<p><font color="#33711E"><strong>Day 2 - Session 4A: Reinventing Higher Education through International Service Learning</strong></font></p>

Queen's Park 1, 16:00 - 17:30

16:00 - 16:20
4.A.1 The Global University's Role in Building Social Capital
Stephen Owen
University of British Columbia, Canada

Democratic government can be regarded as the pluralistic respect for citizens empowered to self-govern within a framework of laws. The reality of modern democratic governance is that a shift is taking place from a highly representative government to a more participatory form of democracy. Indeed, today no democratic government can operate without the positive engagement of a range of non-state actors: civil society, the market, academia, professionals and others. This paper will consider how a complex governance dynamic can be facilitated, domestically and globally, by the public university moving beyond its traditional role of a builder of intellectual capital to a builder of social capital (those norms of behaviour and processes of accommodation that allow a complex and often conflicted community to progress together). Issues to be discussed include: the unique characteristics of the public university in facilitating social capital and good governance; the principal-agent relationship in development; the local to global relevance of community service learning; the learning exchange from reconciliation traditions among indigenous cultures; the power of sport in international peace and development; the role of global public universities in terms of the Millennium Development Goals; and the parallel challenges confronting developed and developing country poverty profiles.

16:20 - 16:40
4.A.2 The Scholarship of International Service Learning: Implications for Participatory Development Projects and Teaching in Higher Education
Leonora Angeles
University of British Columbia, Canada

Scholarly approaches to teaching and learning enable individual faculty members and their institutions to develop better programmes, improve the quality of student learning and professional training, and effectively evaluate the learning strategies that work best under specific contexts. The scholarship of teaching (SoTL), on the other hand, brings scholarly teaching to the next stage of more rigorous engagement by producing and disseminating pedagogical research in peer reviewed contexts, just as journal publications, conferences and other practices of different learning communities. While the immediate sites for SoTL would be classrooms, schools colleges, universities and other institutions of formal education, there are also many types of teaching and learning processes that take place beyond the classroom walls. SoTL principles and processes can also be used in analyzing the scholarship (read: quality, rigor, erudition) of teaching and learning in community service learning, whether this is led by universities or non-government education, or of co-operative education, practicum and internship programmes. The potential applicability of SoTL to a variety of curricular practices is explored in this paper by examining the scholarship of teaching and learning within international development projects based on North-South University-Community partnerships that contribute to participatory development through capacity building goals and objectives. This paper analyses the SoTL in international partnership projects as a form of International Service Learning. There are many lessons to be learned from the implications of SoTL in promoting participatory development work within Universities.

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16:40 - 17:00
4.A.3. Linking Health-Profession Education to Participatory and Sustainable Development through International Service Learning
Shafik Dharamsi
University of British Columbia, Canada

The question of how to better educate future health professionals to respond effectively to inequities in health and healthcare is a challenging issue facing educators today. Health profession education prepares future practitioners in the biomedical sciences and enables them to gain skills in the recognition, diagnosis and clinical treatment of illness. There is growing concern, however, that it does not adequately prepare future health workers to respond effectively to the non-medical influences on health, the main healthcare needs of their communities, and the health of vulnerable and disadvantaged populations. This paper will explore opportunities and challenges for preparing the next generation of health professionals to be socially responsive. It will focus on lessons to be learned from the use and impact of service-learning as an experiential and transformative pedagogy.