As soon as PolyU decided to embark on the journey of Service-Learning in 2010, we knew that we had to start developing a corresponding research program. In the beginning we knew very little of SL. We started designing the program by studying established SL programs in other universities. We drew on what little experience we had in our own student-based service-learning projects. We consulted relevant experience in related disciplines such as social work. We were learning to be practitioners first, developing subjects and projects. We were serious about developing a credible program, and a credible program must be based on and informed by solid research of our own. We started collecting data on the implementation and analysing our results. We started doing small scale research on various aspects on SL, on the pedagogy itself, as well as its application in specific academic disciplines. We organised research salons at which colleagues can share their ideas, projects and research results.
By 2013, we decided to create a more formal forum for publication and presentation of research results by organising an international conference, targeting Hong Kong and the neighbouring Asia-Pacific Region. We set the date for the conference to be 2014. The hope was that by that time, colleagues at PolyU would have some research results to be shared. We were aware that universities in other countries in the region are also implementing or getting interested in service-learning at around the time. It would be a good opportunity for practitioners and researchers, even those who are just beginning, to gather together and compare experiences. In order to encourage people to present their results at this conference, and still be able to publish in other channels, we decided to not own the copyrights of the papers presented at the conference.
The conference serves multiple purposes. It is a forum for our own PolyU academics to publish their research on SL. They may be experienced researchers in their own discipline but new to SL research. They may also be teaching staff who are primarily responsible for teaching, who we would like to encourage to start researching in SL. The conference is also intended to be a forum in the Asia Pacific region for publishing research in SL. There simply are not too many such forums in the region. Established conferences in the field are mainly in the USA. Publishing at these conferences is quite a challenge for many academics in South East Asia, both because of the distance and the financial costs. Academics in universities in some countries in South East Asia are paid only in the region of US$300 a month. The registration fee for an international conference in the USA can easily exceed their monthly salary. Even for them to travel from their home country to Hong Kong can be a hardship. Hence we allocate part of our budget to subsidise some of those with serious financial issues. And the takers are very grateful.
There was indeed some hesitations among us when it was proposed to organise our first international conference in 2014. Having started offering academic service-learning subjects only in 2011, are we truly ready by 2014? Will we even have a sufficient number of quality papers to present ourselves? It would be embarrassing if the host does not present a decent number of good papers. On this aspect, we do have some confidence. First of all, during the process of designing our own SL program, we have learned quite a few things and we felt we can share that experience. We had started collecting data and analysing that data on various aspects of SL at PolyU that are fairly distinctive. SL at PolyU is not only credit-bearing but also compulsory. It is not common for a comprehensive university to require SL across all disciplines. In Asia, in particular, that is quite unusual. And in a short time, we did develop a number of interesting subjects, with some international projects. For those reasons, we feel we do have some decent papers to present.
Another reason for the hesitation was whether we have sufficient status in this field to be a convincing host. In this regard, we have quickly developed quite a number of partners in the relative short time, in Hong Kong, Mainland China, as well as overseas countries mainly in the Asia Pacific. We also made a lot of friends from foreign countries, through participation in relevant conferences and other opportunities. We felt confident that the conference will be well-attended.
There is also another reason for the boldness - and it is precisely because it is bold. We knew we had to build up momentum quickly. Otherwise we may not reach a critical mass and cross that tipping point fast enough. If progress is perceived as too slow, the opposition will be emboldened, to try to peg us back, and perhaps even scrap the program altogether. In Chinese we have an expression to describe the determination to succeed - “to fight with our back to the river （背水一戰）.” With the enemy in front and the river at our back, there is no retreat. To retreat is to drown. The only way to survive, and succeed, is to struggle forward. Once we made the decision to hold the international conference in late 2014, retreat was no longer an option. To call it off after announcing it to the world is just too humiliating to contemplate. We had no choice but to make it a success. That reality was important in driving us forward to making it a success. And we did.
No comments:
Post a Comment