Spring 2007
Report Highlights Benefits, Growth of Research Service-Learning at Duke
What happens when universities combine classroom scholarship with
hands-on service experience? When a biology class on infectious
disease translates into students conducting research in Africa?
When a leadership policy class encourages students to spend their
summers with non-profit organizations around the globe?
As a recent report at Duke shows, the answer is remarkable knowledge-
and community-building.
In January 2007, President Richard Brodhead received the Fund for
Improvement in Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) report, which describes
the products of the Scholarship with a Civic Mission (SCM) initiative.
Launched in 2002, SCM was a collaboration among the Hart Leadership
Program, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and Trinity College of
Arts & Sciences aimed at enabling undergraduates to pursue a
combination of classroom learning and on-the-ground research that
meets the needs of community partners. This research service-learning
(RSL) model was designed in three phases: a gateway course, community-based
research, and a capstone project.
As the January report reveals, in three years the number of gateway
courses offered jumped from one to 22; the number of students enrolled
in these courses increased from 32 to 499. By the fourth year of
SCM, 111 students were doing community-based research, and in the
third year, 24 faculty members in 14 departments, along with 72
community partners, were involved in RSL. And as of May 2006, through
SCM 22 percent of graduating seniors had participated in a gateway
course or a community-based research course or other project.
“The essence of RSL is to combine inquiry-based learning
with service learning such that the service provided to a community
or agency is research on an issue or question of importance to their
mission,” says Robert Thompson, dean of Trinity College of
Arts & Sciences. “The reason RSL fits so well with Trinity's
efforts to enhance undergraduate education is that it connects our
focus, as a research institution, on directly connecting undergraduates
with the inquiry and discovery processes that characterize a research
university with a particular type of experiential pedagogy, service
learning, that serves to heighten awareness of the needs of others
and skills with the practical application of knowledge in the service
of society.”
The Sanford Institute of Public Policy has been the frontrunner
in RSL pathway development. The goal now is to enhance the role
RSL’s place throughout Duke. To this end, the University established
the Office of Service Learning in 2006 with the goal of supporting
and expanding the RSL pedagogy. The hope is that Duke’s various
schools and departments will soon “own” their own RSL
pathways, developing tracks and models students can use to integrate
knowledge with service, school with community.
“The work that we have done so far with RSL constitutes
a ‘proof of concept,” Thompson explains. “Now
our task is to scale up this model into other situations that differ
from those in which it was initially developed. This means expanding
on and diversifying the model to meet new challenges and opportunities.”
The ultimate goal of ingraining RSL in Duke’s curriculum
is, as the FIPSE report states, to “help the university reclaim
its role as an anchor institution in a healthy democracy.”
“The lasting products of a university education are the
qualities of mind and character that students carry forth into their
adult lives,” Brodhead says of Duke’s blooming service
focus. “We give our students superb academic training, but
we also want them to become active citizens and creative problem-solvers,
using their education to make a real-world difference.”
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