinks wine and attempts to help him troubleshoot the work situation. Tension escalates as the man questions the wife’s retelling of her hard day. He replies in a mocking tone, “So your day was really that tough? Dealin’ with the children, oh my god. Bullshit! Your day was not tough at all. My day was way harder than yours, I go through way much more. Way tougher!” The woman drinks more wine, in big sips, and the man begins to complain about the quality of the food. At this point, the man gets up, grabs the wine bottle, and smashes it to the floor. Next, we see the woman on the floor, picking up the glass shards, and he stands over her shouting and insulting her. He yells, “Not quick enough! Let’s go!” She begins crying. “I’m so disappointed in you. Hell, I’m not even disappointed, I expect this from you. You’re so down and dirty. You’re a punk, a low-life piece of crap.” Deflated, the woman finally steals out the front door, and the film ends with fifteen seconds of domestic violence facts scrolling over a black screen.

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I do not want to overstate the case: the four students in this mini-film were great, but they were by no means professional actors, and the production quality was what one might expect from film novices. Yet their enactment of violence in the classroom space sat heavy with me. Having been on the receiving end of irrational masculine anger and rage in my personal life, it was strange to see that same behavior portrayed my classroom. Aside from two experiences involving excessively angry man professors from much earlier in my own education, I have always experienced the classroom as a calm and structured space in a comparatively chaotic world. The two students enacting violence in the classroom vis-àvis their documentary film broke the proverbial fourth wall in our learning community; they invited us to gaze squarely at violence that they had imagined anew. Indeed, they enthusiastically crafted their representation based on their collective intrigue regarding this question about the relationship between alcohol consumption and the perpetration of violence, which, incidentally, emerged after our September dialogue with the director of the Artemis Center. I suspect that I was not the only one in the room who found their enactment of violence unsettling.

(Un)Knowing Violence The objective of feminist pedagogy is to uncover and respond to social inequities. There is no assumption that learners exist in a self-contained bubble, or that knowledge can be created by impartial observers who have no investment in the subjects of analysis. Yet in the day-to-day grind of university life, it can be easy to let go of this lofty goal. Experiential learning offers the tools to hold on and engage deeply with difficult topics. Through this process, students come to know gender-based violence in new ways. My hope is that by creating a collective space in which we can see violence in honest and unflinching ways, we can also begin to un-do it and remake a different world. In her final telephone call to 911 dispatchers, as quoted in the epigraph, LaShonda Childs stated repeatedly, “I can’t talk. I can’t talk.” Her voice was cut short, and we cannot speak for her. But we can push ourselves to know the structures of gender-based violence—and, importantly, our own roles in maintaining them—that contributed to her untimely death.

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Notes 1. Childs’ defense of Goodwin should not be read as evidence against the credibility of her allegations. Exiting an abusive relationship is often a long and arduous process. Moreover, it is not uncommon for victims to vacillate in their characterizations of the harassment and violence, due to a variety of logical reasons. These include love for their perpetrator, the impact of trauma on memory and narration, fear of retribution, distrust of the criminal justice process, and concerns about their own economic stability. 2. Local media in Dayton provided extensive coverage of Childs’ death and the subsequent prosecution, and the case also received some national coverage in outlets such as Essence.

References Catalano, S., Smith, E., Snyder, H., & Rand, M. (2009). Female victims of violence. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://www. bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf. Accessed 30 April 2019. Clevenger, S., Navarro, J. N., & Gregory, L. K. (2016). Seeing life in their shoes: Fostering empathy toward victims of interpersonal violence through five active learning activities. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 28(3), 393–410. Hlavka, H. R. (2014). Normalizing sexual violence young women account for harassment and abuse. Gender & Society, 28(3), 337–358. Lal, J. (1998). Situating location(s): The politics of self, identity, and “other” in living and writing the text. In S. Hesse-Biber, C. Gilmartin, & R. Lydenberg (Eds.), Feminist Approaches to theory and methodology: An interdisciplinary reader (pp. 100–137). New York: Oxford University Press. Murphy-Geiss, G. (2008). Bringing the facts to life: Facilitating student engagement with the issue of domestic violence. Teaching Sociology, 36(4), 378–388. Petrosky, E., Blair, J. M., Betz, C. J., Fowler, K. A., Jack, S. P. D., & Lyons, B. H. (2017). Racial and ethnic differences in homicides of adult women and the role of intimate partner violence—United States, 2003–2014. Centers for Disease Control: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 66(28), 741–746. World Health Organization, Department of Reproductive Health and Research. (2013). Global and regional estimates of violence against women: Prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner violence. https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/ 9789241564625/en/. Accessed 30 April 2019.

CHAPTER 14

Performing Arts in the Service of Others: The Common Good Players and Experiential Learning in Social Justice Theatre Michelle Hayford

Theatre as Experiential Learning The performing arts deliver on all of the Association of American Colleges and Universities high-impact teaching and learning practices1 (HIPs), and all of them are achieved through experiential learning (EL). In Performing Arts as High-Impact Practice, my co-author and co-editor Susan Kattwinkel and I describe how theatre, dance, and music, all disciplines dependent on EL, leverage the HIPs to engage undergraduates in the most meaningful ways and prepare them to be critical thinkers, team players, creative problem solvers, and great communicators, the essential skills of the most employable graduates (Hayford & Kattwinkel, 2018). Because the performing arts engage so thoroughly with the HIPs to deliver our curriculum, Kattwinkel and I argue that the performing arts

M. Hayford (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_14

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should be moved from the margins to the center of liberal arts education, allowing all students to engage with the performing arts in general education offerings, as well as serving our majors (Hayford & Kattwinkel, 2018). For the purposes of this case study, I am focused on the HIP of community-based learning and how an EL training trip to Chicago prepared the Common Good Players (CGP) applied performing arts troupe at the University of Dayton (UD) to utilize their talents to serve others through creating performances for social justice in our community. This case study will document the launch of the first CGP cohort, their EL immersive training, and our first performance for social action, utilizing student assessments. To be in the CGP cohort means to commit to ongoing EL through the creation of dialogues and performances that honor the dignity of each person and work toward social justice. In the context of theatre, “applied” indicates that the performance serves an educational or developmental function. Applied theatre is an umbrella term that covers very different approaches: everything from children’s theatre, to historical reenactment in museums, to the use of actors as patients in health education. The CGP leverage performance and active participation of audiences to serve the UD diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Through the deploying of applied theatre techniques that require active participation of audiences via role play, image theatre, and improvisation in brave spaces, the CGP bring marginalized voices to the center of engagement and promote greater understanding and empathy.

Theatre’s Unique Hallmark: “Developing Hearts and Minds” The rationale for an immersive training trip to Chicago is that the trip would provide the CGP with an embodied experience of the impact that applied theatre has to offer. Theatre’s unique hallmark is the embodied nature of performance and the required attention to the present moment in community with others. Theatre is experiential, and applied theatre is even more so, as it requires active engagement and, therefore, the best training for applied theatre is an EL trip that exposes students to the best in applied theatre practices. The performing arts deliver a sensory experience, wherein transportation allows for shared somatic and felt experiences. This collective display of emotional intelligence is fertile

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ground on which to play. With theatre we perform possibilities, experiment with alternate realities, magical what ifs, and perform human evil, pain, resilience, and hope.2 The critical distance that the frame of theatre allows to view human experience gives us an avenue to ask probing questions of ourselves, our culture, our limitations, and our expansiveness. Joan Lipkin asserts that “[c]ampuses are one crucial place where our future lies, and I sense the hunger of students to imaginatively help develop their hearts and minds together as the future adults in our society” (2016, p. 257). The CGP enables students to “develop their hearts and minds together” in collaboration with community partners around issues of social relevance, in which the boundaries between audience and performer shift and are shared to create collective role plays and performance explorations that rehearse a more just society. Nancy Kindelan asks “…how do performing arts programs help students become artist/citizens or productive members of society?” (2010, p. 34). The CGP mission aligns with Kindelan’s answer: through performing arts programs that are “…interested in presenting challenging projects to their students—projects that focus on the struggle for human rights, social justice, cultural equality, or environmental issues…” (2010, p. 34). While the CGP is UD’s answer to Kindelan’s call to create artist/citizens, this case study aims to provide a model that can be adapted for any institution. I hope to provide insight into the process of preparing students to take on this impactful work via immersive EL and document our first direct theatre action.

The Possibilities and Limitations of Social Justice Theatre Julian Boal continues the work of his father, Augusto Boal, in forwarding the evolution of Theatre of the Oppressed applications and training.3 Engaging with Theatre of the Oppressed exercises and techniques allows for us to rehearse the work of political work, and to show that oppressors accomplish their work through people who enable them: How are we implicated in the enabling? Theatre of the Oppressed breaks down the invisible line between passive and active in traditional theatre and that same line in all social and political life. By engaging “spectators” (spectators who are also actors) to enter the scene and change the outcome to fix the protagonist’s problem, we are creating dynamic spaces for problem solving together to address social inequities. Julian Boal stresses the

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importance of having actors portray characters who are not direct victims of injustice, so that they can rehearse what it means to be an ally. The collective energy of a performance space is a powerful container as we are suspended in a liminal space that affords the possibility of authentic communication, searching, and yearning. From this place of shared experience, audiences become actors, in that they may be rehearsing for revolution and transformation as spectators, or inspired to take action outside of the performance space in the public domain. The CGP will be facilitating Theatre of the Oppressed performances in our community in the coming year. While I value the revolutionary potential of Theatre of the Oppressed and other applied theatre practices, I also recognize that there are limitations to what we are able to accomplish through theatre for social change. To be transparent about the limitations of theatre to change the world is an important balance to my belief in the power of theatre to transform hearts and minds. To be sure, sometimes transformation is not the outcome of theatre for social change. Sometimes, we fail to reach audiences that are of a different mind on a social issue and therefore the performance sounds like an echo chamber of sameness, wherein we are preaching to the proverbial choir. Sometimes, ensuring diversity of audience puts performer and audience safety at risk, or invites conflict that we are not prepared to handle. Sometimes, we fail to get audience members to engage or participate. I am not naïve enough to suggest that theatre is always a radical site; however, I do want to push back on the idea that preaching to the choir is a fruitless endeavor. In fact, the choir needs to hear a good sermon too, to be restored and rejuvenated for the work of social justice ahead. It is not an unworthy use of theatre’s resources to provide such spaces of respite and collaboration, community building, and lifting each other up—even if we are like-minded. Dialogue is necessary yet exhausting work. And as much as we center dialogue as the ideal to strive for, and it is a worthy goal sometimes accomplished with great success, there is also value in being with one’s “people.” So, while we aim to diversify who the people are in the room, and make space in our hearts for more people to call our own, in the meantime, an experience creating theatre for social justice that serves only to solidify coalitions, recommit to sense of purpose, and communicate a community’s commitments and values, is also a significant and worthwhile undertaking.

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Theatre for social justice may not change the world with a welldelivered monologue or an engaging exercise that allows people to problem solve together, but it can create spaces to enact our hope, faith, commitment, witnessing, and allyship for one another. Those small acts add up to inspire the feeling of belonging and the honoring of each other’s dignity. Theatre for social change can provide nurturing community for activists, artists, change makers, and the newly initiated. Fundamentally, theatre for social justice succeeds by engaging hearts and minds through emotional responses to live performance. Applied theatre work that educates and develops an audience by conveying information through performance can be produced on a continuum of aesthetic considerations: from site specific work in board rooms with no design at all, to a fully produced and technically savvy beautiful production in a proscenium theatre. The diversity of what theatre for social justice looks like is in part its appeal: The accessibility of this form to students of all levels and experience with theatre, and to participants who are engaged by it, is by design. Our CGP EL training trip to Chicago introduced the cohort to the diversity of all these forms of applied theatre and the training and confidence to produce diverse applied theatre projects themselves.

The Common Good Players at the University of Dayton: Experiential Learning Through Sharing of Talents In the spring of 2019, I recruited eight diverse students to be the inaugural CGP cohort. The demographic breakdown is as follows: two first-year students, five second-year students, one graduate student, and two faculty advisors. Three students are white, three students are Black, and two are Chinese international students. I am Puerto Rican mixed race, and my colleague is Indonesian American. Six of the students are majors in the theatre, dance, and performance technology program, one is undeclared, and one is a finance major in the business school. Two identify primarily as actors, two identify primarily as actors and singers, one identifies as primarily an actor and dancer, two identify as primarily singers, and one identifies as primarily a musician and actor. Because our focus is to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion goals on our campus, it was important to me to have diversity among the CGP cohort in a variety of factors. In addition to racial/ethnic diversity, there is socioeconomic, sexual orientation, age, and geographic origin diversity.

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Once recruited, the next task was to engage in training opportunities. The first training undertaken was delivered by a guest facilitator with the topic of racial justice and the use of storytelling to deconstruct identity, privilege, and intersectionality.4 The cohort found this training valuable yet overwhelming. The training was valuable in that it served to open up the cohort’s eyes to the scope of applied theatre work and the selfreflection necessary to undertake the work effectively. As a result of this training, it became clear to some of the initial recruits that they did not want to remain involved, and other recruits were selected (see above for final demographic makeup). Once the final inaugural cohort took shape, the planning began for an immersive EL trip to Chicago to receive training and inspiration for theatre for social justice in a city rich with applied theatre communities and performances. What follows is a chronological description of the EL training trip the CGP took to Chicago. For this EL trip, I selected diverse events for us to attend to demonstrate to the CGP the breadth and depth of applied theatre experiences: a Performance for Direct Action and Intervention training at a community center, a youthcreated play about water rights in a theatre, an ensemble autobiographical play about LGBTQ lives in a basketball court, a historical drama based on Sara Baartman’s life at Northwestern University, an immersive applied theatre exhibit based on the Hamilton musical, and an applied dance performance at Chicago’s Cultural Center. Our administrative assistant, Teejai Dorsey, and I took all eight of the inaugural CGP cohort to Chicago from May 24 to May 26, 2019. We drove from Dayton, Ohio, and got into town on Friday just in time to take the train to Free Street Theater. Coya Paz, artistic director of Free Street and chair of the theatre department at DePaul University, facilitated a session on “Performance for Direct Action and Intervention.” Coya shared powerful examples of performative direct action that supplied the “story” and “narrative” of a political or social movement. She explained the difference between direct service and direct action, wherein the power is put in the hands of the people experiencing injustice with the goal of change. Paz asserted that if the direct action does not address the “Why” of the injustice, it will not be effective. After our immersive EL trip, the students completed a Google survey that sought to gather their assessment of the many trainings and events we attended. Student assessments of the “Performance for Direct Action and Intervention” training reflected a theme of the discovery of intentionality behind social justice tactics. The students collectively were inspired to know that the most

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effective direct action is planned and coordinated, and draws on a rich history of political activism. One student commented that they learned direct action is personal, as well as political: “Prior to this training, I never realized that all social justice action is directed AT a person. I understand why it is, but I always looked at it as an issue vs an issue.” That same evening we watched Free Street Theater perform Parched: Stories About Water, Pollution, & Theft, directed by Katrina Dion. The original show was created by the Free Street Theater Youth Ensemble, a year-round conservatory for youth ages 13–19, based on interviews and research they conducted to illuminate the water crisis facing many communities in Chicago. The ensemble reflected on the question: “When did water become a privilege?” through scenes that incorporated interview material and staged research in exciting and artful ways, to create an impactful and educational performance about water that included taking direct action (calling out Nestle’s inequitable access to water by tagging the corporation in social media posts made by the audience during the performance). Free Street Theater celebrated its fiftieth year in 2019: “Founded in 1969, Free Street is dedicated to making original performance by, for, about, with and IN Chicago’s diverse communities” (“About,” 2019). Student assessments demonstrate a deep appreciation for the theatrical framing of the water issues in Chicago, including effective symbolism, incorporation of research and maps, and the various uses of water during the performance. In addition, staged interview narratives were well-received by the students: “I was mostly impacted by the cultural and generational perspectives of the matter. Often, the actors would tell stories about their ancestors or their late family members in order to show the importance of water in their lives.” The students were also moved by the youth who created the performance and inspired to do similar work: “I think the biggest thing I learned from Parched is that applied theatre is for everyone, and that often it’s the youngest students who have the strongest voices.” In one particularly effective scene, one of the actors prepared a cup of tea and invites an audience member on stage to drink tea with him while talking about water. For the students, “…it highlighted the importance of just sitting down and having personal dialogue, and how storytelling is a powerful catalyst of change.” The following day we traveled to a gymnasium in Washington Park on the South Side to see the About Face Theatre Education & Outreach

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Program’s Power in Pride performance and engage in discussion with performers and community members. The performance is described in the following way: This performance and discussion program is appropriate for youth and adults. Power in Pride features LGBTQ folks of color in a dynamic performance sharing their true stories about mental health, relationships, gender identity, family, love, and more through spoken word, dance, and stories. Each event includes refreshments, community building and conversation with the audience. This program will highlight a range of LGBTQIA resources throughout Chicago’s neighborhoods. (“About Face: Power in Pride,” 2019)

The Power in Pride performance that we saw felt like a community gathering. They offered cookies and lemonade before the show. The gym setting was very informal, and there was bleacher seating set up for the performance at the end of a basketball court. Each of the performers shared intimate personal stories about their coming out, their mental health, their difficulty with violent partners, the trauma of family rejection, the beauty of finding community, and the joy of living their truth. The show did not need any technical support to be completely engrossing. In fluorescent lighting and no costumes, the actors bared their souls, and that authenticity was all that was needed for the audience to be transported. The conversation that occurred after the show was just as valuable as the performance. The CGP cohort shared their gratitude for the performers, asked vulnerable questions, honored the experiences of all in the room, and were open to other’s expertise. LaSaia Wade of Brave Space Alliance, an LGBTQ center on the South Side, offered up her generous feedback to audience questions. All in the room were held together in community, educated by each other’s gracious sharing of lived experience. Student assessments of the Power in Pride performance and discussion detailed the ways in which they were educated or challenged by the performers and, ultimately, felt more empathy for LGBTQ members of our community. The students reflected on how the specific form of theatrical storytelling allowed them to open their minds to the performers’ experiences: “I walked in with my doubts due to my religious background, but then the show allowed me to feel more comfortable. All the stories were able to help me with the feeling of being misunderstood, and taught me about vulnerability.” In one heartbreaking scene, the staging

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and choreography performed the moment that a trans youth was abandoned by their parents and left homeless. Many of us in the audience were moved to tears by this profoundly painful experience and the theatrical beauty through which it was shared. One student reflected on this moment: “I was able to empathize with the feeling of abandonment, and become more open-minded.” Importantly, many of the students recognized the role that a postperformance dialogue can play in applied theatre. When a performance has enabled profound empathy and connection through the performers’ vulnerability and talent, a post-performance discussion becomes fruitful ground to continue a deeper conversation, rather than begin one. The performance acts as the connective tissue in the room, building empathy among all present, and then post-performance dialogue is the catalyst for deeper intellectual and emotional engagement through a mutual exchange between performers and audience. One student felt supported by the talk-back: “It really inspired me when they took the time to answer our questions or just listen to us and give us feedback on situations that are similar that we might be going through ourselves.” One student really understood the particular power of autobiographical applied theatre: “This performance didn’t just give something for the audience to consume, it also gave these actors an open and safe space to tell their truths.” That evening we traveled to Evanston to see Northwestern University’s production of Lydia R. Diamond’s Voyeurs de Venus , directed by Tasia A. Jones. The production was a powerful journey into the real-life Sara Baartman, who was exploited as the “Hottentot Venus” and subject to violence of scientific racism over her lifetime. I believed that the CGP cohort needed to see a more “traditional” version of applied theatre: in this case, a scripted work based on a real historical woman, that serves to educate its audiences about scientific racism, colonialism, and their legacies. Student assessments of Voyeurs de Venus recount their disgust of the violent acts that Baartman endured and horror at the way she was exploited. For most of the students, this was their first encounter with Baartman’s story and they found it shocking. One student remarked on the passage of time and the ways that trauma is passed down through generations: “I love the constant conflict throughout the play. It connected the aspects of the past, the present, and one’s conscience…It left us to answer our own questions of life, and forced us to face our own guilt and anger.”

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On our last day in Chicago, we went to see Hamilton: The Exhibition on Northerly Island. The Exhibition brings the musical Hamilton to life through an immersive installation experience. The performance museum effect, in which set pieces move, film is projected, and attendees are encouraged to interact with the presentation with personal audio narration headphones, is an effective example of applied theatre being put to a more educational use. The rise of performance in museum settings is one that has traction because of the positive impact that a more interactive touristic encounter can elicit. This experience was instructive for the students to understand the breadth of applied theatre work and see how theatre and performance are increasingly being utilized in museum exhibits and installations. Museums are evolving to meet the demands for a more immersive and performative educational experience, that is EL, in that passivity is not an option and one must actively participate in an educational environment. The CGP will incorporate the use of environmental and immersive storytelling, therefore seeing this exhibit was instructive. Student assessments of Hamilton: The Exhibition remarked on the impressive scenic design we interacted with: “The glowing words in the wall and the scrolls of paper winding around the ceiling were things that really magnified and edified the past into the present.” Another student was interested in the ways the exhibition promoted dialogue: [T]here is a room with sticky notes and pens. On the wall, it says ‘Now it’s your turn. Pick up a pen and start writing.’…I loved this, because it continues the theme of Hamilton’s writing changing not only his life, but all of America as well.

Before we departed for Dayton we took in one last performance at the Chicago Cultural Center by BADco dance company from Zagreb, Croatia, Impossible Dances , directed by Goran Sergej Pristas. This original dance performance was described in the program as follows: “the impossible is necessary because, as we’re hurtling toward hothouse Earth, mothering is more urgent than the encounter of a myriad of impossibilities” (“Links Hall: BADco. and Oblivia,” 2019). This dance performance was solely physical. There were words shared only on music stands throughout the space. The chairs were grouped together throughout the playing space, and the dancers moved among the chair groupings, intermingling with the audience. The words on the music stands were the choreographic

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shorthand the ensemble had developed and had marked for their movement through the piece. The performance was compelling in its use of original archival footage of Goat Island performing The Sea & Poison, which was “…a layered expression of the effects of poison on the body – the social body and the individual body – and of impossibility itself” (Jeffrey, 2011). The multiple flat screen televisions around the room played the archival footage, as the BADco dancers responded to the footage, and the live music being performed in the space, and to each other, in a dynamic that felt at once choreographed and improvised, with enough content that was prepared to balance the dancer’s intuitive response to audience in real time. The overall effect was one that reimagined and honored Goat Island’s legacy by truly “discovering the performance by making it.” To bear witness to this performance was invigorating: Many of us in the CGP cohort were touched by the dancers, as they used our chairs to bear weight and sometimes our bodies. This experience of dance as applied theatre was an important performance to expose the CGP to: It was critical to see how much can be communicated through our bodies and an immersive environment, as well as an untraditional audience engagement. Student assessments of the Impossible Dances performance expressed intrigue at the intimacy and vulnerability of the performance, particularly a scene in which the dancers closed their eyes as they danced through the audience; “I, personally, was used by a performer to guide her in moving through…I think that part is meant to show that all are here for the support and continuation of this piece, even if that meant being something more than just a removed onlooker.” The survey data collected after our immersive EL weekend in Chicago illustrates that the CGP cohort learned a great deal about what comprises applied theatre work and they felt prepared and inspired to do their own community-engaged applied theatre work as a result. Through our engagement with all the above very different iterations of applied theatre performances, activism, and presentations, the CGP felt confident in their abilities to do similar work. Through this EL trip, the CGP acquired a framework for understanding the diversity of applied theatre applications and the efficacy and impact of being in audience to and engaged with excellent applied theatre experiences. This EL trip enabled the CGP to understand the reach, scope, and results of applied theatre far better than my lecturing them about applied theatre works could have achieved. Because applied theatre is necessarily experiential, there is no better way

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to convey the embodied work of applied theatre than by providing the CGP an EL trip in which they could experience the impact of applied theatre for themselves and feel empowered to create impactful applied theatre events. My role for this immersive weekend as director of the CGP was to plan and facilitate the CGP training by providing high-quality EL in applied theatre. My background as a performance studies scholar and many years of professional experience as an applied theatre artist prepared me to curate an impactful agenda. I was able to model critical reflection of aesthetic experiences, and share my expertise in applied theatre with the CGP throughout the weekend to encourage their learning and connect what we were seeing to greater context and other examples of applied theatre work. As a community-engaged artist, I never stop learning from innovative examples of applied theatre and I was personally inspired by every event and performance we attended. I was gratified to see the impact that the events we attended had on the students. Their ability to demonstrate the outcomes of engaging in EL and the performing arts as high-impact practice was evident over the weekend. They demonstrated the HIP of community-engaged learning: I witnessed their critical thinking and interpretation of the plays we watched, their teamwork in navigating logistics, their creative problem solving during the direct action training, and their effective communication with applied theatre creators we interacted with. I was pleased to read that the goal of the trip, to prepare them for our work ahead as a CGP cohort by engaging in the best of applied theatre events, was realized. One student shared, “It gave guidelines and showed me the clear mission of Common Good Players. Throughout everything, I learned that applied theatre is much more than just a performance, it’s a catalyst for change.” Another said, “Now more than ever I understand how multifaceted applied performing arts is, and how there are so many different kinds of impacts that a performance can make.” And finally, a student reflected: “Now I realize that it is utilizing performance to communicate something more important than just a made up storyline. Applied theater grabs your attention and makes you realize what else matters in this world, and what you might be throwing a blind eye to.”

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The Common Good Players Angel Action: Honoring Dayton Mass Shooting Victims Tragically, there was a mass shooting in Dayton on August 4, 2019, and nine victims lost their lives.5 In the immediate aftermath of this event, the only antidote to my devastation was to consider ways that the CGP could participate in an event to honor the lives lost and engage our community in a dialogue about gun violence and gun reform. I immediately thought of an angel action, a theatre tradition born out of Romaine Patterson’s angel wing design created to block anti-gay protestors at the funeral of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Shepard was a 21-year-old gay college student who was tied to a cattle fence, brutally beaten, and then left to die in Laramie, Wyoming. The events following the hate crime suffered by Shepard are performed in the docudrama The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project. Patterson generously shared her simple sewing pattern for creating angel wings for similar angel action purposes, and for the last twenty years, performers and community activists have made and donned the wings for various rallies and protests for social justice. Notably, the wings were worn in Orlando at numerous events to honor the 49 victims of the mass shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in 2016. I reached out to our costumer, Kehler Welland, and asked that she design and construct nine sets of angel wings, one for each victim of the Dayton shooting. Then, the CGP helped to organize a campus event to mark the two-month anniversary of the shooting with a rally for gun reform on October 4, 2019. With our collaborators, which included a Students Demand Action group, an Amnesty International student group, and eye-witness accounts, we planned to have the CGP stand vigil during the rally and perform while wearing beautiful gossamer wings. The CGP offered up song, poetry, movement, and music in between speakers who addressed gun violence and called for action. The experience of standing vigil and holding the space in remembrance of the victims was powerful. The mere presence of nine angels at the event, standing solemnly in a semicircle flanking the microphone, created a performative and moving spectacle that grounded the event: the cost of our inaction on gun violence. The short performances we offered up were welcomed breaks from speeches and rallying cries and allowed the audience to mourn, grieve, and

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emotionally connect to the toll that gun violence has had in our community. One of the CGP reflected on the experience of participating in this angel action and its connection to our EL Chicago trip: During our Chicago training trip, I learned about how the arts, especially theatre, contribute in a major way to direct action on every issue. This experience at the Gun Reform Rally allowed me to put this learning into real, tangible practice. In Chicago, I was challenged to think about how I as a performer, along with my peers, could use theatre to “make a scene,” that is, to address important issues and bring them to light in a way that is not only interesting and engaging, but also moves people to action. Based on the news coverage and general feedback from the rally, I believe our presence and performance there met that purpose.

Indeed, television crews were at the rally and aired footage that lingered on the angels at the event. Forty-three television stations across the country aired the same angel action footage in their reporting of the gun reform rally. Now we are preparing the CGP to engage in dialogues with campus leaders through performances that demonstrate the current limitations of the promotion and tenure process and role plays that will engage these leaders in problem-solving improvs to create more inclusive promotion and tenure policies.

Notes 1. At aacu.org, you can read more about all the HIPs: first-year seminars and experiences, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, collaborative assignments and projects, undergraduate research, diversity/global learning, ePortfolios, service learning/community-based learning, and internships. 2. For more on the “performance of possibilities,” see D. Soyini Madison’s work, especially “Performance, Personal Narratives, and the Politics of Possibility” in The Future of Performance Studies, ed. Sheron J. Dailey. 3. The following reflections on Theatre of the Oppressed methods and exercises were shared by Julian Boal during a training he facilitated that I attended at the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed pre-conference, June 11–13, 2019 at Colorado State University-Pueblo. 4. Deandra Cadet and her team at InterAction have various training and workshop offerings: interactioninc.org. 5. The victims of the mass shooting who lost their lives: Jordan Cofer (first reported as Megan Betts), Lois L. Oglesby, Thomas J. McNichols, Saeed

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Saleh, Derrick R. Fudge, Logan Turner, Nicholas P. Cumer, Beatrice N. Warren-Curtis, Monica E. Brickhouse.

References About. (2019). Free Street Theater. Retrieved from https://freestreet.org/ about/. About Face: Power in Pride. (2019). Chicago Parks District. Retrieved from https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/events/about-face-theatre-powerpride-washington#description. Hayford, M., & Kattwinkel, S. (2018). Performing arts as high-impact practice. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Jeffrey, M. (2011). The sea & poison: 1998–2002. Retrieved from http://www. markjefferyartist.org/seapoison.html. Kindelan, N. (2010). Demystifying experiential learning in the performing arts. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 124, 31–37. Links Hall: BADco. & Oblivia. (2019). Retrieved from http://www.in-timeperformance.org/badco-and-oblivia/. Lipkin, J. (2016). On the case for devising theatre for social justice on college campuses. Theatre Topics, 26(2), 255–260.

CHAPTER 15

Student Employment for the Real World: Experiential Learning and Student Development Chris Fishpaw and Chelsea Fricker

“What did you take away from this job?” It was my senior year of college at the University of Dayton (UD), and my student employment supervisor asked me this seemingly simple question which nobody had ever asked me to consider. It hadn’t crossed my mind that my on-campus employment could be related to my vocational aspirations—I saw my work as a summer conference manager as just a college job, while teaching K-12 music education was going to be my career. I spent the next day considering all of the various experiences I had through my student employment position, and how those experiences had prepared me to be a successful

The opening is written by Chris Fishpaw. C. Fishpaw · C. Fricker (B) University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. Fishpaw e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_15

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teacher. This pivotal moment sparked my passion for student employment as an important form of experiential learning (EL). The following year, my life took a different course as the great recession eliminated many K-12 music teaching positions. Fortuitously, an opportunity presented itself for me to stay at UD and direct the very same summer conferences program which had made such an impact on me. While working and pursuing my graduate studies at the university, I also spearheaded a new EL program in the Center for Student Involvement (CSI), the “Student Employment for the Real World program,” an experiential professional development program for undergraduate students employed by CSI. CSI includes eight different staff areas each of which are overseen by a professional staff supervisor (later referred to as CSI Supervisors). These areas are: Kennedy Union Operations, the Information Center, the Box Office, the Hangar, UD Late Night, Reception, Financial Services, and the Student Leadership Ambassadors. These eight separate areas make up the students and professional staff members who interact with the Student Employment for the Real World program. This chapter focuses on the development and implementation of the program and the challenges of building and sustaining the program over time, including the transition to a new program director (who offers her reflective account later in the chapter), and the creation of an assessment method for evaluating CSI student employee learning outcomes. CSI is home to many EL opportunities for undergraduate students at UD. It oversees student leadership programs, fraternity and sorority life, and over 200 student organizations at the university. The goal of the CSI is to collaborate with the campus community to co-create opportunities that complement the academic experience to foster the holistic development of students as they become leaders and active participants in the UD community and beyond. Student employees are fundamental to the success of the mission of CSI. The Student Employment for the Real World program was developed to engage them in a meaningful work experience. Through handson experience, reflection, and dialogue, students in the program are given the opportunity to develop and grow leadership skills that can be transferred to future careers. There are five core components to the Student Employment for the Real World program: • Interview: In our hiring process, we ask students to articulate their desired learning experiences in CSI and how working in our office can relate back to their major and career/vocational aspirations.

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• Annual Training: We provide foundations for success with our learning outcomes through customer service training, breakout sessions, and case studies. Returning students help design and implement the training. • Weekly Reflections: These reflections are the core of our development program, as they bring together all the elements of a highimpact EL experience and allow students to make meaning of their experiences in the context of their academics and future vocation. • One-on-Ones: Student managers review weekly reflections and conduct structured meetings with staff to engage them in meaningful conversations about the learning outcomes twice each semester. • Ongoing Trainings: These optional paid sessions allow students to dig deeper into our learning outcomes and explore themes such as multicultural competence and transferable skills. In recent years, the program has been recognized by two international organizations for its potential to inspire EL best practices in other institutions. We received the Grand Gold Excellence Award by the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, which highlights innovative initiatives meeting critical campus needs. The Association of College Unions International also acknowledged the program with the 2018 Campus Award for Excellence in Student Training Programs. The program has led to positive growth in our student employees, and we believe it has many possible applications in other university settings. Below, I will outline the program’s beginnings and some of our main findings from over 8 years of working closely with student employees to enhance their educational experience through EL.

Building a Foundation and Incorporating Best Practices As I pursued my graduate studies at UD, I realized that not many studies examined the impact of student employment on learning and success. Some of the literature I was able to uncover warned that student employment might actually be detrimental to students’ college success (Riggert, Boyle, Petrosko, Ash, & Rude-Parkins, 2006). However, from personal experience I knew about the educational potential of student employment. Thus, I set out to in search of a solid, research-based foundation

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upon which I could build a meaningful student employment experience for students. Carol Geary Schneider, former President of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, has argued that “our most important national challenge in higher education [is] helping America’s extraordinarily diverse students reap the full benefits—economic, civic, and personal—of their studies in college” (cited in Kuh, 2008). Education scholar George Kuh has examined the positive impact EL experiences on students of many backgrounds. According to Kuh (2008), EL experiences such as student employment can be “unusually effective” and even “lifechanging” (p. 14) because they require students to spend a considerable amount of time and effort on purposeful tasks, encourage students to interact with people who are different from themselves, offer students the opportunity to receive frequent feedback about their performance, and help students make connections across different settings, and lead to active and collaborative learning. As I read about Kuh’s analysis of high-impact EL, I realized that our student employment program did not offer students the opportunity to receive frequent feedback or engage in substantive conversations regarding their employment experiences. Kuh’s work provided inspiration for how the student employment program I was designing could be a highimpact EL experience, but I still felt I needed more of a foundation to put these ideas into action. The Learning Partnerships Model (Baxter Magolda & King, 2004), which calls us to “validate learners as knowers,” “situate learning in the learner’s experience,” and “define learning as mutually constructing meaning” (p. 41), fits well within the context of our student employment program. Students would learn through the work that they were doing, and opportunities could be built around the work to allow students to mutually construct their learning.

Establishing Learning Outcomes for Student Employees Creating student learning outcomes was a key part of developing our student employment program. We believed it was important to create learning outcomes that were relevant to students’ work and their future career goals. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conducts an annual survey of employers to measure the top skills and qualities

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employers feel are important for college graduates to have upon entering the workforce. In 2015, NACE released a set of career readiness competencies compiled from a survey of over 600 diverse employers. We realized that several of these competencies, such as professionalism/work ethic, leadership, teamwork and collaboration, oral and written communication skills, and critical thinking/problem-solving, could be developed through on-campus student employment experiences, perhaps even more effectively than through traditional classroom learning. This led to the creation of our program learning outcomes: Students who work in the Center for Student Involvement will be able to: • Demonstrate a commitment to professionalism by following office policies and procedures and articulating an understanding of the ability to transfer each policy to a future career. • Identify procedures for dealing with peer-to-peer conflict including the Marianist strategy of staying at the table. • Become more comfortable having difficult conversations with peers. • Identify and work through challenges or encountered difficulties. • Understand the importance of setting goals and demonstrate SMART goals in a personal and professional setting. • Articulate dimensions of their personal identity and ways in which this relates to the identities of others. In 2011–2012 academic year, the Student Employment for the Real World program began as a pilot for all 100+ students who work in CSI. The pilot included an introduction of program learning outcomes to CSI student employees in a fall training, monthly reflection questions, and an opportunity to assess student learning through the use of rubrics we developed specifically for the program. The initial rollout of the program was challenging. Students and CSI supervisors were accustomed to viewing the role of the student employee through the context of customer service, not through the lens of learning and development. As I moved forward with the program, there was a lot of trial and error. In the first year, a lot of our assessment measures were based on performance indicators and not student learning or development. I was trying to implement this program in an environment where student expectations were not well-enforced, and there was little

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investment from students or staff in the learning process. To this end, the preliminary assessment measures were not extraordinarily helpful in demonstrating learning. They did, however, help build the foundation for a robust and meaningful education experience through student employment. In the initial years of the program, it became quite clear that students were not prepared for deep reflection. We therefore utilized the work of Britton (2010) to develop a model of reflection that would help students deepen their learning through experience. Britton proposes a six-step model of reflective practice: experience, appraisal, analysis, discovery, integration, and informed action. We built upon these ideas and developed written and in-person reflections that asked students to use on-the-job experiences to unpack and analyze their understanding of key learning outcomes, while also helping them discern future directions for their work and commit to future actions. This was beneficial because it created a work environment in which students and employers were dedicated to continuous improvement, and allowed employers to use reflections/conversations to evaluate a student employee’s progress on particular work-based learning outcomes. As I continued to develop the program, it expanded to weekly reflection questions, as the monthly reflections were not consistent enough for students to keep learning at the forefront of their experience. Each year, reflection questions were revised and tailored in an attempt to elicit more specific responses from students. The reflections provided an opportunity for meaning-making, but they did not lead to more engagement between students and staff about the topics at hand. Thus, in 2013, a new layer was added to the program. For the first time, instead of placing each student’s response on a rubric, which was time-intensive, student responses were provided to professional staff supervisors twice a semester. Staff would engage students in guided conversations around the learning outcomes, providing opportunities for meaningful dialogue around the topics. Staff could then combine the written reflections, conversations, and workplace demonstration into a single rating on our rubric. Over time, the program continued to evolve, and we continued training student managers to conduct the one-on-one guided conversations and assessments for their staff (Table 15.1). Changing staff attitudes around the learning potential inherent with student employment was a multi-year process that involved a few key takeaways: (1) students need a clear “why” (relevance of the program)

Identify procedures for dealing with peer-to-peer conflict including Marianist strategies of staying at the table

Student could not identify ways to resolve peer conflict, or suggested ways that are grossly inconsistent with Marianist values

The student identified conflict resolution techniques that do not seem appropriate for the conflict

While the student cannot come up with ways in which his/her major and/or future career relates to his/her work in CSI, the student is able to agree with ways I suggest they may be related The student provides an adequate definition of office policy/professionalism, but does not see the two as related

The student sees no correlation between their work in CSI and their major and/or future career

Demonstrate a commitment to professionalism by following office policy and procedure and articulating an understanding of the ability to transfer each policy to a future career

The student does not have a good understanding of office policy, or frequently violates office policy

2

1

Students who work in CSI will be able to:

Table 15.1 CSI learning outcome

(continued)

The student identifies one or more appropriate conflict resolution techniques, and relates clearly to Marianist strategy of staying at the table

The student is able to articulate clear links between this position and a future career, including indirect applications (customer service—teaching, etc.)

The student is able to articulate clear links between this position and his/her major and/or future career

The student is able to articulate transferrable skills (soft skills) that are learned/practiced in CSI that apply to other careers

The student follows office policy, and is able to recognize direct correlations between office policies that will remain the same in most jobs (arrive on time, etc.) The student identifies one or more appropriate conflict resolution techniques, but does not relate to Marianist strategy of staying at the table

4

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1

Passively accepts alternate viewpoints/ideas/opinions

The student does not recognize any value in having difficult conversations with peers

The student does not recognize challenges/difficulties

Students who work in CSI will be able to:

Conflict management

Become more comfortable having difficult conversations with peers

Identify and work through challenges or encountered difficulties

Table 15.1 (continued)

The student identifies unrealistic ways to work through challenge or relies heavily on supervisor assistance to identify solutions

The student has difficult conversations with peers in inappropriate ways (texting, sometime email, etc.)

Redirects focus toward common ground, toward task at hand (away from conflict)

2

The student identifies one or more solutions to problems, but either jumps too quickly into the first possible solution or does not follow through with the solution without supervisor approval

The student sees value in and has attempted to have a difficult conversation with a peer

Identifies and acknowledges conflict and stays engaged with it to resolution

3

Addresses destructive conflict directly and constructively, helping to manage/resolve it in a way that strengthens overall team cohesiveness and future effectiveness The student has shown marked improvement in the drive and ability to have difficult conversations with peers The student identifies one or more solutions, and chooses the most appropriate to the situation at hand

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in order to participate fully; and (2) because student managers hold the most influence over their peers, their onboarding and commitment is critical.

Findings from the First Seven Years of Assessment As cited previously, theories about on-campus employment’s relationship to student learning and development have been mixed, with some studies even citing detrimental effects of campus employment, and others citing a neutral or positive impact (Riggert et al., 2006). This influenced the heavy reliance upon assessment to measure and continuously improve the program. Assessment data from the past seven years shows a significant increase in students’ ability to articulate how their work has prepared them to be successful in future careers, engage in advanced problem-solving, as well as set and achieve meaningful goals in the workplace. The program is worthy of implementation not only because of the continuous improvement of student outcomes, but also because we believe the reduced impact on staff time and increased agency of student managers in the process makes the program more accessible and appealing to other institutions. Over the course of the program, we have seen substantial gains in outcomes related to professionalism, problem-solving, and goal setting. We have also been able to better articulate conflict management outcomes to students. Students’ learning outcomes also tend to be correlated with their class level (second year versus fourth year, for example). In years where we have more third year and fourth year students year working in our office (2012–2013 and 2014–2015), we have seen those students achieve more developmentally advanced outcomes. While we are confident that our measurements indicate high levels of student success in attaining our student employment program outcomes, we were interested in how our students, who spend significant time engaging with our program, compared in their development to the general population. We observed statistically significant differences between students who have gone through our program and our general student body in terms of achieving outcomes measured on the MultiInstitutional Study of Leadership (MSL) (2012). Using available data from UD’s issuance of the 2012 MSL to the general student population, we found that on-campus student employment was not a significant indicator of student learning and development (UD employs approximately

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3000 students in campus jobs). Fortunately, the 2015 version of the MSL issued to the general student population at UD included student identifiers, and we were able to parse through the data to compare our student employees to other campus populations. Using the 2015 MSL findings, we were able to determine that students who had been engaging with our program for one year or more were statistically more successful in a number of MSL outcomes as compared to peers both at UD and nationally. This finding was not true of student employees across UD and was specific to students working in our office (Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership, 2015). Specifically, our students demonstrated both statistical significance and meaningful effect size on outcomes related to collaboration, citizenship, leadership efficacy, and resilience as compared with their peers. Items measured where students demonstrated significant, but slightly smaller gains as compared to their peers, were measures of social change behaviors, commitment, and overall leadership capacity. In addition to aligning the MSL outcomes with our specific learning outcomes, we also compared them to outcomes desirable by employers, finding that our students demonstrated an increased capacity to work across difference, engage in collaboration and conflict management, goal setting, an ability to identify and work through challenges or encountered difficulties.

Transitioning Ownership of the Program After building a substantial student employee training and development program, and seeing students buy into and be successful through their participation, the time came to transition leadership of the program. I was fortunate in 2017 to have Chelsea Fricker join our professional staff. Her passion for student employment and student development pushed me to think about how the program could continue to evolve and maintain effectiveness as we welcomed Generation Z to campus. As my professional path took me into a new role in the office, Chelsea and I were able to transition the strategic visioning and day-to-day management of the program to her portfolio.

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Taking Over a Successful Student Employee Development Program: Reflections from Chelsea Fricker My first role at UD was working as the Assistant Director of Operations for Kennedy Student Union. In this role, I oversaw the largest student staff in CSI. The Kennedy Union Operations Student Staff (Ops) consists of roughly 40 students: 30 assistants, 9 managers, and a student coordinator. When I started this role, I was interested in piloting different programs with these students that would work in conjunction with the Student Employment for the Real World program. Using Baxter Magolda’s Theory of Self-Authorship (2008) as a framework, I outlined a professional development curriculum and several other initiatives for the Ops student staff. Our first shot at a professional development curriculum was rolled out through three sessions focusing on customer service, professionalism, and transferable skills. These sessions occurred once a month and were available for all Ops employees. Each session was led by myself and another professional staff member. Every session was assessed after the program to gauge how students felt the session helped them to develop professionally. In the final assessment for the program, 77.8% of the students who attended rated the program a 4 or a 5 on a 1–5 Likert scale which measured how the program assisted their professional development. Based on the work I had been doing with the Ops students, I was asked to take over the Student Employment for the Real World program when Chris became the Director of Student Leadership Programs. Working with students and designing programs to help them grow was my favorite part of my job so I was excited to take on this new challenge. At the same time however, I was terrified at the idea of taking on a nationally recognized program. What if I messed something up? What if I was too eager to make change? When I started working with the Student Employment for the Real World program, I immediately knew there were things that I wanted to adjust in order to further assist the development of our students. The program had sustained itself for years but I wanted to make the program more applicable to all of our students, and help our students to see the value in the program, as well as reframe developmental conversations regarding EL and transferable skills. For me, the question then became: How do I take this program, respect the immense amount of work that

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has been put into it, while also updating it to meet the needs of our changing demographic of students?

Challenges of Sustaining and Adapting Jumping into work with the Student Employment for the Real World program proved to be a challenge because of the time of year I was taking over the program. Instead of focusing on making changes, the first thing I decided to do was review the assessment data from the past year in order to figure out where we needed to grow as a staff. Each year, we assess the program in a few different ways. • Paper assessments are given out at the end of our in-person training in August to assess satisfaction with training, what students learned from key sessions on topics such as customer service and multicultural competence, how training prepared them for the upcoming year, and how training helped them to better understand the expectations of the program. • Students engage in one-on-one meetings with either their supervisor (professional staff member) or a student manager on their team (undergraduate student) depending on the size of the staff. These meetings are based on guiding questions provided by the student employment program. These questions are developed based on program learning outcomes to assess student learning in different areas. Supervisors or managers then submit write-ups about their one-onone meetings assessing where each student is with the learning outcome. Using these assessment data, I was able to identify key themes in student learning as well as areas that students enjoyed or felt like needed to be improved. One finding that was particularly consistent was that our students enjoyed sessions on leadership development and discussions around transferable skills. In a majority of our training assessments, students were vocal about wanting the training to be shorter and the information less repetitive. In our data specifically with returning staff members, we were getting feedback that they were bored and found little value in training. To address these concerns, we were able to move our training schedule around. For the last few years, our training schedule operated with a full day of manager training and a full day of all-staff training. For training the

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year I took over the program, we decided to shorten manager training by an hour and move to a full day of new hire training for students who had never been through student employment training before, and a half-day long all-staff training. By creating a new hire training, we were able to shift some content in order to make the days shorter and the content less repetitive for returning staff members. For all-staff training, the curriculum was changed in order to incorporate an active threat training lead by our chief of campus police and a longer session on multicultural competencies. In addition, the focus of all-staff training was altered to be less about delivering content and more about giving students the opportunity to show us what they learned, either through their experiences working or from new hire training the previous day. We wanted to allow students the opportunity to show us what they have learned from the EL opportunities that their jobs provide. Additionally, we wanted students to be able to learn from each other and find ways to share their experiences with others for the growth of our staff. As a result of this training model, we received less negative feedback about training length and repetitiveness, and we were also able to focus more on the needs of students at different levels of involvement and experience with the employment program.

Expansion and Reasoning The concepts of student feedback, EL, and transferable skills articulation became the foundation for the revisioning I wanted to do with the Student Employment for the Real World program. From that foundation grew three goals for the program moving forward: to build a more interconnected experience with the different components of the program, provide more opportunities for growth through EL, and become more innovative by moving the program toward a hybrid training model with in-person and online components. In order to start implementing new initiatives with the program, the first thing I had to do was make sure I laid out clear ideas to the CSI supervisors who oversee the student employment areas and maintain their buy-in with the program. This was done through presentations and onepage documents outlining what changes would be made, why, and the goals for the first semester. Through these efforts, I was able to talk to supervisors about the additional commitment I would need from them and the success of some of these new initiatives that I had already seen

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with the Operations students. From there, I gave them time to ask questions, make suggestions, and voice concerns. By sharing the vision I had for the direction of the program and explaining the reasoning for the changes, staff members were supportive of the changes. Gaining buy-in was not limited to staff members; another key component to making changes was obtaining buy-in from students. Based on the assessment data I had gathered from my work with the Ops students, I knew there was a need and a want for more professional development for our students. Students were craving opportunities to learn about things like communication in a work setting, problem-solving strategies, and articulating transferable skills. In terms of the Student Employment for the Real World program, professional development became about gaining additional skills to complement the EL occurring on the job. I knew that helping students develop these skills would make them better employees and help them make connections between their student employment and future goals. Because of the relationships I had built through my role as the supervisor for the largest student staff in CSI, I knew I had buy-in from those students. I wanted to make sure however, that I was getting feedback from different areas of CSI and not just relying on the Operations students. In order to gain that feedback as I moved forward, I rolled out the first programmatic change to the Student Employment for the Real World program by creating a Student Employment Program Advisory Council (SEPAC). SEPAC is made up of 1–3 student representatives, nominated by their supervisors, from each of the eight areas in CSI that comprise the Student Employment for the Real World program. With the help of a CSI graduate assistant, we had SEPAC complete a 41-question assessment to gather both quantitative and qualitative data on different areas of the student employment program such as: increasing student participation, the interview/hiring process, training, professional development topics, their ability to articulate the value of the program, and necessary changes for growth with the program. Based on the assessment data, we were able to build a foundation for the things we would work on moving forward. This group became instrumental for charting the direction changes would take with the program, giving feedback, and brainstorming new ideas. At the end of the 2018–2019 school year, we had the members of SEPAC take an assessment about their experiences being on the committee. We were pleased to find that 100% of the students on the committee stated that the experience helped them feel that the student voice was heard when making program changes, that they had helped influence

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positive change, and that they would recommend being on SEPAC to another CSI student employee. With my goals for the program and the feedback of students in mind, I produced an outline for a program curriculum that would guide our work throughout the academic year, intended to give structure and organization to the student employee experience. This outline would make the program more cohesive and emphasize our learning outcomes. I decided to take the learning outcomes of the Student Employment for the Real World program—professionalism and transferable skills, conflict management, engaging in difficult conversations, working through challenges, goal setting, and multicultural competencies—and assign each to a month of the academic calendar. Using this concept as the backbone, I created a curriculum that consists of goals, 3–4 reflection questions, and a professional development session that revolves around the learning outcome for that month. By designing the curriculum this way, it allowed for the opportunity to have a theme for the reflection questions every month and then close out the month with a professional development session. Planning out the curriculum in advance also allowed me the opportunity to bring in campus partners to be guest presenters for the professional development sessions. This gave students the chance to learn from staff members outside of CSI with whom they might not normally come into contact. As one student staff member commented: It has given me the opportunity to interact with multiple different people of different backgrounds and cultures. Not only this but it has also allowed me to become a better problem solver, more confident and more assertive when dealing with tough situations.

One limitation of the professional development program in its first year was space. Unfortunately, we did not have a space large enough to offer the sessions for all of the 100+ students who work in CSI and participate in the program. Instead, the sessions were limited to our 26 student managers and assistant managers. To accommodate for this limitation, we scheduled staff meetings right after the professional development sessions so that managers could report back to the rest of their staff the information they just learned. Each professional development session was assessed immediately after the program. The assessment questions for each program were specifically tied to the goals outlined for the month in the overarching curriculum. At the end of the year, data was collected on

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the program, and 83% of our student managers engaged with the professional development sessions. When assessing the success of the program, 92% of the students who engaged said that they enjoyed the sessions, the sessions helped them to make connections between their job in CSI and their future careers, and that the sessions helped them grow professionally. As one of our 2018 Operations Student Manager reflected, My employment with CSI has helped me to grow professionally and develop relationships with both my peers and professional staff. I have also been able to use my experiences on the job, here at CSI, as anecdotes and discussion points during Co-op interviews. The manager professional development sessions have been very helpful to me by developing my communication and critical thinking skills.

Recommendations and Further Development Through the process of maintaining and creating change with the Student Employment for the Real World program, I came away with some lessons that can serve as recommendations for other educators. Three key recommendations would be: root change in a “why,” create opportunities to hear student voices, and prioritize the student experience. My recommendation to root change in a “why” comes from my experience gaining buy-in from staff and students throughout this process. By going through assessment data and being able to present qualitative and quantitative information to key stakeholders, I was able to explain the why behind the changes I wanted to make. By providing research, data, and evidence, these stakeholders felt more comfortable and confident that the changes would positively impact the student experience. Another important recommendation I would make and the biggest lesson I have learned is to create opportunities to hear student’ voices. This recommendation can take different forms such as regular assessment or an advisory group. Some of my biggest moments of learning with the student employment program came from talking to the student advisory council. In these meetings, I learned that our reflection software did not allow students to view previous reflections, which led to lower completion rate for questions where we asked students to refer back to a previous response. I learned that some of the student staff were getting regular performance feedback and some were not. I learned that students wanted more networking time with each other. The feedback from this group

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heavily impacted our curriculum this year and will continue to do so in the future. My final recommendation would be to prioritize the student experience. When trying to meet learning outcomes and gain key information for end of the year reports, it can be difficult to remember that the student experience is the basis for this work. Because of this, this final recommendation is probably the most important. In the process of shifting student employment in CSI to a high-impact EL opportunity, sometimes it takes extra work on the part of the staff members to ensure the most positive and impactful experience. It takes the desire to be innovative, to try new things, to be willing to adapt to changing student demographics, to adapt based on student needs, and be willing to accept that student’s ideas are sometimes better than your own. Our program continues to grow. In the summer of 2019, we rolled out our hybrid online and in-person training model in order to take into account direct feedback from students and to meet the needs of some of our students who were unable to travel back to campus for a full in-person training. Additionally, We plan to expand our professional development series to all of our CSI student employees to address the increase in student requests to connect their EL to future goals. With these changes, we will continue to prioritize the “why,” the student voice, and the student experience in order to work toward our goals of building interconnected components of our program, provide more opportunities for growth through EL, and embrace innovation.

References Baxter Magolda, M. (2008). Three elements of self-authorship. Journal of College Student Development, 49(4), 269–284. Baxter Magolda, M., & King, P. (Eds.). (2004). Learning partnerships: Theory and models of practice to educate for self-authorship. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Britton, B. (2010). Self-reflection: Monitoring and evaluation for personal learning. In J. Ubels, N. A. Baddoo, & A. Fowler (Eds.), Capacity development in practice (pp. 264–276). London: Earthscan. Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Association of American Colleges and Universities. Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership. (2012). MSL 2012 School Report. University of Dayton [Data file and code book].

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Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership. (2015). MSL 2015 School Report. University of Dayton [Data file and code book]. National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2015). Career readiness defined. Retrieved from https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/ competencies/career-readiness-defined/. Riggert, S., Boyle, M., Petrosko, J., Ash, D., & Rude-Parkins, C. (2006). Student employment and higher education: Empiricism and contradiction. Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 63–92.

CHAPTER 16

Experiential Learning and Education Abroad: Examining the Experiences of Students in the Semester Abroad and Intercultural Leadership Program Karen McBride

The summer of 1997 was a pivotal moment for me when reflecting back on the trajectory of my education and my career. In one fell swoop, I decided to abandon my athletics scholarship at a local college, transfer to a large, public university and embark on my first study abroad experience to Atenas, Costa Rica to study biology and Spanish. Ultimately, I would travel abroad four more times as a student for study abroad, an internship abroad, a graduate degree and doctoral research. Twenty-two years later, I have fifteen years of experience working in international higher education, primarily in facilitating education abroad experiences for college students, having served almost ten years in a leadership role within the field at various institutions located in multiple states. The impact of that first experience in Costa Rica included what many study abroad

K. McBride (B) University of Dayton School of Law, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_16

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returnees experience: a stronger sense of independence, confidence in problem-solving abilities, and a heightened curiosity for applied learning. These personal and psycho-social developments, as well as others such as increased global competency, open-mindedness and a stronger sense of well-being, are echoed throughout various research conducted on other study abroad students (Kronholz & Osborn, 2016). Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to highlight the psychological development undergraduate students undergo following a semester abroad (approximately 14– 16 weeks) during guided reflection and an application of skills as part of a uniquely designed program that draws upon key elements of research related to the study abroad field.

The Program In the Spring of 2015, representatives from the University of Dayton Center for International Programs, Enrollment Management, Housing and Residence Life and Provost’s office convened to discuss the development of a new education abroad program that could potentially fulfill a number of strategic objectives that included a semester model for cohort-based learning, a re-entry opportunity for semester abroad students, the ability to measure intercultural competency development of study abroad students using a statistically validated instrument, an alleviation of fall semester housing demand and an attempt at better financial stewardship by utilizing a no-additional cost model for the students’ semester abroad. The result was the creation of the Semester Abroad and Intercultural Leadership (SAIL) program, a program launched in the Fall of 2016 with an initial cohort of sixteen students. Fourteen students participated in the second cohort and thirty-two students participated in the third cohort. The SAIL program entails a fall semester abroad at a designated exchange partner in Ireland, Spain, or at the University of Dayton China Institute, and a one-credit re-entry course the subsequent spring semester that focuses on unpacking the fall semester experience, reflecting on its implications for intercultural leadership, and drawing upon the experiences abroad and in-class to pivot toward one’s ultimate career goals. In addition to undergoing a more general pre-departure orientation process that all other semester abroad students do (e.g., what to pack, what to do in an emergency, how to stay safe, how grading works, a brief definition of culture), the SAIL students convene only once prior to their fall

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semester abroad as a cohort (usually in April) where the outline of the program (structure, timeline, and learning objectives) is relayed by members of the Office of Education Abroad and Housing and Residence Life. Frequently, most questions by the students are during this time about the logistical aspects of the program and no type of in-depth cultural framing occurs for the students either during pre-departure or during their semester abroad, which was an administrative decision at the outset. Therefore, the re-entry course is the main vehicle by which students are able to critically reflect on their experiences and showcase their evolving psycho-social developments, though studies do show that a carefully guided pre-departure orientation and learning interventions with students during their time abroad can help them with overall intercultural competency gains (Bathurst & La Brack, 2012; Bosley & Lou, 2011; Engle & Engle, 2012; Paige, Cohen, Kappler, Chi, & Lassegard, 2006; Vande Berg, Connor-Linton & Paige, 2009). Altering the program structure in alignment with these principles is something that could be considered for future cohorts. SAIL students also have the option to live as a cohort in one of two locations on campus during their initial return to campus, to enhance the reflection and re-entry process. The course objectives for the re-entry course have remained the same for the first three years of the program’s inception and include: 1. Utilize the knowledge gained from the abroad experience to do a critical analysis of self and the ways in which it is reflective of one experience, not all (Intrapersonal) 2. Develop a cultural knowledge base that one can draw upon to help understand the impact of culture upon leadership and intercultural interactions (Interpersonal) 3. Utilize an intercultural and multicultural lens to apply the lessons learned through the abroad experience to all aspects of one’s personal and professional goals and interaction with others (Cognitive) (McBride, 2019). The SAIL program has gradually evolved. Each year, the instructors— myself and a Graduate Assistant for Intercultural Initiatives—reflect on assignment outcomes, in-class discussion, and activities as well as formal evaluations of the re-entry course itself to drive planning for the next cohort experience.

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The Curricular Foundation The bases by which students develop during and after studying abroad (and, one could argue, spending qualitative time immersed in another culture) are grounded in two principle concepts for the purposes of the SAIL program’s design: Intercultural Theory and Constructivism. Intercultural Theory is an amalgamation of interconnected, but distinct, psychological constructs that have been generated by specialists largely in the fields of education, psychology, and communication, with a few developmental models of assessment used to measure and quantify an individual’s level of competency and progression in handling cross-cultural adaptation. Perspectives such as Paige’s (1993) work on the nature of intercultural experiences in intercultural education, Bennett’s (2012) Developmental Model for Intercultural Sensitivity, Hammer’s (1997) intercultural dynamics in crisis incidents, Ting-Toomey and Chung’s (2005) cultural value analysis, Deardorff’s (2009) Model of Intercultural Competence, Savicki’s (2008) work on intercultural adjustment, and Hofstede and Hofstede’s (2005) Software of the Mind, cultures within organizations, were at the forefront of developing the intercultural foundation of the SAIL program and, specifically, the one-credit re-entry course. Ultimately, it is the interplay between the cognitive, affective, and behavioral elements of human behavior during an intercultural experience that typifies how students have undergone transformative learning while studying abroad for a semester. In the constructivism paradigm, an individual’s perspective constructs their reality, with “reality” being a product of a singular perspective, rather than reality being an objective event. It is the unique perspectives that every individual has, having been shaped by all of their life experiences that help them organize and process their environment and the events within it. Students that are abroad and encountering new experiences undergo a highly complex evaluative process that includes three different elements, described by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961) as the cognitive element (a culture’s definition of reality, of the way things are), the affective element (people’s emotional attachment to what they consider as the way things are and should be or the feeling-and-attitude-content generated by their foundational beliefs about reality), and the directive element (impels someone to prefer one particular course of action to others, giving that action the weight of being normative or obligatory). In the case of study abroad students, their personal and cultural perspectives,

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as they have learned and lived from them prior to travel, are applied to the environment abroad to help them navigate their surroundings, with the cognitive, affective, and directive elements driving how and how well they are able to navigate. This means that that not only are biases and assumptions made (including how to behaviorally respond to them), but every student’s psychological journey while abroad, as well as afterward, is unique. Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Theory references how knowledge can be transformed through experience, observation, and reflection and Piercy (2013) describes the importance of relationships and building trust that is vital to the learning process by adult learners. Reflection during the re-entry process is manifested in the form of intentionally created small group discussions in class, online discussions where students are asked to weigh in on a prompt by the instructor while responding to a set number of posts by their classmates, and a final project that synthesizes the experience with the course readings to summarize the accumulation of the past academic year, which includes the semester abroad and the lessons of the re-entry course. It is these constructs and theories that are presented to students directly and indirectly, through readings, lectures, and related activities, during the re-entry course so that they may have a broad analysis framework with which to engage in meaningful discussions among each other. We ask that students not only share in their experiences (many of them are initially oriented toward the food, the weekend trips, and more surfacelevel experiences), but to understand the developmental process of intercultural competency, mixed in with specific leadership tactics, so that they may deconstruct their time abroad in a more layered, thoughtful and meaningful way. To otherwise offer a re-entry course simply designed to share in fall semester adventures would not reach an adequate threshold by which we, as teachers and scholar-practitioners, could effectively guide student learning and development.

The Results Quantitative The lone quantitative measurement of the SAIL program is the pre- and post-scores on the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (IES). The IES is the chosen instrument because of its alignment with the re-entry course learning objectives and its ease of use, which produces results for the instructor

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and user instantly and no requirement to conduct an in-person de-brief per individual in order to access the results. What is interesting is that all SAIL students seemingly made gains in their competency levels, with only a couple of exceptions, while at the same time generally outperforming a control group of peers that went abroad for a fall semester or full academic year without participating in SAIL or a formal re-entry course, but having also taken the IES at the same times as the SAIL cohort members. It is important to point out, however, that these numerical scores have not been calculated for statistical significance. Also, there was not always an adequate sample size for the control group since many in the control groups (most likely otherwise engaged months after their study abroad semester ended) did not participate as much as we had hoped in the post-test, despite a lot of encouragement and reminders. Scores for each instrument taker range from a 1 to 7 for each dimension with scores in each level that are 1–2 labeled as “Low,” scores in each level that are 3–5 labeled as “Moderate” and scores in each level that are 6–7 labeled as “High.” Students are scored and assessed on the competency levels as defined by the IES instrument. Below is a representation of the numerical scores of SAIL students, and their control group peers, per academic year. The IES underwent a slight change in its terminology and an overhaul in its testing portal online in 2017, and, unfortunately, one consequence was that the raw data for Control Group 1 (2016–2017) was retired and unable to be retrieved for processing, so references to control group performances are made based upon the scores of Control Groups 2 and 3 only (Figs. 16.1, 16.2, and 16.3 and Tables 16.1, 16.2, 16.3, 16.4 and 16.5). The starkest results from all three SAIL cohorts (numerical gains, not necessarily statistically significant) are thus: Other than the Hardiness dimension for SAIL Cohort 1 and the Positive Regard competency level for SAIL Cohort 2, gains were made in every intercultural dimension and competency level, with an increase in overall IES scores for each cohort. SAIL Cohort 2 posted zero gains in Positive Regard. While SAIL Cohort 3 made gains, as a group, in every dimension and competency level, one of the smallest gains was in Positive Regard. What I and my Graduate Assistant co-instructors theorized about this was that regardless of where a student was in their psycho-social development, confidence may be much higher prior to a challenging event such as study abroad during which one is confronted by a different, dominant environment and set of rules, challenging their values on almost a daily

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8 7 6 5 4

Pre-Test

3

Post-Test

2 1 0 1

2 Low

Fig. 16.1

3

4 Moderate

5

6

7 High

Overall IES Scores for SAIL Cohort 1 (2016–2017)

Fig. 16.2 Overall IES Scores for SAIL Cohort 2 and Control Group 2 (2017– 2018)

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Fig. 16.3 Overall IES Scores for SAIL Cohort 3 and Control Group 3 (2018– 2019) Table 16.1 Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for SAIL Cohort 1 (2016–2017)

Pre-Test Post-Test

Continuous Learning

Interpersonal Engagement

Hardiness

Overall IES*

3.38 3.75

2.31 3.38

4.31 3.38

3.13 4.06

*Sample Size = 16/16

Table 16.2 Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for SAIL Cohort 2 (2017–2018)

Pre-Test Post-Test

Continuous Learning

Interpersonal Engagement

Hardiness

Overall IES*

4.08 4.31

3.47 3.88

3.36 3.46

3.64 3.88

*Sample Size = 9/14

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Table 16.3 Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for Control Group 2 (2016–2017)

Pre-Test Post-Test

Continuous Learning

Interpersonal Engagement

Hardiness

Overall IES*

4.08 4.04

3.57 3.66

3.57 3.6

3.75 3.77

*Sample Size = 12/38

Table 16.4 Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for SAIL Cohort 3 (2018–2019)

Pre-Test Post-Test

Continuous Learning

Interpersonal Engagement

Hardiness

Overall IES*

4.07 4.31

3.65 3.94

3.52 3.78

3.75 4.01

*Sample Size = 29/32

Table 16.5 Average Scores on 3 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness for Control Group 3 (2018–2019)

Pre-Test Post-Test

Continuous Learning

Interpersonal Engagement

Hardiness

Overall IES*

4.12 4.21

3.68 3.63

3.46 3.29

3.75 3.71

*Sample Size = 11/40

basis. As a result, students that are able to reflect on those circumstances afterward may come to the realization that they may not be as emotionally resilient or as positive and accepting of others or their cultural differences than they originally thought. Within the framework of constructivism, students seem to be confronted most strongly by the affective (emotional) element of the process that influences the directive (action) element. Conversely, the Interpersonal Engagement dimension seemed to be the area of overall intercultural competency that was the most improving for each cohort, including members of each control group. A possible explanation of this could be that there are a couple of key influences: studying

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abroad as part of a cohort, having a unique identity as a group throughout the course of a calendar year, and the relationships developed particularly during the re-entry course enhanced relationship development. SAIL student trends are further illustrated in the next section. Qualitative When thinking about the IES scores as well as the course learning objectives—having been presented within the context of Intercultural Theory and Constructivism, the following interactions (online and during various in-class discussions) are presented as examples of how this particular experiential learning process revealed itself to myself and my Graduate Assistants in relation to the scores and objectives. All statements are assessed on the basis of there seeming connectivity to the learning objectives, intercultural dimension, or competency level as well as the frequency with which students shared certain perspectives. Thus, the comments are generally representative of sentiments expressed by a number of students in one related form or another. An individual who scores low on Positive Regard is defined as having “a tendency to hold negative assumptions and stereotypes about people and are less likely to give them the benefit of the doubt [and] as a result, this limits their attraction to individuals from other cultures and groups and their ability to relate to them” (Aperian Global, 2019). Examples of this are seemingly reflected in some of the comments from students below that arose after they received prompts on how they thought intercultural competency related to having studied abroad: I think it’s hard right away to get used to other cultures, while you are also trying to just get used to this new world that you are living in. I feel as though how I reacted to other cultures would have been different if I was just on vacation… because I would’ve have had to adapt and accept but instead just live within the culture for a short period of time. [Student H, Cohort 1] At times I found myself cynical or upset, wishing people could just act “normal,” which to me meant act American. But after learning to adapt and assimilate to the culture, I loved being immersed in a new world. [Student D, SAIL Cohort 2]

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What is heartening is that a majority of all SAIL students were able to acknowledge, at some point, that this was a transition period for them, cognitively and emotionally, but while this type of self-awareness is good, given the scores most SAIL students experienced in Hardiness overall, the journey to maintaining Positive Regard for other cultures could still be a works in progress. I noticed a lot more things about my own culture to because I saw myself do things that confused the locals but it was a normal custom for me. I also had a few times where the culture threw me off and I was uncomfortable for a little bit but was able to quickly resolve it for myself and could learn a new fact about their culture or my own that I didn’t know before. [Student F, SAIL Cohort 2]

For SAIL Cohort 3 students, they were prompted to reflect on similar aspects of intercultural competency, albeit in a different format—by utilizing Hofstede’s Country Comparison Tool. Their observations were similar in nature to those from previous cohorts. The three most prominent dimensions I noticed during my time abroad was individualism, long term orientation, and indulgence…Something I noticed while living with my Chinese roommate, when there were conflicts in the apartment about dishes, Zhizhen (my roommate) kept to himself, but I knew something was bothering him (Long term orientation, CN 87%, US 26%). In Chinese culture, it is all about respecting the relationship shared between people- and doing everything possible to keep harmony in the relationship. [Student U, SAIL Cohort 3] Spain had a much lower indulgence score than the US. According to the article, indulgence is the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, and I feel like I could definitely see the difference while studying Spain. Spain is not an indulgent society and put a lot of emphasis on leisure time and control the gratification of their desires. In the US, we work long hours and sometimes 7 days a week whereas that is very different in Spain. In Spain, people often take a siesta during the middle of the day to eat and nap before returning to work. It was really cool to see how different the societies were and I liked aspects of both. [Student J, SAIL Cohort 3]

Additionally, students in Cohort 1 were asked to select a current or realworld intercultural conflict, provide a summary of it, the parties involved

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and a brief analysis of the way they think culture impacted the conflict during week 10 of the re-entry course. What I noted during this exercise were the continued US/Western orientations toward each scenario in the majority of the posts, including statements and queries about how and when the USA should intervene, the contrast between how the situation would be handled in the USA with an alluded preference toward that tactic and the ease and frequency with which strong criticism was levied toward a situation without delving too deeply into the complexity of each one or the fundamentals of intercultural analysis one might require in order to seek a resolution. Having borne witness to thousands of college students’ emotional journeys before, during and after a study abroad experience, even taking into account what I can remember from my own as well as certain scenarios encountered later in life as a professional living or working abroad, these perspectives are not surprising, and absent of judgment since learning remains a continuous process. By contrast, some students relayed strong emotional reactions to certain situations, but with an understanding that even if they don’t agree with how the situation came about or is being handled according to their sources, they are cognizant of how these situations, at least in part, derive from cultures and viewpoints that are simply different. This reminds me of the cases of female genital mutilation that I learned about in another class, which is done for similar reasons in some cultures. I would be interested to know the true opinion of the girls that go through the ritual. You said that they have to participate because it is a cultural norm, so would they be outcasted if they did not participate? I agree with you that it would be challenging to remain objective if you were placed into a culture that had practices such as this one. However, I feel that although I do not accept what occurs due to my morals, I can appreciate that this is how they choose to practice their culture. Perhaps some of what we do would seem just as objectionable to them. [Student M, SAIL Cohort 1]

Individuals that score low on Emotional Resilience, a related competency level to Positive Regard, “find it difficult to handle psychologically and emotionally challenging experiences well, and their recovery from such experiences tends to be energy depleting and time consuming [and] this tends to limit their ability to remain open to others, lessens their interest in learning about and from those who share different beliefs and values, and reduces their motivation to develop relationships with them”

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(Aperian Global, 2019). What I found interesting, as an instructor, was that while there were indicators in-class discussions or via online posts and written assignments about what were clearly emotional challenges for students while they were abroad, there was plenty of evidence to suggest (other than that each student actually completed a 4-month stay in an unfamiliar environment) that not only were students emotionally resilient during a number of circumstances, but that developing and utilizing key relationships during the semester abroad seemed key to coping and excelling in their social development. This seemed particularly evident with reflections made by students in SAIL Cohort 2, reminding me that cohorts can have unique identities as well as individual learners. Below is one illustrative statement that reflects this mindset: Coming home has been cool because I am interning at a large international corporation that is German based so every day I work with people and talk to people from all over the world. If I am speaking with someone from a country I visited, I always mention that I was studying abroad in Ireland and visited the country they are from. They love to hear about my experience and to share more about their country, it is great to relate to them on their culture and not just discussing work topics. [Student H, SAIL Cohort 2]

Even more illuminating was how students referenced effective intercultural leadership and how that relies strongly upon interpersonal relationships: “To me, leadership is about guidance. You have to help unite a group of people and guide them to achieving a common goal” [Student K, SAIL Cohort 2]. Several students also credited their ability to live with cohort members during their semester re-entry as a way of coping or celebrating the highly impactful semester before, further demonstrating how increases in Relationship Development and Interpersonal Engagement could have been influenced. As one example: Coming back to Dayton has been an adjustment because it has made some of the issues with our school stand out more. I feel like there isn’t a ton of diversity on our campus, and a lot of students are either close minded or ignorant. Fortunately, I am able to have intellectual conversations with my roommates about this sort of thing, so I don’t feel completely cut off. Since last fall, I have noticed that intercultural issues have come up more in my daily thoughts. [Student K, SAIL Cohort 2]

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Discussions with cohort members were also referenced more than any other element of the re-entry course that SAIL students considered among the most effective during the assessment of the overall program. Engaging others via semi-structured discussions, collaborative assignments, and living residences was not an opportunity that members of each control group had, so it could be hypothesized that the minimal increases, if not the decreases in scores in Relationship Development by control group members that were able to complete the pre- and post-IES, could be partly attributed to not undergoing the formal re-entry process unique to SAIL. Of course, there were examples of how breaking the barrier of lacking self-awareness needed some improvement that only helped to show not just the variations in personal journeys after a study abroad experience, but how I, and future instructors and administrators may improve upon the techniques used to guide students more effectively through this process. As a few students put it: A lot of the prompts and activities feel cliché and forced at times. I knew I wanted to study abroad when I was like 12. I’ve always been someone who is interested in learning about other cultures and is naturally curious about people different from me.” [Student K, SAIL Cohort 2] Again, I see this class as unnecessary for the purpose I was told. I didn’t need help re-entering American society. [Anonymous Student, SAIL Cohort 1]

Opinions about the program were overwhelmingly positive with most critiques having to do with the structure or breadth of content relayed in a relatively short period of time, but some of the statements students made throughout the re-entry process highlighted the unique experiences of each student and the level of self-awareness a student may have, or not have, in taking agency over their own psycho-social development. The development, or lack thereof, of all students is of utmost importance to experiential learning facilitators and merely playing the percentages is not indicative of a genuine commitment to helping students undergo meaningful transformative learning. Critiques of the re-entry course are typically the starting point in refining and improving the program.

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Conclusions Being a part of the creation and facilitation of the SAIL program at UD has been a highlight of my administrative duties directing the Office of Education Abroad and managing international partnerships. Increasingly, students at UD are asking of us to deliver learning opportunities— not necessarily learning materials and content—to enhance not just their intellect, but their analytical abilities, methods of experimentation, teamwork orientations, and confidence in taking responsibility in that learning. Teaching the SAIL re-entry course (as well as a graduate course in international higher education) has been a humbling and enlightening experience for me, putting me in direct contact with a shifting methodology in effective teaching–learning by doing. There were times that I thought I was able to recognize an outdated method of teaching, given how SAIL students responded to class structure and content. Students always demonstrate the most progress when learning in a format that is more amenable to their style (candid discussions) and their enthusiasm for constantly referring to experiences while abroad shows the level of impact (overwhelmingly positive) living and learning abroad has had on their future selves. Since the SAIL program largely illuminates the re-entry, post-experience process, and given how transformative an unguided experience semester abroad is for a student, I believe that the experience could achieve even greater results for student cognition and transformation with additional structuring that focuses on the preparation for the coming year (pre-departure) and structured outlets for enhanced learning (on-site interventions) in addition to the re-entry course in a coordinated way. With a learning yield like that which we are initially seeing with the SAIL program, particularly in relation to their control groups, it increasingly becomes incumbent upon us, as instructors, to afford similar guided learning to other students traveling abroad on different programs that could also benefit in their growth from a theoretically informed, activity-pleasing process that also doesn’t make excuses for students that, for some reason, do not embrace their own self-agency in their learning process. As one of my Graduate Assistants (whom now works as a professional intercultural trainer) puts it, in sum: “Engaging in discussion about your abroad experience is a means to the end, not the end itself” (Santana, personal communication, 2019).

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References Aperian Global. (2019). The intercultural effectiveness scale feedback report: Results for Karen McBride. Oakland, CA. Bathurst, L., & La Brack, B. (2012). Shifting the locus of intercultural learning: Intervening prior to and after student experiences abroad. In M. Vande Berg, R. M. Paige, & K. Hemming Lou (Eds.), Student learning abroad: What our students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it (pp. 261– 283). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Bennett, M. J. (2012). Paradigmatic assumptions and a developmental approach to intercultural learning. In M. Vande Berg, R. M. Paige, & K. Hemming Lou (Eds.), Student learning abroad: What our students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it (pp. 90–114). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Bosley, G. W., & Lou, K. H. (2011). Beyond mobility: How to develop intercultural competence in international students studying abroad in the U.S. In Internationalisation of higher education handbook (10th ed.). Berlin: Rabe. Deardorff, D. K. (Ed.). (2009). SAGE handbook for intercultural competence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Engle, L., & Engle, J. (2012). Beyond immersion: The American University Center of Provence experiment in holistic intervention. In M. Vande Berg, R. M. Paige, & K. Hemming Lou (Eds.), Student learning abroad: What our students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it (pp. 284– 307). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Hammer, M. S. (1997). Negotiating across the cultural divide: Intercultural dynamics in crisis incidents. In R. Rogan, M. Hammer, & C. R. Van Zandt (Eds.), Dynamic processes of crisis negotiations: Theory, research and practice (pp. 105–114). Westport, CT: Praeger Press. Hofstede, G., & Hofstede, G. J. (2005). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Kluckhohn, F. R., & Strodtbeck, F. L. (1961). Variations in value orientations. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Kronholtz, J. F., & Osborn, D. S. (2016, April). The impact of study abroad experiences on vocational identity among college students. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, XXXVII, 70–84. Paige, R. M. (1993). On the nature of intercultural experiences in intercultural education. In R. M. Piage (Ed.), Education for the intercultural experience (pp. 1–20). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press Inc. Paige, R. M., Cohen, A. D., Kappler, B., Chi, J. C., & Lassegard, J. P. (2006). Maximizing study abroad: A student’s guide to strategies for language and culture learning and use (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.

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Paige, R. M., & Mestenhauser, J. A. (1999, October). Internationalizing educational administration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 35(4), 500– 517. Piercy, G. (2013). Transformative learning theory and spirituality: A wholeperson approach. Journal of Instructional Research, 2, 30–42. Santana, A. (2019, August 30). Email interview. Savicki, V., Binder, F., & Heller, L. (2008). Contrasts and changes in potential and actual psychological intercultural adjustment. In V. Savicki (Ed.), Developing intercultural competence and transformation: Theory, research, and application in international education (pp. 111–127). Sterling, VA: Stylus. The University of Dayton. (2019). UDI 210: SAIL: Semester abroad, intercultural leadership and re-entry course syllabus. Dayton, OH: Karen McBride. Ting-Toomey, S., & Chung, L. C. (Eds.). (2005). Understanding intercultural communication. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. Vande Berg, M., Connor-Linton, J., & Paige, R. M. (2009, Fall). The Georgetown consortium project: Interventions for student learning abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal for Study Abroad, 18, 1–75.

CHAPTER 17

Afterword: Learning, with Consequence Margaret Cahill, Lauren Hassett, Olivia Hendershott, Abigail Hines, Beth Hock, Robert Kelly, Christina Mesa, Nicole Perkins, Ethan Swierczewski, and Clare Walsh

This book is a compendium of diverse instructional methods and narrative reflections on teaching through experiential learning (EL). Wide in its breadth, the range of instructional contexts, communities, and content areas is purposeful in that it provides readers with multiple pathways to and through this approach to teaching. In the preceding fifteen

M. Cahill · L. Hassett · O. Hendershott (B) · A. Hines · B. Hock · R. Kelly · C. Mesa · N. Perkins · E. Swierczewski · C. Walsh University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Cahill e-mail: [email protected] L. Hassett e-mail: [email protected] A. Hines e-mail: [email protected] B. Hock e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_17

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chapters, faculty from our home institution, the University of Dayton, provide instructional snapshots of EL in practice. Each of these snapshots includes the particular shapes, contours, and patterns of the work of teaching through EL. Together these snapshots culminate in a multitextured, layered, complex landscape that represents not only a shared commitment to EL but also an image of its many pieces. Seen as a whole, the view of our institution’s approach to EL brings the potential for expanded perspectives on EL into stronger relief. The term “experiential learning” emphasizes learning over teaching, and implies that the focus of instructional design for EL center on the student experience. Indeed, students—the primary movers-and-shakers of any EL program—are a central topic of every chapter in this collection. As chapter authors reflect on their work to create meaningful learning experiences, we see in each chapter a set of working assumptions about students themselves. For many readers, this observation is perhaps too obvious to mention. We find it important because we represent in very real, concrete ways the students who are represented in these chapters. As an important coda to these conversations about student learning, our interest in contributing student voices arises from our own experience with EL as it pertains to the development of this edited collection. As students in ENG 377: Writing in Social Contexts, we participated in an EL project in which we edited the collection of chapters included in this volume. The particular EL in which we managed the editing of this volume was unique. Not only was this a one-time opportunity for learning about

R. Kelly e-mail: [email protected] C. Mesa e-mail: [email protected] N. Perkins e-mail: [email protected] E. Swierczewski e-mail: [email protected] C. Walsh e-mail: [email protected]

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the practices and process of book editing, but it also served as a way for us to develop our own “meta-level” awareness of EL. This is to be expected, perhaps, given that our learning experience was editing a book about learning experiences. More importantly, the editing-as-EL project has provided us with a particular perspective through which we believe we can think about EL in ways that many students do not. The process of evaluating our professors’ chapters and implied arguments about how learning takes place equips us, as editors of this collection, with peculiar positions through which we can think anew about the meaning of experiential learning for students. And it is this meaning that we aim to share as a way to close this book. One initial conclusion we can make is that EL has consequences. As students we are all too aware of how instructors’ choices for course designs, projects, assignments, and daily instructional choices impact students’ abilities to learn. But the particular consequences of EL are many and varied, and they impact students differently than other instructional approaches do. For this reason, in the following sections we provide our own sets of learning consequences—what is gained and what is lost—in students’ experiences of EL.

Experiential Learning Is Deeply Engaging One of the most significant aspects of EL approaches to teaching is that it is a deeply engaging method of learning. When entering an EL classroom, the overall tone of the classroom experience is drastically different from the typical lecture format. This is mostly because, in our view, the lines between educator and student are blurred. In EL situations, we learn from our professor and we learn from each other. This unique teacher/student learning dynamic manifested itself as we worked on editing this book. Each of us was able to review each chapter prior to coming to class, and during class we gathered in a circle and communicated our findings. Through this process, we were able to gain insight and alternative perspectives from other students, as well as from our professor who had prior experience in editing. This sense of engagement and communal learning shifts our focus from an experience in which we absorb material from textbooks to one in which we grasp material in a more holistic way. In our experience, it was often the case that we were learning the process of editing as we were practicing it—an approach that, on the one hand, sometimes caused extra difficulty in our ability to understand how one

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step of the process related to the next. On the other hand, immersion in the process through practice allowed us to fully grasp the material because we were taking on the roles and perspectives of editors at each stage. Beyond this advantage, we came to recognize the importance of our shared commitment to the editing project. The communal learning that happened occurred not only with regard to our guided instruction and shared work editing each chapter. Instead, we came to realize that our overall feeling of accountability boosted everyone’s participation, even when it would have been easier to apply ourselves less. As a class of 10 students working together on each chapter of the collection, there was no room for us to slack off or put off work because each of us had a crucial role to play in the overall project. We also had to trust each other to do the work that each of us was assigned. In the end, we learned to trust each other because we held each other accountable for our collaborative work. The EL project around which our course was designed, and the collaboration it required, required that we take on new roles and approaches to learning—whether we wanted to or not. In a project-based course like ours, the course schedule and expectations are no longer so straightforward. In our case, this occasionally led to frustration and anxiety in what the expectations were for us, especially because there were particular deadlines to be met for our work despite the fact that writers often required more time to work on their chapters. Negotiating the flexibility and fluidity of contributors’ writing schedules along with our deadlines for delivering edited chapters meant that we often worked far beyond the time limits of our class. And while our own interest in the project outweighed the extra time commitment, we were also aware of how our time constraints were impacted by other, additional EL that occurred alongside our course project. For example, a few of us were completing internships and community-engaged projects for other courses at the same time. Coordinating EL across courses would help students to engage more deeply in specific projects while also helping to alleviate the pressure that comes with students shouldering the “heavy lifting” of EL projects.

Experiential Learning Offers Unexpected Forms of Professional Development Our course, ENG 377: Writing in Social Contexts, is a required course for students in the Rhetoric concentration of our English department’s

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Writing major. For other concentrations in the Writing major—including Creative Writing and Professional & Technical Writing—this course serves as an elective course, offering us guided practice in public forms of writing, generally writing for publication. As English majors at a liberal arts university, we are in a unique position in that we seldom have very linear, direct pathways to a specific job or career. One of the advantages of the English major is the flexibility it offers and the variety of career options that our skillset provides. Even so, in our current educational moment, having experiences for developing specific, concrete professional skills and learning how those with English degrees work for a living is a useful experience. Moreover, the ability to learn these skills while also earning course credit enhances the appeal of our EL course. While almost half of our class has an interest in editing as a career, many of us were unfamiliar with the course project before signing up for the course. None of us had particular knowledge of the work of editing prior to this course. In these ways, the EL project provided an unexpected avenue for professional development that is unique within Humanities disciplines in general and the English major in particular. Rather than seeking professional skills outside the classroom, through internships or co-ops, this course integrated professional development into the classroom itself. As we took on the roles of editors, we were introduced to the skills, habits, and dispositions of editors while we learned about the process of producing an edited collection. We collaborated in various approaches to editing chapters, giving authors feedback, checking references, and copyediting. In much the same way, we think that other EL options provide students with the same kinds of professional skillbuilding experiences, not only outside of the classroom, but inside of it as well. And while many professors and students think of EL as existing outside of the walls of a classroom, our own example shows how EL and traditional classroom learning can be combined. At the same time, with the realistic structure of the class, there were days that felt more like a day at work than a day at school. In addition, while our course emphasized collaboration in the editing process, the class preparation for this work meant long, lonely hours digesting each chapter of the text, reflecting on their content, and quietly revising. We read a chapter, wrote our thoughts, shared and defended those thoughts, and then started all over again. This happened more than a dozen times. We did not always agree. We did not even always know what to say. In some ways, we lost the idealism of the working world students dream of: the

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world with no homework, no tests, and more freedom. The process was as arduous as it was rewarding. We mention the affordances and constraints of professional development because of the way that a semester-long EL project limits students’ ability to explore many aspects of the subject addressed by the class. The EL project made us all the more aware of how trade-offs are necessary to acquiring any type of professional experience. And it also makes clear to us how instructors have to make choices that impact what is possible in a given class, in a given semester, and even with a given group of students. It does, however, offer unique professional development opportunities that are difficult to emulate through other means.

Experiential Learning Encourages Experimentation The kinds of writing, collaboration, and projects that an EL course such as ours offers are highly experimental. As it relates to professional development, this kind of experimentation is very helpful to us as students: Editing a book provides a rare opportunity to apply skills we’ve developed thus far academically to a professional project while also allowing us to remain noncommittal. While we were required to perform particular kinds of tasks, our class was created around a project that was new to all of us. Therefore, we had to try out different approaches to editing and publishing that we hadn’t tried before. While an internship or co-op would require that we work directly with a supervisor, our editor, Dr. Lovett, met with us a few times to share insights on the project. This meant that we had some input as to the organization of the collection and helped to define the purpose and goals of the book. The project was still early on when our class started, which allowed us to brainstorm many different ideas for the book as a whole, and allowed us to provide suggestions about what each chapter should include. The fact that we could provide suggestions that would provide direction for the book as a whole allowed us a new kind of position that would not have been possible in other kinds of experiences. The greatest experiment that we had in our class was the way that the course broke down the traditional relationships that we have with professors. Our class instructor, Dr. Thomas, and our editing partner, Dr. Lovett, worked to establish a peer-like relationship, complete with rapport and the exchange of productive criticism. This experimentation with

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AFTERWORD: LEARNING, WITH CONSEQUENCE

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the traditional power dynamic, which often positions professors against students, encouraged our openness in communication and helped us see university faculty members differently and in more humane ways. In our project, students and professors were equally engaged and invested in the development of the collection, allowing for effective collaboration rather than one group having authority over the other. Of course, not all experimentation is successful, or even positive, and we think it is important to acknowledge the ways that the change in power dynamic that we experienced through this project may not be suitable for all students, or instructors. The course emphasized collaborative peer work, so we lost the predictability and familiarity of a traditional course. Because we lost the traditional class structure, we needed to prepare more for each class so we were ready to participate. Stepping into a more active and powerful role can be both exciting and disorienting. Being in a decision-making role, knowing we would impact a published work, greatly impacted our commitment to the class. In sum, the flexible nature of EL projects can be a refreshing change of pace for students who are used to the monotony of lecture-style courses. However, giving up familiarity of the student role in traditional classes can be challenging for students who are unaccustomed to peer collaboration. With regard to EL, then, it may be that the students who are open to new styles of learning are in the best position to gain from such experiences. Including students’ voices in the design of and reflection on EL opportunities is an essential part of the teaching and learning process. We hope that the observations we offer in the preceding discussion are useful to readers of this collection, especially as readers consider the consequences to students that EL provides. Our experience indicates that those consequences are quite positive, yet we also realize that there are more voices to be heard, just as there are more experiences to design for more types of courses and other groups of students. Sharing the stories, designs, and reflections on the specific EL projects included in this collection is important because of these examples provide others with ways to build new experiences and new ways of learning for students. We look forward to seeing more opportunities like the ones described in this book, as we have experienced ourselves the impact they can have on students. You may now applaud the authors.

Index

A Abnormal Psychology, 80, 81, 90 About Face Theatre Education & Outreach Program, 214 Abuse domestic, 87, 193–196, 199, 200, 202, 204 emotional, 201, 220 physical, 201, 204 see Violence Activism, 124, 134, 150, 182, 217 Activity theory, 18 Advertising, 32 Advocacy, 74, 116, 121, 124, 125, 146, 182, 197 environmental, 20 see also Human Rights Amnesty International, 219 Andragogy, 28, 36, 42 Applied theatre, 208, 210–213, 215–218 Archives, 142, 170, 178

Artemis Center, 194–197, 199, 204, 205 Assessment, 7, 9, 21, 24, 38, 68–70, 82, 116, 122, 124, 144, 173, 197, 208, 212–217, 224, 227, 228, 231, 233, 234, 236–238, 244, 254 program, 9, 124, 233, 254 reports, 24 self, 21, 22 Association of American Colleges and Universities, 207, 226 Association of College Unions International, 225 Audience, 5, 8, 13, 24, 25, 28, 32, 37, 39, 94, 120, 125, 139, 140, 142, 175, 178, 208–211, 213–217, 219

B BADco, 216, 217 Borders to Bridges Program, 139, 141

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2020 K. Lovett (ed.), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0

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268

INDEX

Brave Space Alliance, 214 Bread for the World Program, 142 Budget, 21, 22, 34, 72, 89, 123, 143, 145, 198

C Capstone, 28, 61, 66, 69, 169, 173 Career development, 30 Cave system, 46, 47 Chicago, 23, 86, 138, 208, 211–214, 216, 217, 220 Civic identity, 149, 160 Collaboration community partners, 7, 14, 62, 152, 163, 209 community service, 98 and diversity, 187 and interdisciplinarity, 95, 96 and social justice, 184, 210 scholar-practitioner collaboration, 114 Colonialism, 215 Common Good Players (CGP), 8, 208, 211, 218, 219 Communication, 14, 16, 18, 20, 27, 29, 34, 57, 58, 66, 89, 103–105, 114, 117, 152, 172, 183, 191, 210, 218, 227, 236, 238, 244, 265 practices, 20, 260, 262 studies, 18, 117 Community activism, 134, 211, 219 advocacy, 146 Amnesty International, 219 Catholic, 1, 62, 63 and citizenship, 149 engagement for learning, 2, 96, 163, 196, 197, 261 and identity, 162 see also Experiential learning

Cosmopolitanism, 151, 162 Course design, 18, 19, 133, 261, 262 Croatia, 216 Cultural awareness, 20, 75, 261 competence, 151 discourse, 203 humility, 8, 150–152, 157, 158, 160–162, 164 Curriculum, 2, 4, 6, 22, 29, 30, 32, 36, 42, 49, 54–57, 98, 133, 196, 207, 233, 235, 237, 239

D Dayton, Ohio Annual Food Summit, 142 Arcade, 8, 167, 168, 172, 175 citizens of (Daytonians), 8, 168, 176 immigration in, 150, 153–155 metro library, 171 public library, 168, 170 and the University of Dayton, 1, 14, 15, 18, 31, 32, 45, 58, 80, 94, 97, 98, 132, 135, 139, 168, 169, 184, 185, 208, 223, 242, 260 Welcome Dayton, 141, 154, 163 Desert Dispatch, 142–144 Desert Kitchen Collective, 133, 135 Dinner in the Desert Kitchen, 129, 130, 132, 133, 135, 137, 138 Didactic methods, 167 Diversity age, 211 deliberate, 73 geographic origin, 211 racial/ethnic, 211 sexual orientation, 211 socioeconomic, 211

INDEX

E Earth history, 45 Economic development, 20, 141 Economic Sustainability Principle, 72 Editing, 25, 173, 198, 260–264 Education, 1–6, 9, 15, 18, 20, 27–33, 35, 37, 39–42, 54, 57, 61–64, 79, 84, 93–95, 97, 101, 104, 106–108, 112–114, 121, 141, 149, 177, 181–184, 186, 188, 189, 196, 205, 208, 223, 226, 228, 241, 242, 244 abroad, 1, 2, 9 philosophies, 27 see also Experiential Learning; Learning; Pedagogy Emotional intelligence, 208 Emotional Resilience, 252 Empathy, 74, 75, 159, 199, 208, 214, 215 Employability, 182 Engagement, 2, 3, 10, 16, 23, 30, 32, 35, 62, 63, 65–67, 69, 71, 74–76, 96, 98, 100, 102, 103, 105, 108, 112, 113, 120, 124, 134, 137, 150–153, 157, 160, 163, 190, 193, 195–197, 202, 208, 215, 217, 228, 261 Engineering, 7, 61, 62, 65–71, 73, 74, 76, 196 Engineers in Technical Humanitarian Opportunities of Service-Learning Center (ETHOS), 6, 7, 62, 63, 65–68 English, 2, 6, 14, 15, 18, 22, 114, 118, 153, 263 Evaluation, 9, 25, 36, 37, 56, 57, 68, 82, 83, 89, 98, 105, 108, 122, 124, 173, 243 Experiential Learning (EL) advantages of, 177, 263 advocacy based, 152

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applied, 113 community-based, 62, 132, 133, 136, 144 community-engaged, 1, 6, 7, 94, 96–98, 100, 104, 107, 113, 149, 152, 155, 262 definitions of, 2, 79 economic dimension of, 2 ethical dimension of, 2 forms of, 3, 6, 62, 263 in Higher education, 5, 29 inquiry-based, 46, 53–55, 57 methods, 1, 10, 96, 178, 259, 261 models, 47, 96 Office of, 4, 10, 171 pedagogical strategies of, 13 political dimension of, 2 programs, 1, 2, 5–7, 28, 30, 33, 37, 38, 40, 67, 68, 96, 107, 111, 122, 224, 260 project-based, 132, 144, 262 reflection about, 1, 10, 47, 68, 116, 170 research about, 1, 3, 5, 173 social dimension of, 2 sustainability of, 4, 7, 94 theories of, 96, 245 tools, 96, 205 training trip, 208, 211, 212 transdisciplinary, 2, 7, 125 see also Learning F Fair Trade Learning Framework, 64, 65, 68, 75 Feminism, 182, 183, 189, 191, 195, 196, 202, 203, 205 and pedagogy, 182, 183, 203, 205 praxis, 182, 183 theory, 182, 183 Field trip, 45–49, 53, 56–58, 194, 196, 197

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INDEX

Filmmaking, 198 Food desert, 5, 87, 132, 133 Food insecurity, 7, 93, 131, 132, 135, 141 Fossils, 45, 48–51 Free Street Theater, 212, 213 Funding, 3, 14, 17, 21–24, 33, 34, 70, 107, 144, 178, 197 fundraisers, 29 see Budget

G Gem City Market, 134, 138, 141–145 Gender-based discrimination, 181 Genre theory, 18 Geology, 6, 45–49, 51–57 Grants, 14, 18, 19, 21–25, 31–34, 42, 55, 107, 171 grant proposals, 14, 15, 17, 21, 23, 25, 197, 198, 200 grant writing, 6, 14–20, 22–25, 108, 197 Gun reform, 219, 220

H Hamilton: The Exhibition, 216 Hanley Sustainability Institute, 94, 97, 99, 102 Healthcare, 20, 69, 84, 86, 87, 97 Health Science, 18 High-impact practices, 3, 218 History digital, 177 historians, 176, 174 historical research. See Primary document oral, 170, 177 Hofstede’s Country Comparison Tool, 251 Human dignity, 62, 76, 119

Humanities, 94, 151, 161, 184, 196, 263 Human rights, 7, 62, 64, 67, 75, 85, 111–114, 118–121, 124, 135, 155, 160, 209 advocacy, 113, 114, 119, 124 and human dignity, 62, 119 violations of, 113, 120 see Advocacy; Social Justice; Theory

I Ice Age, 45, 51 Identity, 19, 62, 135, 150–152, 162, 189, 190, 212, 214, 227, 250 Immersion, 62, 66–75, 112, 118, 119, 121, 123, 167, 262 Immigrants, 5, 8, 115, 140, 141, 146, 151–162 Impossible Dances , 216, 217 Independent study, 112, 144 Inequity, 131, 186, 189 pay, 181 In-Service Professionals, 27 Institutional Learning Goals (ILG), 4, 15, 18 Instruction, 19, 27, 28, 30–35, 37–40, 47, 48, 56, 262 Instructional materials, 32 Interdisciplinarity, 19, 20, 95, 96, 137 art practices, 137 vs./and multidisciplinarity, 2 vs./and transdisciplinarity, 95 Intergenerational Programming, 29 Internship, 1, 2, 4, 8, 62, 94, 95, 97–101, 103–108, 112, 113, 182–191, 220, 241, 262–264 Interpersonal Engagement, 249, 253 Intersectionality, 120, 212 Interview, 7, 10, 22, 83, 111, 114, 115, 118, 120, 135, 136, 141, 150, 152, 155–159, 161, 162,

INDEX

168, 170–172, 174, 176, 185, 204, 213, 224, 236, 238 J Justice, 7, 62, 119, 132, 135, 137–139, 141, 142, 163, 206, 212 racial, 212 social, 7, 8, 63, 80, 85, 114, 133, 144, 164, 182–184, 208–213, 219 L Laboratory explorations, 48 The Laramie Project , 219 Latinos Unidos, 141, 142 Law enforcement, 8, 194, 196, 202 Learning active, 28, 29 adult, 31, 33, 35, 36, 42 classroom, 28, 95, 96, 182, 227 classroom-based, 68, 76, 112, 136, 139 collaborative, 30, 198, 226 community-based, 135, 153, 208 discovery-based, 183 inquiry-based, 28, 56, 63, 183 intercultural, 4, 9, 72, 150, 241 intergenerational, 27, 29–33, 36, 38, 41, 42 methods of, 2, 261 place-based, 28, 95, 96 problem-based, 28, 61, 182, 183, 191 project-based, 28, 61, 112, 136, 139, 183, 196, 197, 262 self-guided, 2, 39, 122 service, 16, 61–63, 98, 112, 135, 220 student-centered, 71, 95 teacher-centered, 167

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see also Community; Experiential Learning; Pedagogy Learning Teaching Center, 4 Leave No Child Inside, 100 LGBTQ, 212, 214

M Media production, 7, 115 Model, 7, 9, 10, 40, 47, 53, 70, 72, 75, 80, 83, 90, 96–98, 108, 112, 114, 116, 117, 125, 136, 137, 139, 152, 167, 170, 174, 182, 191, 199, 209, 218, 228, 235, 239, 242, 244 transdisciplinary, 7, 111, 116, 117, 125, 136, 137 Moral Courage Project (MCP), 7, 111–116, 118, 124, 125, 141, 157 Movement, 68, 100, 105, 146, 152, 182, 217, 219 political, 212 social, 100, 212 women’s, 182 Multicultural Competencies, 225, 234, 235, 237 Multidisciplinarity, 66, 94. See also Model Multi-institutional Study of Leadership (MSL), 231, 232 Museum, 45, 47, 49, 50, 138, 216

N NASA, 46, 47, 49 National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), 226, 227 National Weather Service, 48, 52 New Horizons Music Program (NHMP), 31, 32, 35, 37, 39

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INDEX

O Office of Education Abroad, 243, 255 Office of Experiential Learning, 2 Ohio History, 45

P Participatory Community Action Research (PCAR), 83, 84, 89, 90 Peace Corps, 22 Pedagogy approach, 2, 17, 47, 183, 202 community-engaged, 113 disciplinary, 19 service-learning, 79–83, 89, 90. See also service-learning simulation, 16, 17 see also Experiential Learning (EL) Performance for Direct Action and Intervention, 212 Performing arts, 8, 207–209, 218 Policy, 8, 94, 112, 118, 120, 124, 150, 161, 181, 184–188, 190, 227 Political science, 7, 18, 22, 112, 114, 117, 118 Positive regard, 246, 250–252 Post-conflict zones, 114 Power in Pride, 214 Primary documents, 170 Privilege, 64, 85, 87, 119, 145 and class, 145 white, 133, 145 Professional and Technical Writing, 14, 15, 263. See also Grants, grant writing

R Reciprocity, 7, 64, 66, 73, 79, 82, 90, 198 Redlining, 131, 141

Reflections, 45, 56, 57, 65, 66, 116, 124, 144, 225, 228, 238, 253 periodic, 21 personal, 144 student, 47, 152, 158, 160, 161 Report, 21, 105, 185, 237, 239 assessment, 24 progress, 14, 22, 25 Retirement population, 42

S Science education, 46, 63 Scientific racism, 215 The Sea & Poison, 217 Secondary sources, 170 Segregation, 145, 172 Self-efficacy, 85 Semester Abroad and Intercultural Learning Program (SAIL), 9, 242–246, 254, 255 Service-learning, 79, 81, 82, 84, 95 Simulation pedagogy, 16, 17 Social, 14, 48 and change, 64, 120, 184 conditions of, 200, 203 and identities, 181, 184 transformation, 182 Social action, 208 and social justice, 209 Social Justice Theatre, 209 issues of, 193. See also Social justice Social justice, 8, 63, 80, 85, 144, 164, 182 theatre of, 209, 211, 212 Socially Engaged Art (SEA), 132, 134–136, 138 Solidarity, 67, 73, 76, 150, 157, 159, 162 State of Ohio’s Academic Content Standards for Earth and Space Science, 48

INDEX

Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, 225 Student Employment for the Real World program, 224, 227, 233–238 Student Employment Program Advisory Council (SEPAC), 236, 237 Student Leadership Ambassadors, 224 Student learning outcomes, 30, 33, 36, 68, 100, 101, 107, 226 Student reflection, 9, 71, 152, 158, 160, 161 group, 47 journal, 144 narrative, 144 Students college, 30, 35 graduate, 1, 8 high school, 39, 202 international, 64 marginalized, 182 middle School, 39 privileged, 4 Students Demand Action, 219 Sustainability, 4, 70, 73, 94–96, 100, 103, 104, 108 T Tectonic Theatre Project, 219 Theatre of the Oppressed, 209, 210, 220 Theory activism. See Activism activity, 18 advocacy. See Advocacy Andragogy. See Andragogy applied theatre. See Applied theatre civic identity. See Civic identity colonialism. See Colonialism cosmopolitanism. See Cosmopolitanism

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cultural competency. See Cultural competency cultural discourse. See Cultural discourse cultural humility. See Cultural humility cultural immersion. See Immersion deliberate diversity. See Diversity evolution, 48 feminism. See Feminism genre, 18 human dignity. See Human dignity human rights. See Human rights pedagogy. See Pedagogy rhetorical, 18 scientific racism. See Scientific racism Social. See Social social justice. See Social action, Social justice transdisciplinary. See Transdisciplinary collaboration, 117 model, 117 Therapy, 197, 202 Transdisciplinary, 2, 7, 71, 83, 90, 95, 108, 118, 137 collaboration, 121 model, 111, 116, 117, 137 Transferable skills, 177, 225, 233–237 Trauma, 86, 119, 123, 201, 214, 215

U Undergraduate, 1, 8, 22, 28–31, 34, 36–39, 41, 42, 48, 53, 54, 85, 87, 89, 111, 113, 114, 122, 136, 150, 156, 161, 184, 185, 188, 193, 195, 207, 224, 242 University of Dayton, 1, 14, 15, 18, 31, 32, 45, 58, 62, 80, 94, 97–99, 114, 132, 135, 139, 153, 156, 157, 168, 171

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INDEX

Common Academic Program, 4, 15, 18 Learning and Teaching Center, 32, 55 V Violence domestic, 87, 194–196, 199, 203 epistemology of, 203 gender-based, 8, 193–199, 202 intimate partner, 195 perpetration of, 205

Vocation, 4, 6, 47, 174, 177, 203, 225 Voyeurs de Venus , 215 W Women’s and Gender Studies, 183–185 Women’s Center, 8, 182, 183, 186, 189, 190 Women’s Movement, 182 Wright State University, 58, 170 WYSO, 171