Ten years of community-engaged learning at Duke.

Section 1 — What we built

A decade of growth.

Duke Service-Learning is a team of staff and faculty members who provide resources and infrastructure to support course-based community-engaged learning across Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Our model is to work directly with faculty in all aspects of their engaged practice — curriculum development, community partnerships, student support, and reflection — offering cohort-based and individual professional development, funding for community-based projects, student transportation infrastructure, and representation in Duke's wider network of community-engaged scholar-practitioners.

Faculty, staff, and community partners gathered for our annual Community Partner Breakfast to reconnect and celebrate the relationships at the heart of service-learning — a chance to pause, share, and express gratitude for the partnerships that make this work possible.

Our faculty and courses

SLCE faculty see the impact of community-engaged pedagogy — offering opportunities of transformative learning to students, building an intellectual community of practice among colleagues, and moving the needle on issues of concern in the community. A great example of how SLCE faculty share knowledge among each other is when three of our veteran faculty members presented student reflection strategies. Faculty's interest in developing best practices and networking is what makes courses successful.

In FY2025–2026, 2,075 students enrolled in 141 SLCE courses. Across the decade, we have seen course offerings grow across an extraordinary breadth of disciplines. The majority of courses fall within STEM fields (Natural and Social Sciences, N=875) while Humanities courses (N=672) reflect the strong engagement of language departments, Documentary Studies, and others.

Community-Based Language Learning

Duke's Community-Based Language Initiative (CBLI) reflects something genuinely distinctive — the remarkable breadth of languages represented in SLCE here is rare among universities. Among 11 unique languages, faculty share a belief that language study is enriched by community connection, and a commitment to learning from each other about what works. From in-person partnerships with Durham's diverse communities to virtual exchanges and student-created projects, community-engaged language courses are building relationships that tell a powerful story.

Students in Professor Carolyn Lee's CHN 370 course visited Fo Guang Shan Temple for a day of community-based learning — practicing meditation, exploring Buddhist calligraphy, studying ritual art, and sharing a vegetarian meal guided by the temple's Venerables. "This gesture symbolizes welcome, compassion, and the purity of a lotus blossom," explains Professor Lee, describing the mudra BLIA members use to greet one another.

Faculty, students, staff, and community partners gathered at Emanuel Food Pantry for Community Action Day, packing rice and beans in support of Durham County's largest emergency food assistance program, which serves approximately 860 families each week through a volunteer-powered, no-barriers model rooted in dignity and community care.

Our support of student leadership and equitable access

The Service-Learning Assistantship program has been a constant feature of our work — training 157 community-engagement leaders across ten cohorts. These students have bridged classroom and community — coordinating placements, liaising between faculty and partners, and facilitating reflection activities that deepen students' understanding of community and course content. While the number of SLAs fluctuated due to shifts in Duke's work-study funding models, the program's impact has been consistent.

Funded by the Trinity College Dean of Undergraduate Education, we provided 985 free Uber rides in FY2025–2026 alone — removing a significant barrier to off-campus engagement and ensuring equitable access to community learning. We are still searching for more sustainable solutions knowing that the increase in gas prices has consistently increased Uber costs this past year. We are actively working with different units across campus and schools to innovate equitable access to off-campus engagement.

Our community partners

Our faculty and students have partnered with over 300 community entities in the past decade — ranging from nonprofits to governmental agencies to churches to schools. These organizations serve as co-educators, working with our students in many different capacities.

Launched Fall 2025, our Community Partner Spotlight newsletter showcases SLCE models and highlights best practices — helping partners explain their work to wider audiences and inspiring new university-community collaborations.

Duke students in Dream Keepers (EDUC 390T) share early coloring book drafts with Lakewood Elementary students — who take on the role of reviewers, critics, and co-creators. In this "reverse Shark Tank," Durham's youngest storytellers help shape how the legacy of Mary Mitchell Harris, Nathaniel White, and the First Five — Black students who integrated Duke's undergraduate program in 1963 — is told and carried forward.

Section 3 — What we learned

The research speaks for itself.

Drawing on the AAC&U VALUE Scoring Collaborative framework, our team designed a direct-method research study examining how participation in SLCE courses shapes how undergraduates think about civic identity, community engagement, and ethical responsibility.

From Spring 2024 to Spring 2025, we piloted, refined, and implemented the study. Participants wrote a 350-word response to a prompt, rated by four readers using rubrics assessing Civic Identity and Commitment (CIC) and Ethical Issue Recognition (EIR). The following summarizes findings from 165 respondents across 15 SLCE courses.

Students scored higher in Civic Identity and Commitment than in Ethical Issue Recognition — with the highest frequency of CIC scores in the 3–3.9 range (out of 4). We believe the prompt encouraged responses focused more on the self and engagement with community than on exploration of broader social issues, which may account for the CIC/EIR distribution. Our initial analysis shows the same distribution patterns occurring regardless of graduation cohort.

Emerging themes from student responses

Word cloud analysis

The following word clouds visualize the frequency of words used by students whose responses scored in each range of the CIC rubric (1–4). Higher-scoring responses show a greater diversity of external, community-oriented language, while lower-scoring responses tend to reflect a more internal, course-focused perspective.

Civic Identity & Commitment (CIC) word clouds by score range. CIC 1 (13 responses): internal, course-focused language. CIC 4 (16 responses): community-oriented, outward-facing language. The shift from "Learn/Work/Class" to "Community/Durham/Engage" reflects growing civic awareness.