Picking up trash by a riverbank is service.
Studying water samples under a microscope is learning.
When students collect and analyze water samples and the local
pollution control agency
uses the findings to clean up a river... that is service-learning.
courtesy of the National Youth Leadership Council
http://www.nylc.org/
The Culture of Civic Engagement in Higher Education
"Culture" is a snazzy word, charming for its ability to embrace a sense of a large "whole" thus very evocative and yet ambiguous. Anthropologists have been defining culture for years! Other fields have also found the idea of "culture" to be a useful concept to apply to organizations, in business and in education perhaps in particular.
You could start by reviewing definitions of culture as a way to give direction to your strategic thinking about "creating" a culture.
For example, one typical definition is "a system of shared meanings and symbols." In service-learning, there has been an emphasis on the "institutionalization" of service-learning in policies and in practices. Policies help define goals and gives a common "language" so that people can understand, implement and replicate them. The development of quality standards, like the new standards for quality service-learning practice, are another example of how "culture" as defined as a "shared system of meaning" is created and (through their implementation in policy) can be sustained.
To illustrate strategies to promote the "culture" of service-learning:
The National Youth Leadership Council's annual publication, Growing to Greatness, State of Service-learning Project, has many examples of creating a "system of shared meanings and symbols" for k-12 service-learning: it presents school, district and state- level policies, quality standards, indicators of institutionalization (for example Learn and Serve America has an institutionalization index that is referenced in G2G 2007 page 95), and also includes the sharing of service-learning "stories" through the program examples associated with the State Profiles and of the history of the field (see for
example G2G 2005 Shumer's article on service-learning classics). Several issues have also included a glossary to help create shared definitions of key terms.
One could also say that the publication itself has become a cultural tradition for the field as it is released annually, at an annual "ritual" -- the National Service-Learning Conference.
So, creating shared meanings through policies and agreed upon quality standards, establishing an "origin myth" and "classic texts" , the telling of teaching stories (best practices exemplified in project examples), and the coming together on a regular basis (through a publication at a national conference), are some of the ways in which a system of "shared meanings and symbols" can be created and sustained.
One could review Growing to Greatness as a cultural "text" that could inspire the creation of culture in other contexts, like campuses. I am thinking that simply applying some basic anthropological concepts (symbol, ritual, tradition, myth,
cosmology) as well as theories regarding the "invention of tradition" could stimulate some thinking about how the creation of a service-learning culture, as a "system of shared meanings and symbols" could be accomplished in a campus setting.
I do not wish to over-simplify the field of anthropology by suggesting this way of thinking, I am just suggesting reflection on some of the basic concepts of anthropology might help inspire a campus to create their own system of shared
meanings and symbols. Perhaps there is an annual event or set of practices (like older students working on service-learning projects with incoming freshmen) that could become a "tradition", or key definitions could be proposed and adopted into policy and are posted throughout the campus, or opportunities for students to come together and share their experiences in service-learning and perhaps to be officially recognized for their service.
Finally, perhaps another way this issue of culture has come up in higher education lies in changing the "system of meanings and symbols" when it comes to tenure decisions, so that those teachers who have given their students valuable educational experiences through service-learning are recognized. There are many examples of efforts to recognize service-learning and tenure (just google!) and you could look at these as efforts to help create a culture of service-learning on a college campus.
Sincerely,
Marybeth Neal, Ph.D.
Service-learning consultant
Minneapolis, Minnesota
