Service-Learning is by nature boundary crossing. The people that we serve generally belong to a community different from our own. Hence, internationalisation comes naturally to service-learning - in this case the boundary that is being crossed is national. That national boundary can be crossed in many ways. We have taken students to serve in foreign countries. We have taught online classes attended by PolyU students jointly with students from a foreign university - where students are enrolled in courses offered by their own university. We have organised many projects in which students from foreign universities work - without academic credit - alongside PolyU students. We have sent students to exchange at foreign universities, with and without academic credit.
We have long sought to provide opportunities for students in other universities to participate in our service-learning program as part of their own core academic studies. On way to allow that to happen is for these students to take our service-learning courses for credit, which can then be used to satisfy the graduation requirement for their own studies. When academic credit is involved, however, the situation gets more complicated. On the one hand, there are few channels for PolyU to grant academic credit to students from another university. Similarly, each university has strict rules for their students to transfer the credits earned at another university to satisfy the graduation requirements for their home university. One of the easiest ways for that to happen is for the two universities involved to become exchange partners. So this is where we have concentrated our efforts recently.
We worked with our Academic Registrar and the International Affairs Office to develop an international summer school for service-learning, which we named One World Our World (OWOW). As the name hints at, the theme is respect for social diversity and inclusion, through participation in community engagement. Participating students will enroll in one of two service-learning subjects: “Community Engagement through Expressive Textile Arts and Fashion” (ITC2S02) or “Technology Beyond Borders: Service Learning across Cultural, Ethnic and Community Lines” (COMP2S01S). They will learn about the challenges faced by their target community and acquire knowledge and skills to serve them through an innovative service project. In collaboration with their peers and community members, they will actualize the project to create real impact. Through this service, students will learn to develop empathy and a sense of social responsibility. Supplementing the service project will be talks from world-renowned experts, open dialogues, interactive hands-on workshops and local field visits, on the theme of social diversity and inclusion.
In this age of “Make my country great!”, frantic arms race, cynical exploitation of other people’s natural resources, strive for racial, spiritual ad cultural purity, xenophobic nationalism, and more along the lines of self-preservation, it is all the more important to cultivate respect for diversity and inclusion among the younger generation. However, respect, acceptance, and compassion does not happen simply by lumping together young people from different countries together. If they are not well prepared, if the environment is not conducive, the opposite can happen. When they sign up to work towards a a meaningful goal in community engagement, the common goal unifies them, helping them transcend their differences. When they see how they can achieve great things by integrating their different strengths, they learn that respect for diversity is not just empty words. When they experience the joy of working together for a greater cause, they learn that fraternity of human kind is more than just a dream. This is what international service-learning, when done well, can achieve.
We worked out the arrangements to associate our program with PolyU’s International Summer School for summer 2020. Foreign students from PolyU student exchange partners will have their subject registration fees waived. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus hit, social distancing was imposed and PolyU decided to cancel the international summer school. We were busy making adjustments to our regular SL subjects, moving many service projects online so that the SL subjects do not need to be cancelled. We had no time and the manpower to make the necessary changes to offer the SL international summer school in another form. Hence we decided to shelf the program for 2020.
By 2021, social distancing has not yet been lifted. But we have had time to prepare and move a large part of the program moved online, while keeping some elements in person if possible. Because of the pandemic, the number of students from foreign universities participating is relatively small/ We suspect that for students, to participate in such a program at a foreign university completely online is something quite new and might not sound particularly attractive. But the program is popular with PolyU’s own foreign students. So we end up with quite a good range of students coming from many different countries.
By the same token, we have to thank the subject teachers, Dr. Jin Lam and Dr. Peter Ng, for having the courage to let foreign students into their class, and putting in the extra effort to make One World Our World a reality. Hurray to the pioneers.
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