Service Opportunities in Leadership (SOL)
Contents:
Uniquely SOL
Benefits of Participation in SOL
Do you have the makings of a SOLster?
History of SOL
Uniquely SOL
Service Opportunities in Leadership (SOL) is a nationally-recognized,
intensive twelve-month leadership program for Duke undergraduates
that combines academic study, community service, in-the-field research,
critical reflection, mentoring, and leadership development.
SOL is a research
service-learning (RSL) program. RSL is an emerging practice
that connects service-learning with the mission of research universities
to create new knowledge. Students, faculty and community partners
identify a question of shared interest. Research is conducted in
the context of a service-learning experience, where the research
components (problem analysis, synthesis, and conclusions) become
an integral part of the service provided to the community. Students
produce a tangible research product for their community partner.
They also participate in a structured process of critical reflection
on the ethical, intellectual, and civic aspects of their experience.
SOL includes three
stages:
1. A preparatory (gateway) course in the spring.
2. A summer research project with a community-based organization.
3. A follow-up (capstone) seminar in the fall.
The full-credit spring
gateway course, PUBPOL 196: Border Crossing, Leadership,
Value Conflicts, and Public Life, prepares students
to conduct community-based research projects in the summer through
SOL, or another RSL opportunity. Students will be trained in basic
research methods, complete a 20-hour service project for a local
community organization, and be introduced to a leadership framework
for undertaking complex problem-solving work in the public arena.
The course is designed to provide students with theoretical knowledge
and critical reflection skills for entering other cultures to conduct
research with community organizations. The course is taught by Alma
Blount, Director of SOL and the HLP, and Steve Schewel, HLP faculty
member. It fulfills the SS, EI, R and W curriculum requirements.
Summer
community-based research (CBR) projects are as varied as student
interests. Projects have covered a broad range of issues, including
barriers to gun control reform, HIV/AIDS stigmatization, women entrepreneurs
in rural agricultural businesses, child victims of domestic and
sexual violence, and the integration of refugee children into schools
and communities. In 2006, SOLsters conducted their CBR projects
in North Carolina, Vermont, New York, South Korea, England, South
Africa, Belize, India and Costa Rica.
HLP faculty and staff coach students in developing
and organizing their summer community-based research projects. However,
students are responsible for the success of the process, including
securing a host organization and faculty mentor, developing a community-based
research project in close consultation with the host organization
and faculty mentor, finding accommodations, and making travel plans.
The full-credit fall
capstone seminar, PUBPOL 137: Adaptive Leadership,
examines a leadership framework for working productively with value
conflicts in groups and institutions, and the ethics of public problem-solving
work. Students will have the opportunity to reflect critically on
their summer work with community organizations, and integrate what
they have learned with concepts of leadership, ethics, politics,
and policy design. This course is also taught by Alma Blount. It
fulfills the SS, EI, R, W and seminar curriculum requirements.
The three stages of SOL—gateway, community-based
research and capstone—do not have to be completed in one calendar
year. However, the summer community-based research project and fall
capstone seminar must be completed consecutively, that is, in the
same calendar year. For details on how this works, please click
here.
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Benefits of Participation
in SOL
First, as an RSL program, SOL has the potential to tremendously
impact students’ intellectual and personal growth. As Professor
Robert Thompson, Dean of Trinity College, explains, "Research
pedagogies teach students to identify a problem and pose a question,
to develop a rigorous investigative approach that involves primary
research, and to participate in a process of analysis, synthesis,
evaluation, and dissemination. Service-learning, on the other hand,
increases understanding of an academic subject or theory through
direct service. It involves structured reflection and analysis that
connects social and public issues with personal experiences and
development. When research is joined with service-learning, the
outcomes are a deeper level of inquiry-based field research that
not only builds leadership and life skills but helps shape students’
identities as agents for change and activism in the community.”
Through participation in SOL, students are not only given the opportunity
to locate themselves within or in relation to efforts to promote
social change, but also the opportunity to refine their research
skills in contexts where the impact of their research efforts is
visible and immediate.
Second, a focus on leadership development, close mentoring from
HLP faculty and staff, well-structured opportunities to engage in
critical reflection, and organizational support for going public
with research findings outside of the student’s host organization
distinguish SOL from other RSL opportunities at Duke.
Last but not least, past SOL participants have emphasized the strong
sense of community and camaraderie among participants as one of
the program’s many benefits.
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Do you have
the makings of a SOLster?
We are looking for thoughtful, dedicated undergraduates from all
academic disciplines who are interested in:
• Becoming part of an intensive,
one-year, nationally recognized leadership program that
combines coursework, experiential learning, critical reflection
and mentoring;
• Joining a tight-knit community of peers
who are interested in conducting community-based research in the
summer;
• Learning how to reflect critically on
the intellectual, ethical, and civic issues that arise during
the research experience;
• Gaining a deeper intellectual understanding of the kinds
of leadership needed to tackle complex, real-world problems.
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History of SOL
To describe SOL, we can’t just list program details, internship
placement sites, or application facts. The history of SOL is rich.
It is rooted in a strong commitment to service, initially developed
by work with refugees in Eastern Europe, and later expanded to include
projects with community development, health services, education,
and a number of other initiatives both in the United States and
abroad. While the scope and structure of the program has changed
through the years, its strong commitment to service, activism, community-building
and leadership remains the same. So, too, does the prominent role
SOLsters have played in the program’s evolution— SOL
has been and continues to be defined by the creative energy and
spirit of its students.
Students associated with the Hart Leadership Program
have a long tradition of service and activism. “Interns in
Conscience,” a student-run program supported by HLP from 1987-1992,
facilitated hundreds of summer placements with non-profit organizations
working on issues such as HIV/AIDS, farm worker rights, and family
violence. In the summer of 1994, nine Duke students traveled to
Croatia with Neal Boothby, then HLP Director and a professor in
Public Policy. Students worked on a relief effort called the project
on Unaccompanied Children in Exile (UCE), which spawned a program
that involved Duke students in Croatian refugee relief efforts.
HLP created the Refugee Action Project (RAP) in
the summer of 1995, and although internships were relocated to Turkey,
Austria, and Slovenia due to resumed fighting in Croatia, the internship
project had taken root. In the summer of 1996, students returned
to Croatia. By this time nearly 100 students applied for the available
positions, and word began to spread about RAP. That same year, Scott
Cooper, a veteran of Interns in Conscience, started a sister program
called Summer Opportunities in Leadership. SOL placed students in
service internships in the United States. In the first year, students
found placements in Durham, New York and Mississippi.
For a time, RAP and SOL lead parallel existences,
but as the scope of both programs expanded, so did their common
ground. While RAP began with an international focus and SOL concentrated
on domestic issues, the distinctions became less important over
time. Many students placed in domestic settings engaged in refugee
and immigrant-related work, while students in international settings
participated in community development and education projects. Beginning
in 1998, students applied to an integrated program, called Summer
Opportunities in Leadership.
In 1998, SOL enrollment jumped to twenty-two students.
SOL became a year-long leadership development program that included
a house course in the spring, the summer internship, and a follow-up
course in the fall. The extension of the program enabled students
to become a cohesive group, defined less by their independent internships
and more by their group learning processes. In 1998, SOL students
worked domestically in communities in Albuquerque, Chapel Hill,
New York and internationally in Bosnia, Croatia, Costa Rica, Honduras
and Nicaragua. Also in 1998, a final name change was adopted—Service
Opportunities in Leadership.
From the start, SOL was a student-driven initiative
that embraced innovative ways to engage in problem solving processes,
both in the classroom and in the field. It comes as no surprise,
then, that an alumnus of both RAP and SOL, Matthew
Reisman, was a pioneer of research
service-learning (RSL) at Duke. Reisman's interest in designing
RSL opportunities for himself and his peers during the period 1998-2000
was spurred by his experiences of working directly with communities
as a participant in first RAP, then SOL. Since Reisman’s pioneer
efforts, RSL has not only become integral to SOL, but has also become
an increasingly important of the undergraduate experience across
the Duke campus.
In 2005, SOL underwent a number of refinements
and structural changes to its year-long leadership pedagogy, becoming
a formal RSL program. The spring semester half-credit introductory
course was redesigned to be a full-credit preparation course that
includes a research methods training component and approximately
twenty hours of community service. Students in the course interested
in conducting RSL projects as part of SOL are required to submit
grant applications that include a description of their proposed
community-based research project. Successful applicants who conduct
a community-based research project through SOL then enroll in the
fall capstone seminar.
2006 marks the first year of the revamped SOL program.
Today’s SOL has developed out of the passion and commitment
of Duke students working on service and justice issues. The spirit
that motivated nine students to work in Croatia in 1994 still draws
students today. And the program continues to develop. As always,
our hope is to create opportunities for students to serve in and
to become active participants in communities that are addressing
complex social problems with innovative approaches, both at home
and abroad.
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