Summer is Here

So the academic year has ended, what will become of the blog conversation in Bryan's absence? Hopefully Bryan will continue to add to our discussion for at least a few more weeks, until his June wedding at least.

Meanwhile, an update. There are several summer projects underway in the Service-Learning Center, including important but tedious work on recovering un-recorded placements and hours served over the last several years, developing a new strategic plan and potential mission statement (!) for the office and its work, following up on contacts with recent agency partners, and recruiting partnership for the next year, particularly for our StreetFest kick-off in early September, and maintaining communication with student staff who are far-flung around the US and the world. We will be reading a series of summer articles, and hopefully having some discussion of these on the blog.

I gave an address this week to the annual conference of the Christian Reformed Campus Ministry Association. There were 40-50 campus ministers from around the US and Canada, and they heard about how service-learning is part program, part philosophy, and part pedagogy.

I am also preparing for my participation in a panel discussion next weekend at the bi-annual conference on Faith and Service-Learning at Messiah College - the panel will be on the topic of International Service-Learning.

And I began reading an interesting article today on service-learning and its use as a way to enable a set of helpful dispositions toward justice in students. The article, by Brad Hadaway, argues that the spiritual disciplines of historic Christianity provide a set of practices that work to either block unhealthy pre-existing dispositions in students that mitigate against the development of a disposition toward justice, or they work to provide a kind of on-ramp in the development of this disposition toward justice. The reading is a part of a larger project in which I will participate this summer, on the relationship between Christian practices and the art and vocation of college teaching. More on this as the reading continues...