Students as change agents in the process of implementing Community Service Learning

Universities and higher education institutes (HEIs) are increasingly challenged to extend their traditional core functions of research and education towards societal engagement (Rubens et al., 2017). This has, amongst others, given impetus to the emergence of the ‘third mission’, which is defined in the broadest sense as “a contribution to society” (Abreu et al., 2016). Simultaneously, HEIs are seeking new ways to adequately equip students and provide them with competencies to address complex societal issues (Horn, Urias & Zweekhorst, 2022). To fulfil these two intertwined goals, HEIs have been extending, enriching, and adapting their course curriculum by proposing different pedagogies, including Community Service Learning (CSL) (e.g., Coelho et al., 2022). CSL as pedagogy is known to enhance traditional student learning through active student engagement with local and complex societal issues in the city (Bringle & Hatcher, 1999).
Just like many other universities, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) is also participating in the journey towards this third mission, as it aims to contribute to (local), complex societal issues through research and education. To achieve this mission, the VU has introduced different types of engaged education, including CSL. Previous pilots with CSL at the VU showed that students can successfully contribute to the city (see e.g., Tijsma, Urias & Zweekhorst, 2021). To develop an appropriate implementation plan at the institutional level for an institution-wide approach of engaged educational efforts, such as CSL, the VU – following the CAPSL model of Bringle & Tatcher (1996) – has mapped different voices of all stakeholders involved in CSL, including institution, faculty, societal partners, community, and students.
With respect to this latter group, in the literature about the implementation of CSL in HEIs, there is, on the one hand, a strong focus on the beneficiary outcomes of this pedagogy for students (see e.g., Meyer et al., 2016) – with less attention being paid to the other partners (Salam et al., 2019). However, on the other hand, students as a stakeholder group seem to be under researched in terms of their agency in the transition towards the third mission. Traditionally, this has been seen as a task of the university, something that has mostly been performed top-down. This also means that, thus far, students have mainly been regarded as the ‘recipients’ of engaged education, rather than decisionmakers in this transition. As a result, the position of students and the role they can potentially play to act as change agents in the implementation of CSL has, until now, oftentimes been overlooked. To get a better understanding of the student perspective, we have conducted focus group discussions with bachelor students (n=50) from various disciplines to inductively explore students’ underlying perspectives and motivations towards their university education and the movement towards more engaged education. Our findings show that capturing the needs and wishes of students towards (engaged) education through qualitative data collection reinforces the agency of students and, as such, can play a key role in informing policy, thereby and preventing a top-down approach in the implementation of CSL on an institution-wide level.