Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

Fall 2015, pp.32-47

Decoding Ourselves: An Inquiry into Faculty Learning About
Reciprocity in Service-Learning
Janice Miller-Young, Yasmin Dean, Melanie Rathburn, Jennifer Pettit,
Margot Underwood, Judy Gleeson, Roberta Lexier, Victoria Calvert
Mount Royal University
Patti Clayton
PHC Ventures
Faculty learning about service-learning is an important area of research because understanding how faculty
develop their practice is an important first step in improving student learning outcomes and relationships
with community members. Enacting reciprocity in service-learning can be particularly troublesome because
it requires faculty to learn to develop courses and partnerships in counternormative ways. This article reports
on an approach to investigating and generating faculty learning – in our case about the threshold concept of
reciprocity – through a group self-study process that included a new-to-the-field interview method developed
for Decoding the Disciplines (Pace & Middendorf, 2004) followed by individual and then group reflection.
Our self-study resulted in new perspectives and new awareness related to the value of examining the concept
of reciprocity and the role of group dialogue in generating learning – although the specific nature of these
changes was somewhat different for each of us – and analysis shows that that the Decoding interview and
the multidisciplinary nature of our group were important in developing the trust necessary for this study to
generate learning. We suggest that further collaborative inquiry within and across different service-learning
and community engagement contexts could yield new insights about the value of using and integrating methods from self-study and ethnography for faculty professional development and research on faculty learning
and could advance our collective understanding of the dynamics of co-learning and co-generation of knowledge within but also transcending SLCE.

Faculty involvement with service-learning and
1

community engagement (SLCE) is often motivated
by a desire to participate in and learn from community partnerships (Colbeck & Janke, 2006; Janke,
2009; O’Meara, 2013). However, doing so requires
faculty to learn to develop courses and partnerships
in counternormative ways (Clayton & Ash, 2004;
Howard, 1998). As Clayton, Hess, Jaeger, Jameson,
and McGuire (2013) point out, “service learning pedagogy requires and fosters learning – often transformational, paradigm-shifting learning – on the part of
everyone involved, including faculty” (p. 245).
Chism, Palmer, and Price (2013) suggest that we
need to better understand how faculty learn about
and through service-learning (SL) and how to support them in their learning. While some studies have
focused on the content and process of faculty learning in SL (see Clayton et al., 2013 for an overview),
few have focused on the potential of co-learning
through multidisciplinary faculty learning communities (for examples, see Lattuca & Creamer, 2005;
McGuire, Strong, Lay, Ardemagni, Wittberg, &
Clayton, 2009). Faculty studying their own learning
32

has much potential for advancing research and practice in SLCE, and the question of how faculty might
conceptualize, generate, and investigate their own
learning requires further exploration.
This article presents a self-study approach to
inquiry into faculty learning in SLCE. The study was
undertaken by seven faculty members from diverse
disciplines at Mount Royal University in Calgary,
Canada, in collaboration with two “critical friends”
(Russell, 2009) who have experience conducting and
supporting the scholarship of teaching and learning
within and beyond SLCE. Each of the seven of us
leads global service-learning (GSL) courses and has
a particular interest in the concept of reciprocity,
including how it manifests in both domestic and
international partnerships. The study focuses on our
learning about reciprocity in large part because of the
difficulties we have experienced internalizing it,
practicing it authentically, and helping students
understand its complexities. Further, Harrison,
Clayton, and Tilley-Lubbs (2014) propose that reciprocity may be a threshold concept for faculty learning about the pedagogy of SL and call for “ongoing

Reciprocity in Service-Learning

inquiry … into the processes by which such concepts
are learned” (p. 13). Previous work done at Mount
Royal University on threshold concepts and other
ways of understanding the challenges associated with
learning difficult concepts (e.g., Boman, Currie,
MacDonald, Miller-Young, Yeo, & Zettel, 2015)
leads us to be intrigued by this framing and eager to
contribute to this line of inquiry vis-a-vis SLCE.
We elected to explore our learning through the use of
an interview method from Decoding the Disciplines
(Pace & Middendorf, 2004), which was developed to
help faculty articulate their thinking about a difficult
concept so as to make it more visible and explicit and
thus, in turn, enable them to better help their students
move toward a transformed understanding of the concept. Although our initial intent was to uncover each
group member’s thinking about reciprocity at the time
of the interview and then track changes over time, we
found that the probing nature of the interview itself, and
the deep reflection it generated, led to changes in our
understanding of reciprocity. Therefore, the research
question this article addresses is how a collaborative
self-study process among faculty generates learning –
in our case, about reciprocity. This study contributes to
SLCE and the scholarship of teaching and learning by
using the Decoding method in a different field of practice to focus on the particular concept of reciprocity and
as an innovative method for multidisciplinary selfstudy of faculty learning. To date, Decoding work has
typically focused on cognitive bottlenecks in specific
disciplines such as humanities, history, and geology
(e.g., Ardizzone, Breithaupt, & Gutjahr, 2004;
Shopkow, Diaz, Middendorf, & Pace, 2012; Zhu,
Rehrey, Treadwell, & Johnson, 2012) and, to our
knowledge, has not been used in SLCE or to investigate
faculty learning around the concept of reciprocity.
We believe this approach can help practitionerscholars – indeed, all partners in SLCE – reflect critically on and deepen understanding of key concepts
– such as, but not limited to, reciprocity – and therefore has potential for enriching professional development, improving the practice of SLCE, and advancing research. After reviewing selected literature related to faculty learning in general and to learning the
threshold concept of reciprocity specifically, we
share our self-study approach (including the
Decoding interview method), the learning the
process generated amongst our group, and how shifts
in our understanding of reciprocity occurred. We
then offer reflections on our learning processes and
outcomes and also pose questions for further inquiry.

& Ash, 2004; Clayton et al., 2013). Strategies to support faculty learning include faculty development
programs such as workshops, consultations, and
communities of practice (see Chism et al., 2013 for
an overview). However, Neumann (2000) raises concerns about traditional faculty development initiatives because they “rarely position individual professors as potential sources of their own professional
development, assuming, instead, that development is
best done to them” (p. 1). Furthermore, O’Meara and
Terosky (2010) argue that “faculty members’ learning happens only when they have a hand in making
that learning happen” (p. 45). Clayton and colleagues
(2013) similarly suggest that innovative faculty
learning interventions be explored, including
approaches that are self-directed and co-created
within a community of co-learners. Since the literature suggests learning about, teaching with, and partnering in SL is potentially transformative for faculty
(Clayton & Ash, 2004), one way to conceptualize
their learning is through the lens of perspective transformation (Mezirow, 1978, 1990) that occurs when
learning a paradigm-shifting, or “threshold,” concept.
The term “threshold concepts” grew out of work in
the United Kingdom led by Meyer and Land (2003,
2005). It originally referred to those concepts in each
discipline that must be learned before one can think
like an expert in that discipline; it is also being used to
explore the challenges faculty face in learning new
pedagogies and practices, including but not limited to
SL (e.g., Bunnell & Bernstein, 2012; King & Felten,
2012; Webb, 2015). Threshold concepts are transformative of one’s understanding and, accordingly, troublesome to one’s previous understanding, requiring
movement through a liminal space in which one must
let go of one’s prevailing way of seeing and prior
understanding (Meyer & Land, 2003). In other words,
while difficult to learn, once learned they open new
possibilities for understanding and practice.
The work on threshold concepts has theoretical
underpinnings in transformative learning theory
(Mezirow, 1978). Mezirow (1990) defines transformation as:
the process of becoming critically aware of how
and why our presuppositions have come to constrain the way we perceive, understand, and feel
about our world; of reformulating these assumptions to permit a more inclusive, discriminating,
permeable and integrative perspective; and of
making decisions or otherwise acting on these
new understandings. (p.14)

Faculty Learning about Reciprocity

And he articulates (overlapping) phases of the
process as including:

The counternormative nature of SL fosters learning not only by students but also by faculty (Clayton

… disorienting dilemma, self-examination, critical assessment of assumptions, recognition of

33

Miller-Young et al.
discontent, exploration of new roles, planning of
a course of action, acquisition of knowledge and
skills for new roles, increased competence and
self-confidence in new roles, and reintegration
of new perspectives into one’s life. (2010, p. 94)

Mezirow (1978) sees transformation as being triggered by a disorienting dilemma, which unsettles and
challenges our existing meaning schemes, followed
by critical reflection or critical self-reflection on
one’s assumptions and taken for granted interpretations. However, critical reflection may not always
generate transformative learning, especially if it is
undertaken in isolation from others, since “personal
meanings that we attribute to our experience are
acquired and validated through human interaction
and communication” (Mezirow, 1991, p. xiv). In
other words, the meaning found inside the learner
may become transformed in significant ways through
discourse with others. Mezirow (1997) even goes so
far as to say that discourse “is necessary to validate
what and how one understands, or to arrive at a best
judgment regarding a belief,” concluding that “in this
sense, learning is a social process, and discourse
becomes central to meaning making” (p. 10).
Collaborative self-study is a process that can generate the necessary critical reflection, make space for
the required discourse, and not only answer the call
for a better understanding of how faculty members
learn about and through SLCE but also serve as a
method to generate their learning. It entails an examination of one’s beliefs and actions as an educator
(Whitehead, 1993), using a systematic and critical
research process to examine one’s practices (Foot,
Crowe, Tollafield, & Allan, 2014; Samaras & Freese,
2009). While a self-study’s focus on the self may
raise concerns about inappropriate subjectivity in
research, Bullough and Pinnegar (2001) counter such
concerns by arguing that “the aim of self-study
research is to provoke, challenge, and illuminate
rather than confirm and settle” (p. 20). LaBoskey
(2004) provides a comprehensive discussion of selfstudy method and articulates five key elements fundamental to high quality self-study: the process
should be (a) self-focused and self-initiated, (b)
aimed at improvement, (c) interactive, (d) inclusive
of multiple qualitative methods; and (e) validated
through a process of scrutiny by peers. Russell
(2009) also offers that self-study should include
“critical friends to ensure that data is interpreted from
a range of perspectives” (p. 76). While individual
self-study is common in some disciplines, such as
teacher education, Kitchen and Ciuffetelli Parker
(2009) suggest that the process can have greater
impact if conducted within collaborative communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Following
LaBoskey’s guidelines, we used a group self-study
34

approach to inquire into how we ourselves understand and learn about the concept of reciprocity.
Although central to domestic and global SLCE,
reciprocity has multiple, contested meanings in the
SLCE literature (Dostilio, Brackmann, Edwards,
Harrison, Kliewer, & Clayton, 2012). We find particularly useful the distinction between “thin” and
“thick” versions of reciprocity that highlights the
value of moving beyond mutual benefit to co-creation (Clayton et al., 2013):
Minimally, reciprocity requires that everyone
involved in the process benefit. Beyond mutual
benefit, reciprocity in its “thick” (Jameson et al.,
2011, p. 264) form means that students, community members, and faculty share voice and
authority in determining questions, defining
approaches, and contributing to knowledge construction and dissemination; through their interactions with one another they all experience
learning that leads to new ways of thinking, perceiving and acting (Donahue, Bowyer, &
Rosenberg, 2003; Saltmarsh, Hartley, &
Clayton, 2009). In other words, reciprocity in SL
ultimately means that all participants are co-educators, co-learners, and co-generators of knowledge (Hess et al., 2011, Jameson et al., 2011;
Kirby, 2010; Mondloch, 2009). (p. 246)

This understanding of reciprocity often entails a new
way of thinking for academics given pervasive norms
that “reinforce the distinct identities of faculty as
educators and generators of knowledge, students as
learners, and community members as recipients of
academic expertise” (Clayton et al., 2013, p. 246). It
involves an “epistemological shift that values not
only expert knowledge that is rational, analytic, and
positivist, but also values a different kind of rationality that is more relational, localized, contextual, and
favors mutual deference between laypersons and academics” (Saltmarsh, Hartley, & Clayton, 2009, pp. 910). Tilley-Lubbs’ (2009) autoethnographic examination of her own teaching with SL has been used to
demonstrate how learning to partner reciprocally can
be transformative, troublesome, and involve liminality – suggesting that reciprocity understood as cocreation may be a threshold concept for faculty learning about SL (Harrison & Clayton, 2012; Harrison et
al., 2014).
If reciprocity is indeed a threshold concept, then
faculty coming to understand it – especially in its
“thick” framing – may involve transformative learning. Accounts of faculty members’ struggles with the
concept of reciprocity (e.g., Sharpe & Dear, 2013;
Tilley-Lubbs, 2009) indicate that more research on
how it is learned and more support in implementing
it are both needed. Enhancing our understanding and
our practice of reciprocity is important for faculty

Reciprocity in Service-Learning

teaching with SLCE because of the likelihood and
consequences of unintended negative outcomes and
the tendency for “students and universities to benefit
more than the communities where service takes
place” (Crabtree, 2008. p. 25). In addition to quality
and impact of partnerships, the stakes also include
student learning; as Giles and Eyler (2013) argue,
“we are not likely to see powerful research on student
outcomes in service-learning without a better understanding of how to enhance implementation of effective practice by faculty” (p. 59).
However, learning this concept may not be experienced by everyone in the same ways (Harrison et al.,
2014). In fact, Meyer and Land (2006) acknowledge
that the defining features of threshold concepts might
be applicable in various degrees depending on the
concept and the learner. To better understand these
complexities, further study of faculty learning about
reciprocity as a threshold concept is warranted. Here,
we explore an approach to inquiry into such learning.
Our purpose is to share insights about the process
and the outcomes in order to contribute to knowledge
in SLCE about methods of advancing and investigating faculty learning around this and other challenging concepts.

Our Process
Our self-study stemmed from a multidisciplinary
faculty learning community on GSL that we formed
to learn more about the pedagogy and each others’
projects. We were especially interested in similarities
and differences among our courses and wanted, in
particular, to explore dimensions of our practice
related to reciprocity – a value we were all committed
to but also finding difficult to understand and enact.
One group member suggested it would be helpful, to
us and to other practitioner-scholars in SLCE, to
study ourselves and our understanding of reciprocity
more formally. To enhance trustworthiness of the
study, two colleagues (who are first and last coauthors of this article) with backgrounds in SLCE
and the scholarship of teaching and learning –
Miller-Young and Clayton – were invited to contribute to all stages of the project – design, implementation, analysis, and article authorship.
Importantly, they also served as critical friends, helping to ensure analysis from perspectives beyond the
seven instructors whose learning is the focus of this
study. The participation in data analysis and in the
writing of this article by all nine authors served as a
form of member checking that adds credibility to the
study (Creswell & Miller, 2000). During the early
phase of our group’s formation, three prospective
participants withdrew from the project; two cited
time limitations, competing research demands, and

health issues, and the third identified concerns with
the proposed research method.
The seven faculty members who participated in the
self-study have varying levels of experience with
SLCE and come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds: biology, business, history, Indigenous studies, nursing, and social work. Each has taught a field
school, which is an experiential learning opportunity
that enhances coursework with a cross-cultural experience that occurs partially on the home campus and
also for a defined period of time in a host community.
While not all are officially designated as SL at
Mount Royal University, field schools all have some
of the components of the pedagogy, such as partnerships with host communities. Our field schools took
place in Canada (Pettit), the Cook Islands (Calvert),
the Dominican Republic (Gleeson and Underwood),
Honduras (Lexier and Rathburn), and India (Dean).
Data Generation
Data collection for this study consisted of three
stages: (a) conducting, audio recording, and transcribing Decoding interviews; (b) reviewing our own
transcripts, completing individual written reflections
on the interview process (referred to here as “interview reflections”), sharing them with one another,
and discussing common themes; and (c) completing
additional individual written reflections on the selfstudy process overall (referred to here as “individual
self-study reflections”), followed by an audio recorded and transcribed group discussion.
Decoding interviews. Similar to the work on threshold concepts, the Decoding the Disciplines framework (Pace & Middendorf, 2004) was created as a
means to study “bottleneck” or difficult concepts. The
crucial mental operations an instructor uses when
thinking about or enacting a difficult concept are
explored through a semi-structured interview – a
Decoding interview – that helps her to uncover and
articulate her own thinking process (Pace &
Middendorf, 2004). With reciprocity as the focal concept, we explored our thinking both through the
Decoding interview itself and through a combination
of individual and collaborative reflection on the interview and the self-study process more generally. In
contrast to the purpose of Decoding the Disciplines –
to surface how an instructor thinks about a difficult
concept so as to better help her students to understand
it – our primary purpose (although we certainly do
anticipate that outcome) was to examine changes in
our understanding of the concept and how they
occurred so that we and other SLCE practitionerscholars might better understand our own learning
processes and better enact reciprocity.
The Decoding interview protocol (see Shopkow,
Diaz, & Pace, 2013) requires two interviewers, at least
35

Miller-Young et al.

one of whom is unfamiliar with the discipline and/or
concept under investigation. This cross-disciplinary
approach is meant to help push the interviewee to ever
more precise articulation of her thinking. Questions
focus on how the interviewee thinks about the difficult
concept, getting her to unpack her thinking process as
much as possible. Interviewers use questions such as
“How do you do that?” (e.g., make a particular type of
connection between ideas, discern a complexity
implicit in the concept), probing at the place where the
interviewee cannot explain and reflecting a summary
of her thinking back to her at an abstract level. For
example, after Underwood described some of the early
experiences that shaped her philosophy about working
with community partners, an interviewer asked: “So is
it fair to say that some of your initial concerns were
fairly practical and then the deeper you got into things
the more philosophical and value driven you
became?” The interview continues until the interviewers have no further questions or the interviewee cannot
explain her thinking any further.
For this project, each self-study group member was
interviewed after the conclusion of her 2014 GSL
course. The first four interviews were conducted by
two interviewers external to the self-study group and
experienced with the Decoding interview protocol.
The remaining four were conducted either by one of
these external interviewers and one of the first four
interviewees or by two of the initial interviewees
(who had watched other interviews until they became
comfortable interviewing). In all cases at least one
interviewer represented a different academic discipline than that of the interviewee.
During the interviews, after the initial question was
posed about how the interviewee tries to enact reciprocity in her SLCE partnerships, each of us started
drawing upon examples from our past experiences to
illustrate our understanding of reciprocity. Since the
structure of the interview involves continually pushing the interviewee to explain further, the questions
emerge as the interview progresses. As an example,
in one case, after an interviewee described how she
believed she had developed a strong partner relationship, one of the two interviewers followed up with:
“How do you evaluate that the relationship is still
strong, either while you are preparing for the next
course or while you are out there with the students
and with the community?” and “Do you consciously
and explicitly go through that evaluation process?”
After an interviewee described a difficult experience
in which she had not enacted reciprocity, an interviewer asked: “What was it about that experience that
bothered you or caused you to think that?” and
“What would you do differently next time?” When
any interviewee used a new word she had not yet
explained (e.g., “reflexive,” “leadership,” “flexibili36

ty”) an interviewer asked “What do you mean by
[that word]?” and “Can you explain your thinking
about how [that word] relates to reciprocity?”
Interviews ranged from 50 to 86 minutes. Transcripts
of each member’s interview were made available to
other members of the self-study team after completion of her own interview and interview reflection.
Interview reflections. To explore the utility of the
Decoding interview method for uncovering and
deepening our thinking about reciprocity, each participant independently reviewed her interview transcript and then wrote an “interview reflection” guided by two questions: (a) Where in the interview were
you pushed and/or did you come to a realization that
surprised you? and (b) How did the process of the
interview and/or points of discomfort change how
you might structure future field school SL projects?
These written reflections were shared with the group,
and, in order to identify and explore common themes,
we subsequently engaged in a series of informal
group discussions of one another’s thinking and interview experiences.
Self-study reflections. Through these conversations
we quickly realized that the interview process and
our written and collaborative reflection on it had
caused our perspectives on reciprocity to shift. We
were becoming more aware of our own and each
other’s assumptions and perspectives and thus began
to wonder whether or not we might be experiencing
transformative learning (Mezirow, 1991). We, therefore, set out to examine further how the Decoding
interview and self-study process had influenced our
understandings of reciprocity by completing individual self-study reflections structured with the DEAL
model of critical reflection (Ash & Clayton, 2009) in
which we each (a) Described our experience of the
self-study; (b) Examined that experience by responding to the prompt “what parts of this process have
been most useful to your learning about reciprocity
and what themes emerged from your experience?”;
and (c) Articulated our Learning using the standard
prompts for this step – “What did you learn?”, “How
did you learn it?”, “Why does that learning matter?”,
and “What will you do as a result of this learning?”
The depth of our first group discussions, following
individual reflection on the interviews, led to the
decision to audio record and transcribe the dialogue
in the collaborative reflection on the self-study
process. In a 90-minute group meeting, we shared
our thinking in these individual self-study reflections
orally and discussed common themes, similarities,
and differences.
Data Analysis
Our original purpose in engaging in the Decoding
interview was to better understand our own thinking

Reciprocity in Service-Learning

about reciprocity. However, we came to see the
Decoding interview itself as a “disorienting dilemma” (Mezirow, 1978, 1990) that generated deeper
learning. After completing the iterative process of
individual written reflections and group discussions
described above, we conducted a formal analysis of
our thinking as it had been captured in the reflective
writing and discussion transcripts.
Our analysis, conveyed in the next two sections, had
two foci. The first focus was on changes in our understandings of the concept of reciprocity, which we
determined by comparing our baseline understandings
expressed in the Decoding interview transcripts
(informed by previous experience) with our changing
understandings expressed in individual and group
reflection products. The second was on specific ways
in which the study itself contributed to those changes,
which we determined by examining all of the data
sources for indicators of sources of these changes.
After an initial inductive reading of all the data
strengthened our emerging sense of ourselves as
undergoing transformative learning, we conducted a
qualitative content analysis (Glaser & Laudel, 2013)
and coded for transformation using Mezirow’s (2010)
suggestion that a narrative analysis should look for
evidence of questioning one’s own thinking, shifts in
perspectives, changes in points of view or assumptions, analysis of assumptions, and new awareness and
openness to other worldviews. Finally, having documented some evidence of changed as well as
unchanged understandings of reciprocity, we then
examined the data for specific aspects of the process
that participants found to be particularly influential.

Our Learning
Regardless of discipline and SLCE experience, all
of us had thought about reciprocity during past partnership experiences; the self-study process instigated
new thinking for all of us while leaving some of our
prior understandings intact. In our individual and
group reflections, we found evidence of each of us
questioning our assumptions about reciprocity, shifting our perspectives, expanding our awareness, and
becoming open to other worldviews, which led to
planning new courses of action. In this section we
illustrate some examples of how our understandings
of reciprocity did and did not change through the
self-study process.
In their Decoding interviews, Rathburn and Lexier
shared an initial belief that they had structured their
course reciprocally because they had consulted with
local community members and decided upon tasks
that aligned with their partner’s requests. During one
of these tasks – building a bridge for local school
children – they witnessed how attempts to engage in

reciprocity can go awry. To get the job done quickly
their students started building a bridge for the community. But they did so before the community members were present, and it turned out to be improperly
placed. It was only when community members were
working with the students to build the bridge in a better location that the task was completed successfully.
Sharing this experience in the Decoding interview
process led to further discussion about shifting SLCE
projects from doing for to doing with community
partners. After recalling this experience of how they
had focused primarily on meeting the needs of community partners, they began to realize some of the
problematic aspects of this activity and how they had
defaulted to a deficit-based perspective of the community, which may have also influenced their students’ thinking. During the Decoding process
Rathburn reflected that she “was trying to not put too
much ownership on the partners and not trying to put
too much work on their end”; her insight – “I was trying to do most of it myself so that we could just help
them - I guess that is helping them instead of working
with them” – demonstrates the complexity and
importance of aligning our motivations with our
actions as we try to engage in reciprocal partnerships
in SLCE.
Gleeson, for whom reciprocal approaches were
part of her disciplinary training in nursing, experienced a different kind of change. She expressed in
her interview that she was fairly comfortable with her
ability to enact reciprocity with her community partners, stating:
I just naturally do it…it is a way of being with
clients…. It is just part of how I practice… we
are constantly checking in that we are on track,
that this is what they want, and is there anything
else that we could be doing?

However, she later commented in her self-study
reflection that thinking more about the concept of
tacit knowledge as a result of this study “made me
really think ‘Hey, am I really doing it, or am I just
saying I am doing it? If I am, how do I do that?’” and
helped her realize the importance of more explicitly
modeling reciprocal approaches with communities
for her students – for example, by encouraging students to frequently ask community members “checkin” questions regarding the suitability of a planned
project and to modify their plans accordingly.
Underwood described a new appreciation of how
reciprocity is a difficult concept for students to grasp.
The Decoding interview first pushed her to recognize
the years of experience that have informed her understanding of and approach to reciprocal partnerships.
This, combined with hearing how colleagues from
other disciplines found reciprocity to be a difficult

37

Miller-Young et al.

concept, led her to a new realization that she articulated in her self-study reflection:
It really helped clarify for me that for students,
of course they are going to find this a bottleneck
concept! They haven’t had the experience we
have had, they haven’t been out there… it
reminded me not to brush it over as much as I
was, and think ‘Why aren’t you getting this? We
talked about partnerships in day one of nursing!’

Underwood described this realization of her own
tacit thinking as an “a-ha” moment and explained
that it inspired her to plan two new strategies for her
teaching: (a) similar to Gleeson, to be more explicit
and transparent in her approach to reciprocity with
her students, and (b) to change her expectations of
how quickly they should come to understand reciprocity. She also found the interview experience –
“the process of being listened to and helping clarify
ideas” – so valuable that she plans to incorporate
more discussion in her future teaching and research
involving students.
For Pettit, the concept of reciprocity with host
communities was integral to her disciplinary training
in Indigenous Studies. In her interview she said, “The
idea of reciprocity has always been on our minds,
likely because we are all too aware of researchers taking advantage of First Nations (Indigenous) peoples.”
Not being familiar with the discussions of reciprocity
in the SLCE literature, she realized that it was in fact
the concept of “service” that had been difficult for
her. In her interview reflection she explained that she
had been wondering whether her course could really
be classified as SL:
I kept struggling with the idea of doing something for the communities when in reality this
whole time we have been doing something with
those communities. I have intentionally steered
away from the idea that First Nations
(Indigenous) need our help. That is simply not
the case and in the past that “help” by nonNatives has resulted in a great deal of hurt and
devastation.

She came to realize that she and her students were
both serving and being served in their work with their
partners: “We are indeed helping groups when we
share their message by inviting them to campus to do
presentations, etc. Likewise, we are serving the university community by sharing what students take
away from the field school.” She concluded that her
course was an example of “reverse SL” because she
felt the community partners “helped” the university
community more than the other way around. These
comments indicate that Pettit developed a more complex understanding of the word “service” and greater
awareness of the reasons it is problematic for her. We
38

speculate that the concept of service, which is closely
related to reciprocity, may be a barrier for other faculty who might otherwise engage in SLCE. Pettit also
began to think about changing some of her teaching
and learning strategies, noting “We have them write
many reflective assignments, but an interview might
be useful as well. This was starting to become apparent to me during the oral exams we did but was solidified for me during the Decoding interview.”
Although Dean also found the self-study to be
helpful in many of the ways described above, it was
difficult to discern changes in her understanding of
reciprocity in her reflection products. From the
beginning of this study she questioned whether full
reciprocity was truly possible in her partnerships. In
fact, she had long been concerned that having a partner fully involved in developing and implementing
GSL activities might be too idealistic. She wrote in
her interview reflection that she plans to continue
involving – where she can – partner agencies while
remaining cognizant that this could be a burden for
some. She also said, in the final group reflection, that
she was “questioning [her] own understanding of reciprocity,” noting:
it is easy to get to the superficial side and say:
‘We are going in and we are trying not to do any
harm,’ but to really deconstruct what that means
and what that needs to look like is, I think, an
impossible feat. It is something we should strive
towards, for sure, but it is something we are not
really ever going to get to.

Collectively, we are still questioning our own
understandings of reciprocity; however, the selfstudy renewed our commitment to striving toward it
in our practice while also complicating our sense of
what doing that involves. Calvert gave voice to a
powerful realization regarding the benefits – and
risks – of the sort of learning and reflection on learning we experienced in this self-study:
I am more aware, but also more wary, of misreading the impact and potential for a successful
relationship with the host community partner. I
also have thought on several occasions that my
life was easier before we started this process –
fear of damage is now a much bigger part of the
equation.

Influences on Our Learning
The second focus of analysis concerned how
changes in our understanding of reciprocity happened. Our reflections indicated that the Decoding
interview played a key role in our learning, as did our
disciplinary differences. Also, both somewhat inadvertently fostered a climate of trust that allowed the
self-study process to unfold productively.

Reciprocity in Service-Learning

According to our interview reflections, the repetitive questioning during the Decoding interview was
the most valuable part of the process, pushing us to
explain and clarify our thinking and deconstruct the
ways each of us had come to understand reciprocity
from our past experiences more deeply than we
would have on our own. The probing nature of the
Decoding interview also does not allow for self-conscious self-editing but rather invites the candor that is
part of thinking out loud. As Dean noted in her interview reflection, for example:
It is one thing to write about your thoughts and
to reflect on them, but it is something entirely
different to have to explain your thoughts and be
questioned on each detail. Participating in the
Decoding interview made me re-examine my
own thinking and practice; it challenged me to
think about myself and my beliefs.

However, because of the repeated nature of the questioning, it was difficult for most of us to identify the
specific points in our Decoding interviews that
pushed us the most. Collectively, we agreed that
being asked to further define a word we had just used
and being asked “How do you do that?” and “How do
you know?” (e.g., that you are enacting reciprocity)
were the most challenging moments.
The Decoding interview itself was also important
in our functioning as a collaborative learning community and generating a climate of trust. Its structure
not only gave us the necessary permission to push
one another’s thinking, but also did not allow us to
settle for superficial answers to questions and
required us to be self-disclosing and honest with one
another. Since the purpose of the Decoding interview
is, explicitly, to support the interviewee in better
understanding her own thinking, the process –
including the pushing – is inherently in the service of
the interviewee’s own learning, which also helps her
to see the interviewers as collaborators. This was evident because, while each of us described the
Decoding interview as somewhat difficult and
uncomfortable, we also each demonstrated a willingness to admit to shortcomings or mistakes during our
interviews. For example, Underwood shared an influential early experience in which she realized she had
not fully considered her host country’s context when
planning a lesson related to asthma prevention:
Well it just didn’t fit; it did not fit at all…Wrong
audience, wrong topic…All of a sudden I was
there and I realized, wow, there is no school for
children. There is no water; the children are
thirsty; there are unpaved roads; all these determinants of health right in your face…And I
thought I had something to offer about asthma?
Oh, so narrow! It was not the right population,

not the right issue, not the right setting.

This willingness to be pushed and to admit mistakes
requires high levels of trust. Without it the constant
questioning and pushing integral to Decoding interviews is likely to generate resistance to the process
and thus significantly limit the learning potential. We
frequently commented in our discussions on how our
trust in each other facilitated sharing emergent ideas
and ultimately helped us recognize several inconsistencies between our values and our actions.
In addition, although our differences initially created anxiety for some members of the group, in the end
we concluded that it was these very differences that
had perhaps the most significant impact on our learning through the self-study process. At the start of this
research, disciplinary differences – ranging from theoretical to methodological to linguistic – as well as
differences in cultural background, roles within the
university, and experiences with SLCE, appeared as
possible barriers to the collaborative self-study
process. For example, both Rathburn and Lexier
shared an initial reluctance to get involved in the selfstudy due not only to concerns about time but also to
reservations regarding the diversity of the group. But
they later articulated how valuable others’ perspectives had been to their own learning. In Lexier’s words
from her self-study reflection, “While it has been difficult sometimes to understand other approaches and
where people are coming from in the literature…it
has been incredibly positive to do that… Each person
brought such a different perspective to the discussion.” Along these same lines, Gleeson noted, “we
learn a lot from each other; [even] though we have the
same kind of issues, we have different lenses.” In
other words, the differences looming large at the start
of this project turned out to be assets.
Having distinct disciplinary homes was also
important in establishing trust. During the interview,
the fact that at least one of the interviewers had a different disciplinary background than the interviewee
helped to de-personalize the probing; in other words,
it was perceived to be part of an interviewer’s job to
represent a naive listener. During the rest of the selfstudy, our disciplinary differences provided some
safety in that there was less fear of being judged (as
one might be by peers with strong expectations
regarding one another’s knowledge and skills). It also
helped that our courses were also not in competition
with one another for university resources. Finally,
GSL – and, therefore, opportunities to come together
across courses and disciplines to share questions and
concerns related to implementing it – was relatively
new at our university; we realized early on that we
each had been looking for a community within which
to share our experiences and concerns. These few
39

Miller-Young et al.

factors, in addition to our interest in each other’s
learning as the focus of our study, made it safer to
share proud moments and ideas we felt strongly
about as well as uncertainties and stories of what had
not worked in our practice; this was essential to our
collective learning.
Finally, the overall design of the self-study was an
important influence on our learning. Rathburn
explicitly commented in her self-study reflection that
she found the entire process – not just the interview
itself but also the individual and group reflections –
provided important tools that helped her challenge
her own understanding of reciprocity. We agreed this
had been the case for each of us. As Underwood succinctly put it in her self-study reflection:
The importance of the cycle of reflection-articulation-clarification-discussion-reflection as an
effective learning strategy has been strengthened
for me … going back and re-looking at our interviews and seeing what we said and trying to
come down to a part where I felt like I was trying
to synthesize it; how could I state what reciprocity is to me now, having gone through this
process?

In summary, and perhaps counterintuitively, we
found that beginning the self-study with the
Decoding interview process generated a feeling of
disorientation but also fostered a climate of trust.
There is also, we found, a great deal to be said for
jumping into the deep end of a new learning experience together, without much in the way of slow and
gentle building of confidence in one another and the
process. Especially when undertaken in the context
of a collaborative self-study focused on learning
around a common concept that is of great interest to
all participants, the Decoding interview has a somewhat surprising community-building function.

Reflections on Our Learning
Processes and Outcomes
Harrison, Clayton, and Tilley-Lubbs (2014)
observe that “service-learning practitioner-scholars
may be especially inclined toward an epistemology in
which knowledge construction is never finished or
complete” (p. 15). This resonates strongly with our
group. While the Decoding interview was part of our
research method, it was also the catalyst for generating new perspectives on and questions about reciprocity – a process that is by no means complete and,
in fact, may just be beginning. Such liminality, or
state of unsettledness in understanding and practice
in which one is letting go of previous “knowledge”
but is still in the process of achieving a transformed
perspective, may be indicative of the complexities
inherent in reciprocity and the many nuances and lay40

ers involved in understanding it.
Our self-study resulted in new questioning, new
perspectives, and new awareness related to the value
of examining the concept of reciprocity and the role
of group dialogue in generating learning – although
the specific nature of these changes was somewhat
different for all of us. The differences in our learning,
which emerged throughout the self-study process,
confirm the notion in the literature on faculty learning
of threshold concepts (e.g., King & Felten, 2012) that
learning is likely to be experienced differently by each
faculty member. For example, some of us developed
deeper understandings related to the importance of
more fully including community members as partners
in SLCE and found our previous approach to partnerships disheartening, while others remained unchallenged in our thinking about reciprocity. Some of us
struggled to understand and work with the variety of
disciplinary perspectives represented in the group. For
some of us, new perspectives emerged during the
Decoding interview itself, while for others it was the
later collaborative reflection that generated new questions and insights. For some of us shifts in our understanding of reciprocity came relatively easily, and for
others making them was more difficult, both emotionally and intellectually – suggesting the troublesome
nature of this threshold concept.
Our challenges related to learning about reciprocity, interestingly, did not appear to align with years of
SLCE experience but seemed to be linked with disciplinary differences. For example, Calvert, a business
professor with over 20 years of SL experience but little disciplinary training related to the pedagogy’s
underlying principles, came to better understand the
benefits of co-generating knowledge through longterm reciprocal community partnerships. By contrast, Dean, a social worker, and nurses Gleeson and
Underwood, who had fewer years of experience with
SLCE, believed themselves to be well versed in reciprocal practice by virtue of their disciplinary backgrounds; they struggled to let go of their conviction
that they were already fully enacting reciprocity. We
all agreed that the collaborative learning process
helped us better understand the viewpoints of other
disciplines and that engaging with others’ perspectives increased our capacity to learn in this and, we
believe, future collaborations and partnerships.
Despite our stated desire to engage more reciprocally with our host partners, the majority of the
changes we identified as desirable in our GSL practice involve our students rather than our community
partners. We plan to help students learn about reciprocity by articulating our own understandings of the
concept and its centrality in SLCE and by providing
more opportunities for critical reflection, such as
bringing students in different courses together to col-

Reciprocity in Service-Learning

laboratively examine the relationship dynamics with
our host partners. Dean, for example, has used her
learning to better challenge student assumptions
about service by deconstructing definitions of global
citizenship and international “helping” (using
resources such as, for example, Andreotti’s (2006)
article on soft versus critical global citizenship and
Hermann’s (2015) documentary, which challenges
why we fail to help at home). These learning strategies will now form a larger part of the pre-departure
planning process of Dean’s GSL field schools.
However, while we articulated that we needed and
wanted to work harder to ensure reciprocity with our
partners, none of us identified a concrete and specific
plan for doing so. Lexier’s words from her self-study
reflection offer a representative example of the limited extent to which we converted new understandings
of reciprocity into action steps:
I realize I need to work harder to ensure that the
voices of our community partners are heard
throughout the entire planning and execution of
our field schools and that, while it might be difficult to establish reciprocity in these relationships,
they are fundamentally important to what I am
hoping to accomplish.

This focus on changes to our practice related to our
students but not to our community partners only
became obvious to us after analyzing our reflection
products, providing evidence not only of the troublesomeness of the concept but also of the value of our
self-study for our own learning.
We also have realized a dilemma: how to be
respectful of our partners’ time and also commit to cocreating with them. Many of us initially believed we
were enacting reciprocity by limiting the obligations
of community partners in “our” GSL projects.
Through the process of this self-study, however –
including the writing of this article – we are coming
to see this as evidence of our own lingering deficitbased perspective, emerging from our somewhat
paternalistic sense that we need to protect our partners
from the demands of full collaboration. While we
continue to be concerned about burdening partners
and are uncertain how best to determine what are
appropriate time commitments on everyone’s part, we
also now see that our still evolving definitions of reciprocity may be one source of the difficulty. For
example, Dean struggles with whether reciprocity
requires that all partners contribute in “equal measure” and, in turn, whether that means contributing in
the same ways or in equitable proportion; she believes
it is appropriate to use the resources of the “western”
academy to help turn the ideas and experiences of colleagues in less-funded regions of the world into
research but is unsure if such a stance is sufficiently

asset-based to align with alternative conceptions of
reciprocity (i.e., co-creation) that were developed and
refined during the self-study. She continues to reflect
about how all partners can best contribute to the GSL
projects she facilitates and so continues to problematize her own understanding of reciprocity.
Despite the realization of our continued conceptual
and practical struggles with reciprocity, our new
learnings have helped us to take a few steps forward.
We are now more deeply committed to “ongoing dialogue, honest feedback, and owning up and rectifying
mistakes” (Sharpe & Dear, 2013, p. 56). Ultimately,
the proof of how and how well the self-study generated learning will only come if we are courageous
enough to continue to work to enhance our practice.

Questions for Further Inquiry
Reflecting on our self-study process when writing
this article, we pondered lessons our experience
might suggest for other SLCE practitioner-scholars.
However, we find it difficult to articulate substantive
recommendations. Some of the thinking we have
shared here has been about the concept of reciprocity
in SLCE, some about faculty development processes,
and some about faculty learning. We have shared
methods – collaborative self-study, Decoding interviews, qualitative analysis – that we find deeply congruent with the values and commitments of the
SLCE movement and our GSL practice. Our work
together over the past year has woven these various
bodies of thought together in ways that have been
emergent and responsive to where we have been,
both individually and collectively, in this process. We
came to view this process in terms of transformational learning. Given how contextualized our process
has been to the composition of our group and to the
methods used to engage with one another, it is
unlikely that the particulars of our experience can, in
fact, generate a set of actionable implications for others’ practice and research beyond those already
noted: (a) the value of the Decoding interview
process and structure in pushing learners to everdeeper grappling with prior and emergent understandings, (b) the importance of multidisciplinarity
among the members of a self-study group who come
together with common learning goals around shared
pedagogical practices, (c) the need for disciplineexternal interviewers and critical friends to ask challenging questions and not settle for superficial
answers, and (d) the challenges (faced by interviewers and interviewees alike) of retaining a focus on
faculty member’s own learning in the face of strong
norms that define them as teachers and that turn their
attention repeatedly to their students when the topic
under discussion is learning outcomes and processes.
41

Miller-Young et al.

We do feel confident, however, in posing questions
that may have the potential to serve as starting points
for others wishing to build on this work or conduct a
similar study, and so we wrap up our discussion by
exploring three questions. The first question concerns the relative contribution of collaborative selfstudy as an approach to generating and investigating
transformational learning among SLCE faculty.
Cousin (2010) noted that the work on threshold concepts has yet to develop a “settled methodological
framework” (p. 7); and Harrison, Clayton, & TilleyLubbs (2014) propose autoethnography as a potentially powerful approach for faculty to use in examining their own teaching with SLCE so as to advance
their understanding of threshold concepts such as
reciprocity. Autoethnography is well-suited to help
turn disorientation into transformed understanding in
the context of the counternormative pedagogy of
SLCE, these authors suggest, as it “calls the …
instructor’s attention to the ways in which her practice is shaped and constrained by the assumptions of
the surrounding cultural context and by associated
dynamics of power and privilege” (p. 13).
Other than in terms of data collection methods and
number of inquirers, we are, however, hard-pressed
to see significant differences between autoethnography and our own self-study process, either in purpose
or underlying process dynamics. Just as we experienced in the Decoding interview process, autoethnography can help faculty “better understand the
sources and significance of their own learning challenges and successes and making visible to them the
evolution of their own thinking and practice”
(Harrison et al., 2014, p. 13). Similarly as with our
individual and collaborative reflection, autoethnography shows the inquirer patterns in her own thinking
and practice and positions her to “better align her
knowledge and beliefs with her practice, grounded in
an evolving understanding of why she does what she
does and how, in doing it, she reifies and/or problematizes the structures and systems within which
she operates” (p. 13). Thus, the first question
emerges: Might we inquire more deeply into faculty
learning of threshold concepts by systematically integrating the extended time frames that generally characterize autoethnography with the insight-generating
potential of collaborative methods of inquiry – structuring what we think of as “collaborative autoethnographic self-study”? The many times we helped one
another see blind spots in our reasoning and problematized what we took to be tacit knowledge make
us wonder about the even greater potential of explicitly wedding the methods and timelines of self-study
and autoethnography in professional development
and research on faculty learning in SLCE.
Our second question has to do with the relationship
42

between trust among learners and transformational
learning. We have explained that we came into the
collaborative self-study process with wide ranging
previous experience, disciplinary backgrounds, and
familiarity with scholarship related to teaching and
learning. And we have identified a few of the factors
that may have nurtured a climate of trust among the
members of our self-study and our two critical friends
– factors such as the structure and purpose of the
Decoding interview, our diverse disciplinary backgrounds, and the lack of competition between our
courses. We have implied in reflecting on our own
experience but have not yet examined with any rigor
potential linkages between the deep level of trust we
worked within and the transformational nature of our
learning process. As noted earlier, Mezirow (2010)
points to the social dimensions of the transformative
learning process, and he characterizes such learning
with terms such as “disorienting,” “critical assessment,” “self-examination,” “exploration of new
roles,” and “reintegration of new perspectives.” This is
not easy or safe work to do in the company of others.
It is risky enough to become aware of one’s own taken
for granted assumptions and interpretations and to see
their misfit with one's practice. But to do this work in
the presence of others, especially known colleagues
whose professional if not also personal respect one
wishes to maintain, would be challenging in the
absence of deep interpersonal trust.
During the analysis phase of our study we frequently noted the number of comments that had been made
acknowledging the unusual level of trust participants
felt through the process, often in the context of discussing the difficult moments experienced in the
Decoding interview or the collaborative reflection
activities. But it is only now that we recognize a significant question in our midst: What is the role of trust
in collaborative transformative learning spaces?
Cranton (2006) suggests that “authentic relationships” aid transformative learning and offers as an
example teachers and students “choos[ing] to act so as
to foster the growth and development of each other’s
being” (p. 7). Authentic relationships surely include
high levels of trust, and we suggest it will be important to explore further the conditions under which the
needed levels of trust come to exist in collaborative
faculty self-study and the specific ways that trust
influences participants’ willingness to go to the depths
of vulnerability required for transformative learning.
Third and very much relatedly, we find intriguing
the question of the role and meaning – and potential
limitations – of “safe space” in learning threshold
concepts and in inquiring into that learning. On the
surface of it, the concept of safe space (Aaro &
Clemens, 2013) seems an obvious and necessary feature of any collaborative learning process, especially

Reciprocity in Service-Learning

when the learners are studying themselves and when
the topic in question is one they value highly but
sometimes struggle to understand and enact.
Through all stages of our work together we often,
both directly and indirectly, took steps to ensure that
the disorienting process of critical self-examination
not be experienced as unacceptably risky. For example, those of us who served as interviewers in the
Decoding interview process underwent training and
had opportunities to observe interviews so as to build
our confidence in taking on this new and difficult
role within our group. We also designed the selfstudy to include, for example, individual written
reflection before collaborative oral reflection, giving
us each time and space to develop our thoughts privately before sharing them for public critique and
questioning. These elements of the process helped
make it safe.
At the same time, however, we recognize that the
level of trust our group experienced is not always
going to be present in processes such as these. With
low levels of trust, many of the activities in such a
self-study process could be threatening indeed. It is
intriguing to consider whether, especially in such a
case, group members’ efforts to make the collaborative inquiry “safe” might actually subtly contradict or
inappropriately buffer against the important reality of
the not-safe emotional and intellectual tasks of inviting disorientation, engaging in critical self-examination, problematizing deeply ingrained assumptions,
and integrating into one’s being new and counternormative perspectives and identities. Would such protection of one another from the more honest engagement with ambiguity and the downright discomfort
that movement through the liminal spaces associated
with learning threshold concepts requires actually
interfere with the transformative learning process?
Borrowing from Arao and Clemens (2013), is “safe
space” either “realistic, compatible, or appropriate”
(p. 138) when our purpose is to generate and inquire
into learning around an explicitly troublesome and
transformative concept (i.e., reciprocity)? What
might happen if we, as Arao and Clemens suggest,
frame our “space” not as “safe” but rather as “brave”
– not evoking the illusion of safety but rather honoring the reality of the courage participants draw on as
they push themselves and one another through hard
questions? Engaging in transformative learning is
challenging; perhaps if a participant in a collaborative self-study is able to see herself as courageous
rather than in need of safety she is not only more apt
to be trusting and trustworthy but also better
equipped to persist through the unsettledness of the
liminal space she must traverse as she learns troublesome and transformative threshold concepts. Our
third question is thus: Might framing the space for

collaborative self-study of learning – related to concepts that are by their nature potentially identity- and
paradigm-shifting – in ways that make risk visible be
more authentic, more effective, and ultimately more
conducive to building and maintaining trust? We
wonder how the balance and tension between framing an inquiry, or other space, as “safe” or “brave”
might influence the findings of future collaborations.

Still Liminal but Moving Forward Together
Autoethnography has been suggested as one way
to support faculty as learners (Harrison et al., 2014),
and some scholars have written about their own troublesome experiences with reciprocity in SL (TilleyLubbs, 2009; Sharpe & Dear, 2013). Our study adds
to this literature by inquiring into how a multidisciplinary community of practice and the Decoding
method can be used as a way to both study and generate faculty learning about threshold concepts such
as reciprocity. Grounded in the theory of transformative learning and the use of critical reflection on
experience to generate learning, our analysis shows
that the Decoding interview and the multidisciplinary
nature of our group were both important factors in
developing the community and trust necessary for
this study to generate learning. These findings may
be useful for colleagues seeking to support other faculty or critically reflect on their own practice, particularly within a community of practice. Findings may
also raise important questions about how further collaborative inquiry within and across different SLCE
contexts could yield new insights about the value of
integrating methods from self-study and autoethnography for professional development and research on
faculty learning; the conditions needed to foster trust
and the role trust plays in transformative learning
processes; and the significance of the choice to frame
learning spaces as “safe” or not. Such insights have
potential to advance our collective understanding of
the dynamics of co-learning and co-generation of
knowledge within but also transcending SLCE.
Harrison, Clayton, and Tilley-Lubbs (2014) suggest it is conceivable – perhaps likely – that “reciprocity and – for that matter, any threshold concept –
will not be fully mastered” (p. 15). While we agree
that the concept of reciprocity may be too complex
and counternormative for full mastery, for we still
find ourselves in a liminal space, this study has
helped us recognize that it is often we, the instructors
who get in the way of understanding and enacting
reciprocal partnerships. Despite a desire for reciprocity, our analysis revealed that we remain driven by the
academy’s norms, continuing to position ourselves as
separate from the community instead of expanding
our role boundaries (Conville & Kinnell, 2010).

43

Miller-Young et al.

While it would certainly be simpler to unlearn what
we now know and return to the “easier” life Victoria
referred to, the experience of this self-study leaves us
committed to ongoing learning through our community of practice and to furthering the scholarly conversation on this topic.

Notes
We express our gratitude to members of the Decoding
Faculty Learning Community, an initiative of the
Academic Development Centre at Mount Royal University,
for interviewer training: Jennifer Boman, Genevieve
Currie, Ron MacDonald, and Stephanie Zettel. And we
thank Mount Royal University’s Institute for Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning (SoTL) for financial support. We
are also very appreciative of the participants who attended
our session at the 2014 International Association for
Research on Service-Learning and Community
Engagement conference held in New Orleans, who helped
shape our conceptual framework. In addition, we formally
thank our ninth author and mentor, Patti Clayton, who has
served as an “official ruckus maker,” giving us guidance to
strengthen both this article and our understandings of reciprocity in SLCE. The students and host partners in GSL
field schools are the most important part of this work; we
look forward to sharing the results of this work with them
and to continuing to learn from and with them as together
we refine our SLCE partnerships and practices.
1

Throughout this article, the term “faculty” refers to all
instructors, including professional staff and administrators
who teach with service-learning as well as faculty members.

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Authors
JANICE MILLER-YOUNG (jmyoung@mtroyal.ca)
is an associate professor and the director of the
Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
(SoTL) at Mount Royal University. She has taught in
Engineering and more recently in General Education
and has published in both her discipline of engineering and SoTL. Her scholarly focus is now teaching
and learning, in particular novice/expert differences
and faculty development in SoTL. She is also
involved in a variety of national initiatives promoting
and facilitating SoTL work through the Society for
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education in
Canada.
YASMIN DEAN (ydean@mtroyal.ca) is an associate professor of social work at Mount Royal
University. She is the recipient of a provincial internationalization of the curriculum award for work
between Canada and the United Arab Emirates and
46

has led global education initiatives in China, India,
and the United Arab Emirates. The primary focus of
her current research is on cultural relevance and
Indigenous efforts in social work education. She has
worked in the social work field for over 20 years as
a youth probation officer, community development
worker, university counsellor, and social issue
strategist.
MELANIE RATHBURN (mrathburn@mtroyal.ca)
is an associate professor in both Biology and General
Education at Mount Royal University. Melanie's
interests bridge disciplinary research and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Her research focuses
on understanding how participation in field schools
and GSL influences student learning. One recent project is a collaboration across seven institutions to
examine students’ development of intercultural competence. More broadly, Melanie is also interested in
how universities assess the success of international
education initiatives; she is currently co-investigator
on a research project interrogating how the term
“global citizenship” is used and assessed across
Canadian universities.
JENNIFER PETTIT (jpettit@mtroyal.ca) is a history professor at Mount Royal University. Her
research interests are concerned primarily with government policy for Indigenous peoples. She is codirector of The Massacre of the “Black” Donnellys
(www.canadianmysteries.ca) and recipient of a number of prestigious awards, including the Pierre Berton
Award and the MERLOT Classics award. Jennifer
also has an interest in digital history and Reacting to
the Past pedagogy. Her favourite teaching memories
stem from the field courses she has taught, including
a cross-Canada bus trip (for which she was awarded
the Alberta Colleges Institutes Faculty Association
Award for Teaching Innovation) and, more recently, a
Treaty 7 field course.
MARGOT UNDERWOOD (munderwood@mtroyal.ca) is an assistant professor in the School of
Nursing and Midwifery at Mount Royal University.
Her research focuses on global health partnerships
and explores global host partners’ perspectives
regarding partnership and collaboration, nursing students’ personal and professional learning in international community health field schools, and peer mentorship in global service-learning. Her teaching interests are in the areas of community health, equity and
social action, and transformative learning through
immersion learning experiences. Margot serves on
the Faculty of Health, Community and Education
task force for service-learning.
JUDY GLEESON (jgleeson@mtroyal.ca) is an
associate professor in the School of Nursing and
Midwifery at Mount Royal University. Her professional practice background is public health nursing,
and she teaches courses in community health, health
equity, and global health. Her current research program is focused on nurses' engagement in health policy, the use of community gardening for promoting
health, and reciprocity in GSL. In 2014, she partici-

Reciprocity in Service-Learning

pated in a GSL initiative with Canadian nursing students and community partners in the Dominican
Republic.
ROBERTA LEXIER (rlexier@mtroyal.ca) is an
assistant professor in the department of General
Education at Mount Royal University. Her research
focuses on social activism and social change in
Canada and internationally. Her current research program investigates coffee certification programs and
their effects on the lives of farmers in Honduras. She
leads a field school to Honduras and is conducting
collaborative research to examine the academic
learning and personal development achieved through
this experience. She is also co-researcher on a Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded
project that seeks to compile definitions of global citizenship and the various learning outcomes associated with this goal.
VICTORIA CALVERT (vcalvert@mtroyal.ca) is a
business professor as well as the community service
learning facilitator for Mount Royal University. Her
research interests include the impact of communitybased projects on students and community partners
as well as various aspects of entrepreneurship. She is
on the steering committee for the Canadian Alliance
for Community Service Learning and is the chair of
its bi-annual national conference in 2016. Victoria
has authored several books regarding entrepreneurship that have been adopted nationally and is the coeditor of two forthcoming publications: Canadian
Student Service Learning Vignettes and Community
Service Learning: Impact for Sustainability.
PATTI H. CLAYTON (patti.clayton@curricularengagement.com) is an independent consultant
and SLCE practitioner-scholar (PHC Ventures), a
senior scholar with the Center for Service and
Learning at Indiana University – Purdue University
Indianapolis, and a Senior Scholar with the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Patti codeveloped with students and faculty a researchgrounded critical reflection and assessment model
(the DEAL Model) and currently focuses on faculty
learning and democratic engagement. She is co-editor of Research on Service Learning: Conceptual
Frameworks and Assessment and co-author of student and instructor versions of the service-learning
tutorial Learning through Critical Reflection as well
as the Democratic Engagement White Paper.

47