SRU students, staff present at GSL Summit

Nov. 26, 2019

Slippery Rock University staff, students and community partners jointly presented at the Global Service-Learning Summit at Clemson University earlier this month.

SRU presenters from the Office for Community-Engaged Learning included student Experiential Learning Facilitators Nikol Damato, a senior dual history and interdisciplinary programs major from Ellwood City, and Samantha Houser, a graduate student majoring in student affairs in higher education from Slippery Rock. Jeffrey Rathlef, director of the OCEL, and Bibi Al-Ebrahim, education director for Amizade, SRU's community partner, also co-presented.

The SRU team's presentation, titled "From Doing Reflection to Being Reflective: Activating Student Leadership, Ethical engagement, and Civic Imagination," showcased SRU's global service-learning program model, which emphasizes critical reflection and reframes the roles of student leaders as critical reflection facilitators. They also discussed the practice of fair-trade learning as a basis for ethical global community engagement.

Hosted as a collaboration between Clemson's Office of Global Engagement and Campus Connect, a national coalition of colleges and universities, the GSL Summit provided global service-learning practitioners best practices for sustainable community-campus partnerships.