Intercultural Communication Institute

40 | The Intercultural Approach to Service-Learning

This workshop provides a broad view of service-learning programs and how intercultural communication concepts and training techniques can be used to prepare students and faculty for service in communities both within the U.S. and internationally.

Designed for
Faculty and administrators who are conducting or designing service-learning programs within the higher education environment.

Review the application of intercultural communication theories within international and domestic service-learning programs
Examine techniques for developing intercultural competence in service-learning participants
Design programs that include intercultural training techniques and an intercultural approach
Consider transition issues that occur within international service-learning programs
Explore ways of establishing lasting relationships with community agencies both at home and abroad
Identify ways to evaluate programs and consider what it is possible to measure in terms of anticipated and unanticipated outcomes

Learning Activities
This interactive workshop will include:

Presentations on how intercultural theory complementsservice-learning programs
Critiques ofexisting program designs that participants bring to the workshop and exploration of how to design service-learning with an intercultural approach
Discussion of challenges and teachable moments in service-learning
Discovery of resources that can be useful in designing and planning service-learning programs

Faculty: Martha Merrill and Margaret Pusch

Dr. Martha Merrill is the dean of academic programs at the International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership (www.ipsl.org). She has been involved with service-learning since 1982, including serving for seventeen years on the Partnership board of directors, and she is the author of a number of articles, chapters, and papers on service-learning. Martha previously prepared graduate students at the School for International Training in Vermont to become international educators, spent a year as a Visiting Scholar at the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center at Indiana University, lived and worked in the Kygyz Republic for five years, and was a founding faculty member of the New College for Global Studies at Radford University in Virginia. She is a member of the executive committee of the board of the Alliance of Universities for Democracy (www.audem.org), a consortium of universities in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the U.S.

Margaret D. (Peggy) Pusch is a member of the board of directors of the Intercultural Communication Institute, executive director of SIETAR USA, and an active trainer in the U.S. and Europe. She co-founded and was president of Intercultural Press, Inc. Her recent publications include “Intercultural Training in Historical Perspective,” for the 3rd edition of the Handbook of Intercultural Training, and Culture Matters: An International Educational Perspective, with Jeanine Hermanns. She has been president of NAFSA: Association of International Educators and SIETAR USA, and is currently chair of the board of trustees of the International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership, and a member of the board of directors of the Association for International Practical Training. In 2005 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from SIETAR Europa and the Optime Merens de Collegis award from SIETAR USA.