The Student Companion to Community-Engaged Learning

"Engaging students in a familiar voice and pulling them into deeper conversation through embedded digital content, The Student Companion walks students through decades of wisdom and insight about community engagement. For students, the book can be a macro-reflection - encouraging careful critical examination of engagement while honoring the challenging emotional terrain and power dynamics embedded, yet often ignored, in community engagement. Most importantly the volume honors the beauty, complexity, and strength of communities as rich resources for the world, and for students. The Companion is a key resource for students and higher education."

Mathew Johnson, Associate Dean of the College for Engaged Scholarship - Executive Director of the Howard R. Swearer Center, Brown University

"If Thich Nhat Hanh, Parker Palmer, adrienne maree brown, and Nadinne Cruz had a dinner party about community engagement and higher education, this book might be a map of that imagined conversation. This book provides an important container for students, faculty, and community partners to grapple with the complexities and promise of community-engaged learning: intellectual rigor, ethical relationships, different kinds of knowledges, and the unfolding process of learning with and across differences.

In an accessible yet nuanced way, the authors provide scaffolding on how to avoid the intellectual potholes of community-engaged learning (e.g. us/them, good/bad, cognitive/affective, thinking/doing, listening/responding, professionalism/humility, goals/process).

The authors skillfully guide readers through the dialogical process of community-based-learning as an authentic, courageous, and conscientious approach to intellectual inquiry."

Kathleen S. Yep, Associate Dean of Faculty in Academic Affairs Professor, Asian American Studies - Pitzer College

"This book is a powerful tool for the field and for inviting students to be community engaged learners. We’ve been waiting for a tool like this to use with students. This book is a guide, a companion, and a way to prepare students to be engaged in the community in critical ways that address the macro and micro issues that we confront in community engaged learning and social change."

Marisol Morales, Vice-President for Network Leadership - Campus Compact

“The authors face head on the most urgent issues that affect communities, and encourage us to embrace the notion that it is through reciprocal relationships that one earns the privilege of working alongside leaders in the community not as saviors but as partners. As you begin your journey in the community, this book will serve as a meditative companion and roadmap. When used as a guide, this book will help you develop a daily practice of discovering assets in yourself and your community, and lead you to a destination that experiences community engagement as ‘desire-centered’ work."

Chris Nayve, Associate Vice President for Community Engagement & Anchor Initiatives - Mulvaney Center, University of San Diego

Foreword—Tania D. Mitchell
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Intentions: The Role of the Student Companion in Community-Engaged Learning

1) Imperatives: Why We Do Community-Engaged Learning
2) Benefits: What We Gain From Community-Engaged Learning
3) Dispositions: Who Are We Called to Be as Community-Engaged Learners
4) Responsibilities: What We Need to Do as Community-Engaged Learners
5) Transformations: How Community-Engaged Learning Changes Us

Afterword—Chris Nayve
A Letter to our Faculty Colleagues
References
About the Authors
Index

David M. Donahue

David M. Donahue is Director of the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Services and the Common Good, and a professor of education at the School of Education at the University of San Francisco.

Star Plaxton-Moore

Star Plaxton-Moore is the Director of Community-Engaged Learning at the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at University of San Francisco. Star directs institutional support for community-engaged courses and oversees public service programs for undergraduates, including the Public Service and Community Engagement Minor. She designed and implements an annual Community-Engaged Learning and Teaching Fellowship program for USF faculty, and other professional development offerings that bring together faculty and community partners as co-learners. Her scholarship focuses on faculty development for community-engaged teaching and scholarship, student preparation for community engagement, assessment of civic learning outcomes, and community engagement in institutional culture and practice. Star holds an MEd from George Washington University and is currently completing course work for an EdD in organizational leadership at USF.