Institutional Support for Advancing Undergraduate Service-Learning: A Case Example from a Large Public Research-Intensive University

Abstract

Colleges and universities across the country are encouraging the integration of service-learning and community-based research into the curriculum, often by establishing centers to assist in that process. The goal of this paper is to outline a set of tasks for campus-wide institutional support of service-learning that are necessary and that can organize the development and evaluation of service-learning centers. We use the example of a large research-intensive public university to examine these tasks, how they can be adapted to the specifics of an institution, and how one service-learning center pursues them.