GLAA Conference on “SDG Impact through Service-Learning" held in Hong Kong

On December 16-17, 2019, SLC staff participated in the “Global Liberal Arts Alliance Conference on Humanitarian Innovation & Entrepreneurship: SDG Impact through Service-Learning" held in Hong Kong.

About 30 participants from liberal arts universities around the world gathered and discussed how Service-Learning (SL) can solve social issues and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Each participant presented their SL programs and explored the possibility of future connection.

Solving issues

The focus of the conference is on solving social issues. Lingnan University in Hong Kong uses a method called Design Thinking. Through this method, students explore the root cause of the problem, think about the possible solution, and prototype their ideas in the field. Some universities promote SL programs for science students so that they can take advantage of their academic strengths. For example, some students work with engineers to develop electric wheelchairs or design a layout of housing.

Faculty involvement

Faculty-led SL is also expanding in other universities. This type of SL allows students to join a faculty’s research project as a research-based SL. The faculty-led program can enhance students’ academic learning and publishing opportunities and also maintain a relationship with communities in the long term.

Partnership with profit organizations

While ICU’s Service-Learning has partnerships with non-profit institutions, some universities collaborate with profit organizations. In partnership with profit organizations, students learn entrepreneurial skills such as how to grow and sell vegetables or how to utilize the 3D printer to produce physical objects.

In the conference, ICU staff gave a presentation at a panel session and introduced a field project on campus as our SDGs initiative we would like to push in the future.

The overall contents of this conference indicated that global trends of SL tend to put more emphasis on the impact on the community. It was a valuable experience to learn from other universities that offer SL programs in the way of encouraging students to challenge the problem solving proactively.