SLS - Building and Piloting 2c - OSL

Service-Leaning subjects are academic subjects. Each addresses some social need from the perspective of appropriate knowledge and expertise. As such, they are properly offered by an academic departments in the relevant discipline. However, most academic departments at PolyU, if not all, had no experience offering service-learning.  In fact, there were few professors in the whole university who had heard of service-learning, let alone knew how to teach it.  We knew we need help.  Hence we embarked on a study of how service-learning are taught at some of the universities that have significant service-learning programs.  These include the University of Pennsylvania, Tufts University, Purdue University, University of San Francisco, and many others.  We studied the type of SL courses offered, their syllabus, how such courses are offered, what types of projects are done, and how the program was supported.   

Many universities set up a unit that is the focus of SL across the university.  That makes sense for a number of reasons.  SL courses share a number of characteristics that make them different from many regular academic courses.  It is experiential, with a lot of field work outside of the classroom or laboratory.  Special considerations such as risk management and travelling may be required. It involves a target community and a partner which could be a non-profit organization.  It requires the teaching and assessment of reflection, which is non common in many academic disciplines, particularly in science and engineering.  Extra funding may also be required, for equipment, materials, insurance, travelling, etc.  Teachers may need to be trained in relevant aspects.  Development, evaluation and research may be needed on the appropriate pedagogies and overall effectiveness of the program.  Some professors who are particularly resourceful or specially trained can be able to handle all of these demands by themselves. In general, a central unit may support these various needs better across the university.  Hence it was decided early on to set up an Office of Service-Learning (OSL) to promote and support SL across PolyU.

The coordinator of the Task Force on Service-Learning, Dr. Stephen Chan, was asked to set up the Office, and appointed the founding head.  In some aspects, this was an unusual move among universities active in service-learning.  The corresponding office in many universities is often headed by a person with a background in social science or humanities, whereas Dr. Chan’s background was in engineering.  On the other hand, Dr. Chan did have significant experience in organising service-learning projects with students and was instrumental in developing the original proposal to the university to set up the Service-Learning Requirement.  There is also the local reality that PolyU’s core strength is in applied science and engineering.  Having the movement headed by an academic in engineering enhances the credibility of service-learning in engineering.  Certainly it is now easier to imagine service-learning courses applying engineering or scientific skills to practical social needs.  It is not just something only for humanities and social sciences. 

The OSL started with a small team of staff transferred from the Student Affairs Office, who have had some experience organising community service projects for the students.  In fact, the Student Affairs Office had been running a Community Service Learning Program (CSLP) for several years.  It was actually an extra-curricular program which was mainly community service with little teaching and learning elements.  But there was at least a small number of staff with some experience in running community service projects.  Even before the office was established, the work had started flooding in.  The clock had started ticking, towards the formal launching of the SL Requirement in September 2012.  Courses have to be developed, vetted and approved. Teaching staff had tone trained. Projects have to be designed, target communities identified, partners found, risked analysed, funding secured, …

There was a little-known episode which is worth re-telling because it reflects on our values.  Initially the OSL was allocated offices on a high level floor in the main administrative building on campus.  The location was just below the offices of the senior management (president and vice-president), among those of the staff supporting the VPs.  The head, in particular, was allocated a corner office with huge windows on two sides, overlooking the campus and, in the distance, the centre of Kowloon.  It is certainly a very nice, prestigious location for an office.  However, there were a number of concerns.  The few OSL staff were to be seated with staff from other offices in a big, open room, making it difficult to build a sense of cohesion in the office.  Worse, to get to the office, visitors (who were expected to be mainly staff and students on campus) would have to take a long elevator ride and then navigate through the big, open room.  It would be an intimidating experience for many students.   We would like OSL to be a student-friendly office where young people feel welcome.  After consideration, we decided to give up the prestigious location and eventually found an old office vacated by another department.