Service learning a key component in university engagement

Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to take part in this important program today. We are very proud that Purdue University was the place where EPICS began. I believe EPICS is a program whose full impact will be profound in the lives of our students and in the quality of our communities, states and nation. Thank you all for joining us today at this program.

And thank you for your interest in student service learning and university engagement in the 21st century. I offer special thanks the National Science Foundation, which is sponsoring the conference. Also to our host, the National Academy of Engineering.

Your topic of service learning could not be more important to our students, our universities, our states and our nation. EPICS is one of the most outstanding examples I have ever seen of what can be accomplished through service learning. I have seen students turn to careers of service after taking part in this program.

And through EPICS I have also seen many more students develop a deep appreciation for service that they will carry throughout their lives. The students benefit. They learn practical applications of engineering. They learn how to work in teams and how to think creatively. Indeed, more than more today we see top engineering college applicants looking for opportunities that include service learning. The communities and organizations that are assisted clearly benefit from the talents of these students.

Finally, our universities benefit. More than ever before universities today must be involved in outreach, or engagement, efforts with their communities and states. At a time when there is increasing competition for limited state funding, the future of public higher education lies in taking the learning and discovery off our campuses and moving it into communities to help people.

University engagement takes many forms including: off campus educational programs, assistance to preschool-through-grade-12 public education, economic development, land-grant extension and service learning.

These are challenging times in higher education. These are also exciting times as we move through a period of change and begin to set a new course for higher education in the 21st century. Change does not come easily – not for individuals or for institutions.

Changing the course of a big institution such as a university is essentially like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. It doesn't happen swiftly. And once it starts it is very difficult to return tot he original course. So we must make certain to turn in the correct direction at the right time.

James Kelly, retired chairman and chief executive officer of United Parcel Services, recently found a New York City newspaper story that discussed attitudes toward the changing world. The article said: "The consensus ... on the streets of Manhattan is that we'll welcome the new century with open arms. But don't expect us not to be a little frightened. Business is changing. Work is changing. Science is changing. The world political climate is unlike anything we've ever witnessed. Even the weather seems different ..." The article was written in December of 1899.

Change is unsettling. Change is also absolutely essential to any process of self-improvement. Without change, we just stay the same and never get better. One of the biggest and most significant change issues in higher education today is the effort by colleges and universities to become more engaged.

To be an engaged institution, a university must meet three criteria: First, it must be organized to respond to the needs of today's students and tomorrow's students — not yesterday's; second, it must enrich students' experiences by bringing research and engagement into the curriculum, offering students a practical opportunity to prepare for the world they will enter; and third, it must put its critical resources to work on the problems communities face.

Guiding characteristics that define an engaged institution are:

• responsiveness — listening to those we serve;

• respect for partners — encouraging joint academic-community definitions of problems and solutions;

• academic neutrality — the university is a neutral facilitator;

• accessibility — helping inexperienced potential partners negotiate our complex structures;

• integration — bringing engagement into our missions of discovery and learning;

• coordination — making sure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing;

and resource partnership. Engagement is not free, it costs money. We need support to do this.

None of this is new. This concept of engaged universities has been a focus of national higher education discussion for a number of years. In 1996 the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities was created by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges — NASULGC.

A grant of $1.2 million was awarded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to fund the 25-member commission, which did its work through March of 2000. Members of the commission were university presidents and chancellors. The purpose of this was to define the direction public universities should go in the future and to recommend an action agenda to speed up the process of change. That term "action agenda" was important.

From the onset it was the intention of this commission to take action, not simply to meet and take minutes. The commission was charged not only with defining and bringing to public attention the kinds of changes occurring at public universities today, but also with analyzing necessary reforms and suggesting ways to accomplish them and monitor the results.

I was president of Iowa State University at this time, and I was fortunate to be named to the commission. We quickly identified five issues for the commission members to examine: first, the student experience, second, access and opportunity, third, the engaged institution, fourth, the learning society and fifth, campus culture.

I served as chair of the engaged institution committee. At the conclusion of our work, each committee issued a written report. The overall commission also issued a summary report called "Reviewing the Covenant — Learning, Discovery and Engagement in a New Age and Different World." The response to all this was very interesting.

The engagement report, titled "Returning To Our Roots, The Engaged Institution" was far and away the most popular. More copies of it were distributed than all the other reports combined. It struck a resounding chord.

Among the conclusions of that report were these:

• "One of the best ways to prepare students for the challenges life will place before them lies in integrating the community with their academic experience.

• "Students are one of the principal engagement resources available to every university.

• "Service learning opportunities undoubtedly help everyone involved — student, community, and institution."

I think there were two major reasons for the huge interest in the Kellogg engagement report. First, there are many people who believe that our nation's research universities have lost touch with the communities they exist to serve. The public has become frustrated with what it sees as Ivory Tower unresponsiveness.

There is a perception that despite the resources and expertise available on our campuses, we are not bringing them to bear on local problems in a coherent way. This has had rippling effects.

As communities view us as more and more detached, a smaller and smaller percentage of university budgets is being funded by state government. People need to see tangible benefits from their financial support for higher education beyond educating students, some of whom move to other states after graduation.

The fact that our state support is eroding should serve as a wake-up call that we had better re-engage the communities we were created to serve. In recent years there has been a real recognition by universities that we are losing touch with our communities.

And the idea of reconceptualizing outreach to an engagement agenda is a welcome idea. Engagement is a traditional land-grant mission. It used to be called outreach. The new term is being used express a new concept. This is a break with the past. This is not Extension. And it is no longer a land-grant model alone.

All public universities today are actively pursuing varying degrees of engagement initiatives. Even small, private universities have taken up this model. They see it as important to their students, important to their states and critical to their own future.

Second — there was been a huge response to our committee report because a lot of people have begun to understand that engagement is crucial to fulfilling not only our outreach mission but our learning and discovery, missions as well.

As this engagement agenda grows, there is increasingly a view that experiential learning is very powerful. It enhances learning and develops skills that are difficult to teach in the classroom. Engagement is a marvelous vehicle for creating experiential learning opportunities for students

I believe this new vision of engagement has had a huge impact on higher education. It has had an impact in terms of the relationship between the university and the external community with which it interacts. The historical outreach model is Extension, in which the university, in its wisdom, tells people what it knows.

When we move to engagement, we are doing something quite different. Engagement is more mutual. It provides an explicit and participatory role for those outside the university.

In engagement, the university and the external groups not only come to a mutual understanding, but more profoundly, there is a recognition by the university that we can learn from those outside the campus. They can influence us. They can influence what we teach. And they can influence the research that we undertake.

In a knowledge-driven society, not all knowledge is in the university. We must learn from others. In my view, this is a profound change in the historical model of university outreach. I think the engagement concept has also re-energized education.

It has given rise to the understanding that learning is not limited to the classrooms and laboratories on our campuses. Education is enhanced by participating in engagement. There should be little distinction between the benefits of the students participating in research and benefits of participating in public service.

Students learn not only through studying theory, they learn through experiences in the real world. And at the same time, they are learning the value and importance of civic responsibility. We have the best of tomorrow studying at our universities.

And we need to teach them the value of civic participation through their involvement with our engagement efforts. Our great public land-grant universities are not just about credentialing and opening doors to good jobs. We are also about creating community leaders. We are not only educating people intellectually we are also teaching people how to be the leaders of tomorrow.

Before coming to Purdue, I was President of Iowa State University. The words of Iowa State alumnus M. J. Riggs, class of 1883, are etched in stone in the university's Memorial Union. They are important words. The words are: "We come to college not alone to prepare to make a living, — but to learn to live a life."

It is my great hope that our universities will succeed in preparing our students not only to make a living but to make a life. And the path to successful life does not lead only to financial gain and professional success.

It must include a commitment to service. I am a member of the board of Campus Compact. Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 950 college and university presidents. It represents some 5 million students.

Campus Compact is dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement, and service-learning in higher education. Campus Compact supports a national pledge of higher education. It states in part: "This country cannot afford to educate a generation that acquires knowledge without ever understanding how that knowledge can benefit society or how to influence democratic decision making."

We must take the initiative to teach our students their responsibilities to their communities, nation and to one another.

Our engagement emphasis helps to teach our students lessons in democracy. Some might say that what we are teaching through engagement is essential to the future of democracy. This goes all the way back to our nation's roots, in what De Tocqueville wrote about in Democracy in America voluntary citizen action helping to solve the problems of society.

This is what has made America great in three centuries. This is what will make America great in the centuries ahead if we succeed in teaching this lesson to our students. De Tocqueville understood the basis for democracy when he said: "When an American asks for the cooperation of their fellow citizens, it is seldom refused; and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously, and with great will."

That is the spirit we want to instill in our students. But service learning is about more than building a greater sense of civic responsibility in our students and goodwill with communities.

There also is a growing view that students who have these experiences truly do develop important critical thinking skills.

They begin to understand how other people think and perceive issues, problems, the world itself. They begin to develop a perspective. They begin to understand how education relates to the world. These are the powerful goals in any good education.

In addition, experiential learning opportunities help students understand how their specific field of study impacts in the world. I also believe this is about helping our students understand how problem solving is carried out in contemporary society .

Engagement and service learning go beyond national borders and I know there are representatives from several groups here today focused on international programs. Let me give you one example of what universities can and are doing, using my own institution.

Approximately 15 Purdue University students are now in Ecuador as part of an interdisciplinary service-learning course this spring. The landscape architecture, psychology, agriculture, and agricultural and biological engineering students are helping residents of Tumbabiro, Ecuador, create a strategic plan for future development.

The students are gathering data for potential future projects, which could include improving landscaping around the town's central square, creating a new cemetery, establishing a study area or library for students in the community, and painting the town church.

They also plan to set up a computer in the mayor's office. Our students are gaining enormously from this trip. They are applying the skills they've acquired in the classroom. But they also will see how their work can have a direct impact on the quality of life of other people.

Very important to all of this, our faculty leaders plan to have future classes work with the village for five to 10 more years. The trip is being financed through student fees, an International Programs grant and support from the departments of Youth Development and Agricultural Education, Landscape Architecture, and Agricultural and Biological Engineering.

More than 150 classes at Purdue feature service-learning projects, ranging from working with wolves at a nearby, nationally-known Wolf Park to classifying historical documents for the County Historical Association.

Recent Purdue projects also included students from a variety of disciplines traveling to New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss., to assist with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts during spring break.

I know that this year a number of universities across the nation have sent students to the gulf coast to work in service learning projects. At Purdue we are putting resources behind our efforts.

The Purdue Office of our Vice Provost for Engagement has $100,000 in grant money for service projects. Individual students can apply for grants of up to $500. Groups, clubs, fraternities and sororities can apply for grants of up to $1,500.

I believe we can identify some commonalties to all successful engagement efforts, including service learning. First, from analyzing successful programs, it is unmistakably clear that the best practices of engagement start with a real need on which people outside the university are working.

They set the agenda. They are saying what the problems are. They are identifying needs. And we must respond to them. One of the findings that came out of the Kellogg Commission is that communities have problems, while institutions have disciplines. We need to break down our narrow disciplines and open ourselves up to look at the broad range of needs within the community.

Secondly, these successful engagement programs all build on the university's capacity to solve problems based on our research strengths.

Thirdly, these examples of engagement have financial leverage that is sustainable.

There are ways to finance this work so that it can go on and continue having an impact. We need ongoing funding for engagement to be successful. There is still much work to do. Some aspects of our engagement initiative are underdeveloped and need enhancement.

I think among the first things we need to look at very carefully is the extent to which engagement is recognized within the university as a legitimate and important aspect of what we do. We need to reconceptualize the roles of people within the university.

Changes are needed in the reward structure and the role engagement plays for faculty and staff. This remains an area that requires a lot of work. It is my belief that every college, school and department at a university should be involved in engagement.

The Kellogg Commission determined that real engagement will only emerge as university leaders bring these issues into focus. The commission recommended five key strategies to advance engagement.

• Our institutions need to transform their thinking about service so that engagement becomes a priority on every campus, a central part of the institutional mission.

• Our institutions need to develop solid engagement strategic plans.

• Our institutions need to encourage interdisciplinary scholarship and research, including interdisciplinary teaching and learning opportunities.

• Our institutional leaders need to develop incentives to encourage faculty involvement in the engagement effort — if we reward engagement we will have it, if we do not, we won't.

• Finally, once again, our academic leaders need to secure stable funding to support engagement through reallocation of existing funds or the establishment of new federal-state-local-private matching funds.

Good luck in your efforts. I hope this conference is a great success and I hope the outcome of what you are doing will be an increased awareness of the importance of university engagement, especially in experiential leaning. I have mentioned this effort is not necessarily new.

In fact, it all builds on keys to success that have been well known to people through the centuries. If you want to find happiness in your life, help someone else find happiness in theirs. If you want to be successful, help someone accomplish success.

Albert Einstein said: "The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who ... see in service to community their highest life achievement."

Thank you very much.

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