1 Community-Academic Equity in Service Learning: The TCCBE/U-Links Approach

Typical North American approaches to service learning are student-centered, institutionally based and emphasize a charitable approach- reinforcing stereotypes about who holds the power. The TCCBE and U-Links independent broker approach balances student and community needs to ensure all stakeholders benefit. Competing Self-Interests in Service Learning What makes higher education civic engagement challenging? The ideal civic engagement model would provide students with life-altering experiential education, faculty with inspiring new pedagogical models, higher education institutions with new educational programs, and communities with enhanced capacity and power. Crafting a practice that serves those diverse interests can be truly daunting. Ever since Ernest Boyer called for greater student civic engagement in 1987, the dominant North American service learning model has emphasized student education, often at the expense of host communities. Consequently, students do not receive training that could suppor