The meeting was hosted by the international “Uniservitate” network, which is supported financially by the Porticus Foundation. In this network, the KU is one of seven international hubs for the promotion of service-learning at Catholic universities since 2020. The KU acts as a regional connecting point between partner organizations in Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, among them Bethlehem University (Palestine), John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (Poland) and the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv (Ukraine).
“Our vision is for our University to be a bridge between science and society. This is not only anchored in the KU’s mission statement, but also serves as a basis for organizing our research and study programs. The special service-learning aspect of the programs ensures that our students learn to take over responsibility for society both in their own country and around the world. The Uniservitate program offers the ideal platform for developing further service-learning concepts in close collaboration with the international community of Catholic partner universities”, emphasizes Prof. Dr. Klaus Stüwe, KU vice president for international affairs and profile development.
The most recent conference offered different workshops in which participants could exchange their knowledge and experiences in the fields of civic engagement and institutional commitment at the universities. Participants came from Argentina, Poland, Palestine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Slovakia and Austria.
Sharing their high-level expertise, attendees Andrew Furco and María Rosa Tapia gave keynote speeches setting academic impulses on the impact and value of service-learning for students, partners and lecturers.
Andrew Furco is Associate Vice President for Public Engagement at the University of Minnesota, where he also serves as a professor for education. His scientific work focuses on investigating the role of community engagement and service-learning within the US educational system. Between 1994 and 2007, he worked as a founding director of the Service-Learning Research and Development Center at UC Berkeley. In his speech, Furco explained why universities can benefit from service-learning although community engagement might not be the objective and mission of higher education institutions per se. Universities focus more on research, teaching, internationalization and acquiring funding for research projects. At the same time, there are often many different charitable initiatives on campus, as is the case at the KU. Furco uses the example of research funds to illustrate why anchoring service-learning at universities should still be promoted further: As early as in the application phase for funding, universities have to submit a detailed description of the added value of their research project for society. It goes even further: They have to outline their contribution for improving the links between urban and rural areas, their sustainability efforts and support for regional development or for overcoming social challenges. This makes service-learning and community engagement an integral part of the universities’ strategy for accomplishing their goals. Empirical studies have found that students who participate in service-learning projects show more social responsibility in matters of sustainability, ethics, diversity and social justice.
María Rosa Tapia is the coordinator of the Uniservitate service-learning program. She holds a Bachelor of Education and Master in Educational Technology and taught service-learning courses and workshops for different educational institutions and social organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, the USA, Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kenya. She currently works as higher education coordinator at CLAYSS and for the service-learning program in the Catholic university education “UNISERVITATE”. She is also responsible for teacher education at the University of Buenos Aires. In her speech, she introduced a project from Cali (Colombia) – a region marked by coffee production, drug cartels and a civil war going on for four decades. The “Casa Alero” with the Café Garittea is an interdisciplinary service-learning project that serves both partners and students alike:
Coffee producers achieve better incomes and work in stronger cooperatives while students develop professional skills through problem-solving learning approaches in non-profit interdisciplinary projects. This is beneficial both for the teaching practice and service-learning-based research. Overall, the Casa Alero and the café that is open for students and citizens from the neighborhood make a valuable contribution for regional sustainable development.
More information on the Uniservitate network and the KU’s engagement within the network is available here: https://www.ku.de/en/studium/lehrprofil/service-learning.