Catching Waves: Using Engagement to Address Critical Issues
The Tenth Annual Continuums of Service Conference

April 12-14, 2007
San Jose, California
 

CONFERENCE THEME

Communities across our region, nation and world face similar challenges: homelessness, immigration, economic disparity, crime/corrections, healthcare, and declining rates of educational achievement. How can higher education use engagement strategies and partnerships to tackle very complex social, economic, and ethical issues?

Does traditional instruction prepare our students to be agents of change in regard to these issues?  Our institutions already face fundamental challenges about access, retention, learning, and student success. The traditional methods of teaching and learning may not sufficiently prepare students for a complex world or maximize higher education’s impact on critical issues. With this in mind, conference attendees will explore questions such as:

• How will successful service-learning models prepare students to address critical societal issues?
• What specific engagement strategies positively address specific education, community,
  and global issues?
• What partnerships are needed to achieve desired outcomes in specific issue areas? 
• What research supports successful models of engagement and what new research do we need?
• What internal and external resources are available (or need to be cultivated) to support this work?

Engaging students in the community has been shown to be an effective strategy to help students learn, develop critical thinking skills, increase job preparation skills, and improve civic attitudes and behaviors. It has been an effective model to build capacities in communities and improve K-12 educational achievement.  Through service-learning and civic engagement, students have the opportunity to experience working with others from different socioeconomic backgrounds, cultures, and sets of beliefs. Curricular and co-curricular service-learning projects, if done well, can transform students’ learning and better prepare them for a changing world while also creating significant change in community capacity and conditions.

CONFERENCE GOALS

• enhance practical service-learning skills and deepen philosophical understanding of participants at all levels of familiarity
• explore diverse perspectives on service-learning theory and practice
• practice critical reflection
• offer provocative, inclusive, and interactive conference sessions
• provide opportunities for informal discussions and networking
• continue to build our regional network of service-learning colleagues
• showcase regional service-learning efforts
• celebrate success, rejuvenate, and reconnect ourselves to the broader service community

CONFERENCE AUDIENCE

Conference participants will include learners and educators from diverse constituencies: faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students; government, community agency and organization partners; student development  and leadership professionals; curriculum specialists; service-learning directors, funding agency representatives; and institutional administrators, among others.