Call for Papers: AAG 2016 San Francisco, CA
Session Title: Student Engagement in Community Service
Organizers: Sallie Marston (University of Arizona) and Vincent Del Casino (University of Arizona)
Student engagement – meaningful, hands-on experiences for undergraduates through research, foreign travel or community service – has long been a hallmark of higher education in the US. Existing programs that enabled self-selected students to gain practical skills and professional competencies from activities offered outside the classroom have included study abroad, structured internships, and volunteer or part-time paid work on faculty research projects. With the new movement in the US to provide engagement across the entirety of the undergraduate population, even in large public institutions, there are enormous challenges to administrators and faculty to expand existing programs and develop new ones. Alongside the basic logistical challenges of providing these new engagement opportunities are the political questions about what sorts of experiences should be offered, how to collaborate effectively with communities, how to best prepare students to exercise respect and openness in their engagements, and what the outcomes of a successful experience should and can be.
In this CFP we invite submissions that address the student engagement phenomenon from the perspective of community service and that can make a range of contributions to the ongoing discussions about it.
Papers might consider topics including, but not limited to:
+ fostering progressive leadership through student engagement in community
+ assessments of successful/unsuccessful programs
+ cultivating an ethic of community service among undergraduates
+ mobile technologies for engagements in the community
+ the politics of student engagements in the community
+ the challenges of managing faculty and staff workload in developing and undertaking community service projects
+ defining student and programmatic learning outcomes related to community service
Submissions: Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words by email to Sallie Marston (marston@email.arizona.edu) by Monday, October 12, 2015. Successful submitters will be expected to register and submit their abstracts online on the AAG website by Thursday, October 29, 2015 with a session proposal deadline of November 18, 2015.