Dan W. Butin

The Limits of Service-Learning in Higher Education

This article takes a critical look at the attempted institutionalization of service-learning in higher education. It asks whether service-learning can become deeply embedded within the academy; and if so, what exactly is becoming embedded. Specifically, this article suggests that there are substantial pedagogical, political, and institutional limits to service-learning across the academy. These limits, moreover, are shown to be inherent to the service-learning movement as contemporarily theorized and enacted. The article concludes by reframing some of the grounding assumptions of service-learning to position it as a disciplinary field more suited for becoming genuinely embedded within higher education.

Justice-Learning: Service-Learning as Justice-Oriented Education

“Justice-learning” lies at the intersection of service-learning and social justice education. Specifically, I argue for a distinctive form of community-based learning (“antifoundational service-learning”) that fosters a justice-oriented framework (“anti-anti-social justice”) that makes possible the questioning and disruption of unexamined and all too often oppressive binaries of how we view the struggle toward equity in education. The linkage of service-learning and social justice education in this manner offers a “weak overcoming” that strengthens experiential learning toward justice while avoiding the dilution and radicalization faced by both movements. I, thus, trace the linkages between service-learning and social justice education; explicate the potential of antifoundational service-learning as a form of anti-anti-social justice; and draw out the potential and implication of this linkage for both service-learning and social justice education.

Service-Learning as Postmodern Pedagogy

Stanley Fish has done it again. He has thoroughly antagonized liberals with his outrageous statements and at the same time frustrated conservatives intent on appropriating his rhetoric (though conservatives don’t usually get the irony; but more on that later).

“Can I Major in Service-Learning?” An Empirical Analysis of Certificates, Minors, and Majors

This article examines the rise of programs in higher education that award certificates, minors, and/or majors in service-learning. Using Vaughn and Seifer (2008) as a foundation, this study documented and analyzed a total of thirty-one academic programs that had service-learning at its academic core. Findings from this study suggest that there is indeed a coherent (though far from stable) “field” of service-learning. Moreover, the findings suggest that the strength and structure of a program is strongly dependent on its status; i.e., there is a deep dividing line between certificate programs and minors and majors. This has implications for how service-learning scholars and practitioners talk about and thus organize themselves, their field, and their body of core knowledge. The article concludes by highlighting key programmatic and curricular features, examining the status of service-learning as a distinct discipline and drawing forth implications for institutions considering developing service-learning certificates, minors, and majors.

This Ain’t Talk Therapy: Problematizing and Extending Anti-Oppressive Education

Kumashiro (2001)argues that the “posts” perspectives—poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism—are useful in furthering an anti-oppressive education in the core disciplines. This response elucidates some of the shortcomings of Kumashiro’s article, namely its misinterpretation of notions of oppression, rationality, and the individual within a “posts” perspective. A Foucauldian lens is employed to provide an alternative means by which to further a more constructive and less constrictive classroom environment. Specifically, this article suggests that a “posts” classroom must work under the construct of a “weak overcoming” that focuses on the structure of schooling and the organization of classroom practice.

Dreaming of Justice: Critical Service-Learning and the Need to Wake Up

I examine and question whether the goal, or dream, of service-learning has been actualized in practice. I raise the possibility that what educators dream of—a critical service-learning able to ameliorate persistent real-world inequities—may be a case of their dreaming being fulfilled, rather than their dreams. More specifically, I argue that although the dream of critical service-learning has been incredibly successful at driving research and practice in higher education, it has not fulfilled the goal of impacting the very people and communities educators purport to serve. Thus, the groups most wishing for the success of critical service-learning are those whose dreams are most fulfilled. I offer a set of tenets that, I hope, will encourage educators to dream different dreams.

What MIT Should Have Done

The launch of MITx and similar online initiatives has sparked heated discussion on the future of higher education. In this article, Dan Butin offers an alternative perspective on the limits and possibilities of such MOOCs for teaching and learning in the college classroom.

Rethinking the "Apprenticeship of Liberty": The Case for Academic Programs in Community Engagement in Higher Education

This article articulates a model for the “engaged campus” through academic programs focused on community engagement, broadly construed. Such academic programs–usually coalesced in certificate programs, minors, and majors–provide a complementary vision for the deep institutionalization of civic and community engagement in the academy that can revitalize an “apprenticeship of liberty” for students, faculty, and academic staff.

The Limits of Service-Learning

In this chapter I want to explore in more depth the unacknowledged and unanticipated problematics of service-learning in higher education, particularly as service-learning practice and theory has turned in the last few years to ensuring its institutional longevity. This chapter thus takes a critical look at this attempted institutionalization of service-learning in higher education. It asks whether service-learning can become deeply embedded within the academy, and, if so, what exactly is it that becomes embedded. Specifically, I suggest that there are substantial pedagogical, political, and institutional limits to service-learning across the academy. These limits, moreover, are inherent to the service-learning movement as contemporarily theorized and enacted. As such, there may be a fundamental and unbridgeable gap between the rhetoric and reality of the aspirations of the present-day service-learning movement.

Introduction to Special Issue on "The Future of Community Engagement in Higher Education"

This introduction to the special issue on “The Future of Community Engagement in Higher Education” first describes the key role of community service-learning in the civic identity development of American college students and then proposes majors, minors, and certificate programs as important and increasingly popular structures for engaging college students in community service-learning. This introduction also provides an overview of the six feature articles included in the special issue that focus on specific best practices and obstacles in the implementation of such majors, minors, and certificate programs.