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Service-Learning Advocacy

A significant part of the mission of the International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership (IPSL) is to promote the theory and practice of service-learning. To develop and promote service-learning in institutions of higher education around the world, IPSL:

• sponsors international conferences ;
• conducts research on the effect of service-learning on students, educational institutions and communities;
• offers consulting and technical assistance in all aspects of creating and maintaining service-learning programs;
• publishes curricular and other materials related to service-learning;
• conducts workshops & training seminars for faculty members and administrators;
• offers international networking and learning opportunities through membership in IPSL; and
• helps to develop partnerships between colleges/universities and service agencies, both locally and internationally, through various activities.

To learn more about service-learning, its value, and principles of good practice, we invite you to read the IPSL Declaration of Principles.

Opportunities for Involvement with IPSL

• Become a Member. As a member, you will join like-minded institutions in broadening the dialogue on international service-learning, engage in contact and collaboration with your peers around the world, receive information, ideas and assistance from IPSL, and have opportunities to provide your knowledge, experience, reflections and questions as peers to your fellow members as well as to IPSL as it fulfills its dual mission of advocacy and program development in the field.

• Send students on IPSL programs. Institutions around the world use IPSL programs to make service-learning available to their students in a wide variety of locations. IPSL programs create a powerful dynamic between direct cultural exposure and academic learning. Interaction with the community teaches students how the culture functions; time in the classroom teaches them why it functions as it does. By testing theory with practice, IPSL students find their learning takes on greater depth and meaning.

• Commission special programs. Institutions and organizations often ask IPSL to design and administer international service-learning programs especially designed for their students, teachers, or members. IPSL can make special arrangements in many of our program locations to respond to particular institutional needs for an international service-learning experience. Please contact the IPSL Dean of Academic Programs, Martha Merrill, to discuss.

• Participate in and/or cosponsor activities such as the biennial conference, training workshops for faculty members and/or service-learning and study-abroad officers on campus, and related meetings sponsored or co-sponsored by IPSL.

• Use—and possibly write for— IPSL publications such as newsletters, textbooks, monographs and training materials.