History
Student Projects
Scholarship with a Civic Mission
RSL pathway in PPS
History
Although he didn't realize it at the time, Matthew Reisman was a
pioneer of research service learning at Duke. In 1998, as a rising
junior, Reisman traveled to Croatia as part of the Refugee Action
Project (RAP), a group comprised of students who wanted to serve
communities facing complex social problems related to forced displacement.
These students sought opportunities to engage with people from other
backgrounds and cultures to gain a better understanding of our increasingly
complex and interdependent world. While there, Reisman conducted
a survey of resettlement needs of returning refugees.
Based on his experience working directly with communities, Reisman
was determined to apply the research skills he was developing through
his studies to problems faced by communities in the world beyond
campus. With input and guidance from the HLP's Service
Opportunities in Leadership (SOL) program staff, he designed
what would become the program's first Research Service Learning
(RSL) project. 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.
In the summer of 1999, Reisman completed a second SOL internship
working with refugees, but this time in a domestic setting. Through
the Self-Help Credit Union in Charlotte, North Carolina, Reisman
helped implement a new microenterprise development program for Charlotte's
diverse refugee population. With guidance from his host organization,
Reisman approached the project guided by the central components
of RSL: community-rootedness, collaboration, reflection, and concreteness.
Reisman’s description of how he went about his RSL project
illustrates the steps involved in designing, implementing and completing
a research project, and still serves as a useful introduction to
the process. Read
more.
During his senior year, Reisman offered to help create training
materials about RSL for other SOL students, and for one year he
served as the Hart Leadership Program's RSL coordinator. In July
2000, he traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, to help seven SOL
interns evaluate the progress of their community development projects,
and to help them plan how to use their remaining time as effectively
as possible.
Reisman's experiences illlustrate how RSL can be a naturally iterative
process. When students try community-based research, they often
want to continue, and to deepen the learning process with progressively
more ambitious projects down the road. As he wrote at the conclusion
of his time in South Africa, Reisman says that his grasp of problems
facing communities was enhanced by each successive RSL project he
embraced.
"As the end of my time in Cape Town approached, I found leaving
an unwelcome prospect," he recalled. "The interns and
the members of the Philippi community had not treated me as an interloper;
rather, they had welcomed me as a partner in the community building
work they were carrying out together. I sensed myself immersed in
a joyous energy – the energy of creating, of building, and
of believing. Having only begun to taste it, I could hardly stand
to leave it behind."
The following year, Resiman returned to Africa as a Fulbright Fellow,
where he conducted research on the effects of the conflict in Cote
d'Ivoire on village communities in neighboring Mali. Reisman worked
in close collaboration with two NGOs, Save the Children and CARE.
"RSL provided the framework for my research in Mali,"
Reisman says. "The interview methods that I used in my investigation,
the principles of community engagement I followed, and the partnership
I cultivated with my host organization were all outgrowths of my
RSL experience."
Since Reisman's burgeoning interest in designing Research Service
Learning opportunities for himself and his peers, RSL has become
an increasingly integral component of the undergraduate experience
across the Duke campus. (Duke's RSL efforts are part of a national
educational movement that spans across K-12 and higher education.)
In collaboration with host organizations, and with mentorship from
faculty supervisors, students conduct community-based research that
enhances their academic training and interests, while introducing
them to the systemic nature of problems facing communities. In addition
to generating a tangible research product for their organization,
RSL requires students to examine their own capacity for leadership
as individuals, within organizations, and as citizens of the world.
The success of an RSL project hinges on several key factors:
• The strength of the collaborative partnership between the
researcher and the community partner. Regardless of past experiences,
SOL and Hart Fellows participants are continuously tested when they
go out into the field. They must establish trust within an organization
that is often stretched beyond capacity. Learning to negotiate personalities
and politics is not only an important (and lifelong) leadership
exercise, but essential for moving the research forward.
• Becoming fully immersed in the experience. Our participants
are drawn to RSL as a way to explore issues that interest them.
But we warn students not to finalize a research question until they
have had time to understand the day-to-day concerns of their community
partner. Otherwise, there is a risk that the RSL project may address
a question the researcher deems important, but that is of little
utility to the community.
• Our RSL pedagogy includes rigorous, pre-departure research
methods training. Senior research faculty members and representatives
from Duke’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) teach students
about a range of topics, from principles of survey design and analyzing
and synthesizing data, to the legal and ethical dimensions of conducting
research.
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Student Projects
RSL is integral to both the SOL and Hart Fellows programs.
Since 1999, 42
SOL students and 19
Hart Fellows have conducted RSL projects. These projects are
as complex and diverse as the communities within which they are
conducted. (Click on the links in the previous sentence to view.)
Case studies
Laurie Ball arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina in
the summer of 2005 to work as a Hart Fellow with Mozaik Foundation,
a non-governmental organization dedicated to building social cohesion
across ethnic, social and economic divides. Laurie’s RSL project,
“Building Social Cohesion in Bosnia and Herzegovina,”
explores the reasons why individuals participate (or not) in community
activities in their local village or city.
While this question might sound straightforward, the process of
gathering and analyzing data was anything but. Laurie’s affiliation
with Mozaik helped her establish credibility and contacts within
communities, but it was the test of her skills as a researcher to
develop trust with the people she interviewed, adhere to Duke and
U.S. federal government guidelines for working with human subjects,
and constantly recalibrate her hypotheses and assumptions as she
delved deeper into her project. During the course of her 10-month
Fellowship, Laurie lived in three distinctly different communities,
and interviewed dozens of community residents -- including war widows,
concentration camp survivors, and staunch defenders of Slobodan
Milosevic and other war criminals.
Laurie’s final research project provides a complex and nuanced
view into specific communities, and provides valuable data and analysis
of what factors can help Mozaik in its mission. At the conclusion
of her fellowship, Laurie was invited to stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina
for another year as a Mozaik staff member. This fall, she will matriculate
at Yale Law School, and plans to pursue a career in international
human rights.
Learn more about Laurie’s research.
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Adam Yoffie joined the SOL program in the spring
of 2004 as a junior political science major. By this point, he had
launched a gun control initiative in his high school, worked as
a counselor at an Atlanta HIV/AIDS clinic, and become an active
member of Duke Friends of Israel. Because of his maturity and commitment
to social issues, Adam was placed in Cape Town to work with Gun
Free South Africa for his SOL summer internship. For his RSL, “iGUNiFLOP
Feasibility Study,” Adam helped design a plan to educate youth
about South Africa’s new firearms control act.
For Adam, the experience was a pivotal moment in his own understanding
of how difficult it is to turn research recommendations into effective
policy. “The greatest difference about this research is that
it is not just my own private project,” Adam observed. “Before
this I had volunteered and organized community events but never
really sought to produce a well-researched product for anyone besides
a professor. This was no longer about a grade but about actually
helping individuals in need.”
Learn more about Adam’s RSL project.
Adam returned in the summer of 2005 for a second SOL internship
to build on his earlier RSL experiences. Working with the Center
for Death Penalty Litigation, Adam’s conducted extensive legal
and literature reviews, as well as in-depth interviews with political
and community leaders working on both sides of the North Carolina
Death Penalty Moratorium Campaign. Adam's work exemplifies the cumulative
effect of conducting sequential RSL projects; by his own admission,
he has become a nimble and sensitive researcher, while also appreciating
the sensitive ethical and political implications inherently associated
with conducting community based research.
In his senior year, Adam applied for the prestigious Fulbright
Fellowship. On the strength of Adam’s transcripts and involvement
in the Duke community, Adam was already a strong applicant, but
the emphasis he and his faculty recommenders placed on his RSL projects
provided clear evidence of his research and leadership skills. As
a Fulbright Fellow in 2006-2007, Adam will focus on HIV/AIDS research
and outreach at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
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Scholarship with a Civic Mission
RSL is the centerpiece of Scholarship with a Civic Mission, a campus-wide
initiative for undergraduates co-sponsored by the Kenan Institute
for Ethics and the Hart Leadership Program. RSL is a promising pedagogy
because it makes service-learning and civic engagement an organic
part of a university’s research mission, not peripheral or
antithetical to it. In doing so, it hearkens back to the origins
of research universities in a vision of scholarship in the public’s
service. At Duke, RSL/SCM dovetails beautifully with the university's
emphasis on knowledge in the service to society.
The three-stage RSL model begins with a gateway course,
continues through an intensive community-based research experience,
and culminates in a capstone course.
The project was launched four years ago through a
grant from the Fund for Improvement in Post-Secondary Education
(FIPSE) of the U.S. Department of Education, with additional funding
in 2005 by Duke's Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. Scholarship
with a Civic Mission is now administered through the Office of Service
Learning in Duke’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.
Learn more.
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RSL Pathway in Public Policy Studies
Beginning in the fall of 2006, an RSL pathway will be launched
in Duke's Department of Public Policy Studies. This progressive
set of experiences consists of:
• A gateway course in which students develop
basic research skills, complete 18-20 hours of community service,
and write a research proposal.
• A community-based reearch project with a community partner
through the HLP's Service Opportunities in Leadership program or
another departmental project.
• A capstone project through which students further develop
their research project through an independent study course or honors
seminar, and present their work publicly.
The RSL pathway in PPS is endorsed by Bruce
Kuniholm, director of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public
Policy; and Jay
Hamilton, director of undergraduate studies, as well as other
PPS and Duke faculty.
The PPS pathway is part of a larger Duke initiative
to foster undergraduate research. Duke was invited to be part of
a five-year study called the Forum for Excellence in Higher
Education, coordinated by Professor Richard Light of Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government and Graduate School of Education. Duke
joins 14 other colleges and universities that have made a commitment
to explore innovations in teaching and learning. In addition to
launching the RSL pathway in PPS, the Duke project will involve
faculty and students from the departments of economics and sociology,
and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. Duke's participation
in the Forum provides an opportunity for the university to further
develop pedagogies of engagement that involve inquiry-based, experiential
learning and service to promote the development of intellectual
skills, epistemological sophistication and civic engagement among
students. Read
more.
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