Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
Fall 1999, pp. 63-73
Toward More Transformative Service-Learning: Experiences from
An Urban Environmental Problem-Solving Class
Wendy A. Kellogg
Cleveland State University
One concern that arises during student participation in urban service-learning is the often marked difference in life experience between university students and the people in the urban communities in which they
serve, a diference which may have a detrimental effect on the experiences of students and community members alike. This paper describes use of a transformative service-learning model to design and implement an
environmentally-focused service-learning class structured to sensitize students to the needs of the community and to enhance the community's capacity to resolve environmental problems.
Service-Learning in Urban Neighborhoods
Service-learning has been adopted throughout the
American educational system, from grade school to
university level, across a wide range of academic
and professional disciplines (Kraft & Swadener,
1993; Leon, 1993). This article focuses on the use of
service-learning as a pedagogical method in universities and, more particularly, for its usefulness in
projects and programs in communities in the urban
core.
Tensions can arise between universities and the
communities in which they exist. Such tensions can
be overt, for example, as university facilities seek to
expand into urban neighborhoods (Harkavy 1993a;
Harkavy & Puckett, 1992). Tension can also be less
obvious, as a result of a growing sense in the community that the university, with its wealth of
resources, does not contribute to the community
(Boyer, 1996). University-community tensions may
also develop when residents feel they have been
"studied" long enough without accruing a benefit or
seeing change (Sustainable Cleveland Partnership,
1997).
Service-learning classes, like any other activities
that intervene in community conditions and processes, give rise to a set of political and ethical issues
that need to be examined prior to the students' work
in the community. These include the university's
role in community, the differences between students
and community residents and organizations, and the
apparent political or economic intractability of
urban problems. Each of these three issues is briefly
discussed below.
The role of the university in society at large has
waxed and waned throughout the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. The mission of early American
universities was the moral and intellectual development of students to prepare "new generations for
civic...leadership" (Boyer, 1990, p. 3), contributing
to community well-being through the intellectual
and moral growth of students. By the 1870s and
1880s, professors began to conduct basic and
applied research that helped to reshape American
society into an industrial power. By the turn of the
century, however, an emphasis on basic research and
knowledge for knowledge sake overshadowed the
role of the university as a teaching institution and, in
some cases, even its role to provide service to society through applied research (Boyer, 1990; Boyer,
1996). The most recent shift in higher education,
beginning in the 1960s and currently re-invigorated
by initiatives at the national level (Gorham 1992) reemphasizes a return to the university's mission to
use knowledge to improve societal conditions
(Boyer, 1990; Boyer, 1996; Harkavy & Puckett,
1992). This shift also stresses education for citizenship and civic responsibility (Barber, 1994; Boyte,
1993).
Many "urban universities" were created in the
1960s during the early part of this renaissance. Their
dual role was to educate urban community members
and to work to improve social, physical and economic conditions in their respective cities. Urban
universities were also established to overcome the
psychological and often physical separation between
the academy and the urban residents who lived
around them (Harkavy, 1993a, 1993b; Reardon,
1994). Cleveland State University (CSU) was founded in 1964 as one of Ohio's designated "urban universities." Today, CSU encourages opportunities for
experiential learning through student internships,
63
