This volume is grounded in the fundamental belief that the robust implementation of service-learning in leadership education is a powerful tool to educate students about service and leadership while also contributing to community impact. The complementarity of service-learning pedagogy with leadership education is clear. For example, we find leadership connections to service-learning in:

• The emphasis on building inclusive leadership processes built on trust from the relational leadership model (Komives, Lucas, & McMahon, 2013)
• The collaborative process among individuals, groups, and communities advocated by the social change model of leadership development (Higher Education Research Institution [HERI], 1996; Komives, Wagner, & Associates, 2009)
• The importance of sharing power and expecting personal growth by all parties of transformational leadership (Burns, 1978)
• The ability to discern whether challenges require technical or adaptive solutions from adaptive leadership (Heifitz & Linsky, 2002)

Realizing student learning and community outcomes, however, requires theoretical foundations and intentional design and implementation of service-learning principles.

This volume of New Directions for Student Leadership provides both theory and practice to guide service-learning integration into both academic and cocurricular leadership initiatives for high school and college students. The content and examples provided here emphasize how leadership outcomes are enhanced through high-quality application of service-learning. The text is primarily useful for educators and facilitators who want to expand their service-learning expertise and for service-learning educators and facilitators who want to amplify the leadership outcomes of their efforts. Additionally, community leaders in the nonprofit and local government sector who work regularly with student leaders will find this volume to be a useful window into the theory and practice of leadership and service-learning, which will deepen their capacities as coeducators.

The editors and contributors of this volume operate from a shared conception of service-learning. As a form of experiential learning (Kolb, 1981), service-learning links community service to student learning objectives, includes ongoing reflection, and is grounded in reciprocal community partnerships in which all parties benefit (Jacoby & Associates, 1996). Service-learning can occur in both academic and cocurricular settings, and, the distinction between community service and service-learning is whether or not an experience fulfills the service-learning essentials identified in the definition. Service-learning embedded in leadership education must:

• Specify student learning and development outcomes that link service to academic content.
• Include critical reflection throughout the experience that both challenges and supports students’ personal insights, theoretical understandings, and leadership practice.
• Be grounded in reciprocal partnerships with the community, characterized by a primary concern for positive community impact.
• Encourage student leadership as both a process and product of service-learning.
• Engage students and community partners in purposeful action that addresses both immediate and/or systemic change issues.

About This Volume

The chapters in this volume address these five key elements of service-learning by offering both theoretical frameworks and practical advice. The opening chapter, by the volume editors, provides a theoretical orientation to the intersections of the theory and practice of leadership and service-learning. Grounded in a critical perspective, the authors articulate a set of values to guide leadership educators in their service-learning practice.

Chapter 2 by Corey Seemiller, “Complementary Learning Objectives: The Common Competencies of Leadership and Service-Learning,” explores the literature on leadership competencies and describes the intersection between the student learning outcomes of service-learning and those competencies. With this knowledge in place, educators can identify which objectives fit their course or program and make intentional choices about the nature of the service-learning projects that will best fit those goals.

Chapter 3, by Julie E. Owen, asserts community engagement creates opportunities for discussion that encourage a critical social justice lens. While engaging students in reflective thinking is not new for leadership educators, service-learning introduces distinct elements to that practice. Potential reflection topics include: the nature and sources of power, who benefits and who is silenced by service and leadership efforts, and the difference between charity and justice. Owen offers practical advice about developmentally sequencing reflective practice.

Developing sustainable community partnerships for service-learning may be a learning area for leadership educators. In Chapter 4, Jennifer M. Pigza focuses on impact-oriented community partnerships that are aimed at long-term engagement rather than stand-alone projects. Here, the POWERful Community Engagement framework—which stands for partnerships, objectives, working, evaluation, and reflection—offers a theory-based practical guide to community partnerships.

With conceptions of learning outcomes, reflection, and community partnerships established, Magali Garcia-Pletsch and Nicholas Longo offer their chapter, “Beyond Tactical Service-Learning: Student Leadership and the Promise of Democratic Engagement,” in which they argue for service-learning to reach its democratic potential by unleashing the power of student leadership in a democratic educational process inspired by the Highlander Folk School.

The last three chapters of this volume provide case studies of service-learning in leadership education that engage students and community partners in purposeful action. In Chapter 6, Eric Hartman shares the experience of his two-semester leadership course designed around community-centered and justice-oriented principles. In this example, students are assigned a global issue of injustice and work in teams to develop educational outreach strategies. Through this process, students strengthen their leadership knowledge, clarify their passions, and hone practical skills.

Mentoring is a popular service-learning activity, and in Chapter 7, Lindsay Hastings describes a strengths-based mentoring program designed to create a cascading effect of leadership development: college students mentor youth, who then mentor other youth. The objective for the college students is to identify leadership talents within their mentees, develop their leadership capacities, and direct their developed leadership toward positive reinvestment in others.

The final chapter in this volume is a case study by Vicki Ferrence Ray of the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY). This leadership development program for high school students is grounded in the social change model of leadership (HERI, 1996) and service-learning methodology. HOBY believes that leadership is action, not title or position, and that no matter a person's age, role, or sector, effective positive leadership is ultimately service to humanity.

Conclusions and Points of Departure

We hope that this volume expands your knowledge about the possibilities and practice of service-learning in leadership education. As you progress through this volume, we encourage you to engage these questions: What social change is required in local, regional, national, and international communities? What kind of leadership does the world demand? What type of service-learning is best reflective of the leadership you espouse?

While the definition of service-learning provides a common ground, it is also a departure point. As Mitchell (2008) has noted, there is a debate in service-learning literature and practice that seems to “divide service-learning into two camps—a traditional approach that emphasizes service without attention to systems of inequality, and a critical approach that is unapologetic in its aim to dismantle structures of injustice” (p. 50). As we editors review the complexity of social issues, the challenges of youth, and the narratives that guide notions of leadership and change, we affirm our belief that a critical approach to leadership and service-learning engenders the development of powerful skills and capacities that can address the systemic social justice issues of our age. This volume provides lessons and guideposts for the journey.

Wendy Wagner
Jennifer M. Pigza
Editors

References

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3. Higher Education Research Institute. (1996). A social change model of leadership development (Version III). Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute.
4. Jacoby, B., & Associates. (1996). Service-learning in higher education: Concepts and practices. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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