The Importance of Building Partnerships

IPSL has recently collaborated on writing a chapter that explores how best practices in service-learning partnerships apply to multi-layered collaboration in an international and interdisciplinary service-learning master’s degree program. The article is entitled "Institutional Networks and International Service-Learning at the Graduate Level" and will appear in the volume "Crossing Boundaries: Tension and Transformation in International Service-Learning."

Although service-learning has blossomed as an area of scholarly publication in the past 15 years or so, only a small slice of the resulting body of work has focused on the partnerships at the heart of service-learning.  Not surprisingly, the bulk of what has been published has focused on domestic service-learning, typically at the undergraduate level. 

For nearly 15 years, the International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership (IPSL) has offered a master’s program with a 16-week study abroad component and service-learning in both domestic and international universities and their surrounding communities. 

The International Partnership for Service-learning and Leadership (IPSL) is a non-profit international educational organization that works with four universities and The Intercultural Communication Institute to offer a master’s degree focused on international development and service.  Each of these universities (Portland State University in Portland, OR, University of Technology in Kingston, Jamaica, Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Quito and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, and the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Mexico), in turn partner with multiple non-governmental organizations to provide an extensive service-learning component to the curriculum.  Using the service-learning scholarship on partnerships, contributing authors from the IPSL network provide a case study of the IPSL master’s program. 

The authors reflect on which principles best apply to complex international service-learning partnerships and suggest modifications to ensure cultural competency and reciprocity in service-learning across borders.