Ten Years in the Trenches

Abstract

This study reports the perceptions of faculty 10 years after participating and sustaining their involvement in academic service-learning. Issues explored include why participants became involved in service-learning, the perceived impact on the promotion and tenure process, the challenges and rewards reaped by participants, and what sustained them in their work. The study is unique in that faculty report on the factors that have impeded or allowed them to sustain their involvement in service-learning over a period of 10 years. The study supports earlier findings that suggest faculty become involved for a variety of reasons, primarily the potential outcomes that service-learning provides and the opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary fashion; that service-learning can have both a positive and negative impact on promotion and tenure; and that support at the institutional level is essential for engaging faculty in service-learning.