The Sustainability Program at University of Dayton (UD) has identified interpersonal competence as a primary learning outcome for all Sustainability majors, demonstrated through skills in collaborative dialogue and service leadership through community engagement. Community-based experiential learning has been well established at UD with several dedicated centers and institutes to support it. Community partners have contributed to implementing curriculum by providing guest speakers, off-campus field experiences, participatory research sites, and mentoring student sustainability research projects. However, it remains a challenge to effectively integrate community partners into the curricular design and course delivery in ways that embody and model the collaborative, non-hierarchical structure of engagement that community-based learning purports to embrace. Challenges include: student schedules and time constraints, course credit for partnership projects, appropriate funding for a community partner’s time in course development and delivery, and higher workloads for faculty, without course-load credit.
Results/Conclusions
Building upon past successful partnerships, we developed a three-point model for the new Sustainability major: 1) institutional structuring of experiential learning labs (ELL) that provide a flexible vehicle for enabling community-based learning; 2) embedding collaborative pedagogical practices that build upon long-term and repeated interactive participation with community partners; and 3) adopting a relational model of servant leadership developed through the River Leadership Curriculum. With community-based learning identified as a “signature pedagogy” of the Sustainability curriculum, we explored institutional, pedagogical and relational frameworks that enable both community and curricular partnerships. We piloted two initiatives: a local partnership with Miami Conservancy District in a three-credit River Leadership course, focusing on the Great Miami Watershed; and an ELL (one-credit) built upon two years of faculty collaboration collaborative relationships between ecologists, other natural and social scientists, humanists, and engineers UD and sister Marianist Universities. The Water, Culture and Society course featured comparisons of the histories, cultures and watersheds between Dayton, St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and Chaminade University in Honolulu. Students met virtually for 1hr weekly and a two-week summer field course in Hawaii. We found the ELL enhanced student and faculty engagement through collaborative learning, and are exploring how it can be used as a tool of empowerment for both students and community partners in addressing local environmental concerns. Securing funding is imperative for including more diverse students and community partners, especially those with limited resources. Otherwise, community-based learning risks exploiting partners who are already addressing environmental justice challenges, and who often participate without compensation.