Tablet Magazine Design created for a Media Design class.

1. Students pose for group photograph while on Alternative
Alternative

2. We are close to the season when spring
break takes place across our college campuses. A
survey done by an online travel service calculated
that over 55% of students will travel for leisure
during their weeklong break. However, an in-
creasing number of students will elect to engage in
volunteerism during this period. Frequently called
“alternative spring break,” these trips typically in-
volve volunteer, community-based or global service
projects. Websites that attempt to attract college
students for these alternative spring break trips tout
the benefits of this choice as a chance to give back,
make a difference and gain cultural awareness in the
process.
When alternate spring break trips take the
form of service-learning projects, the potential ben-
efits and outcomes change substantially. Distinct
from one-time volunteer projects, service-learn-
ing is an experiential learning tool that has been
shown to build civic engagement, stimulate cul-
tural understanding and develop ethical awareness
among college students. Service learning is not an
interruption or “break” from the learning that takes
place during the regular academic calendar. It is an
extension that moves learning beyond the physical
classroom to active learning within the external
environment. Service learning can provide a mean-
ingful context for theories, concepts and models
taught in the classroom. It also shifts learning from
a one-way dialog between student and instructor to
an interactive endeavor in which students are not
only learners but also change agents.
While it’s easy to see the positive benefits
of alternative spring break trips, the limitation is
when these excursions are done in isolation of the
broader learning that takes place in the classroom.
Alternate travel experiences, in which students are
dropped into poor or disadvantaged communities as
a “break” from college and engage in one-time vol-
unteer projects, may create a temporary feel-good
experience, but often fall short of providing a last-
ing change in the communities they visit. If spring
break is the only time that students are faced with
the realities of their external world, then concepts
such as ethics, social justice, equality, sustainability,
civic engagement and corporate social responsibil-
ity may remain only abstract theories and concepts
on the pages of their textbooks.
Giving Back
Top: Alternative Spring Break student activity slideshow; Bottom Left: Students clean landfill;
Bottom right: Students clean up debri from work zone

3. The most important distinction
between volunteerism as a “break” from
college and the integrated service-learning
experiences is that the latter is reciprocal.
Students are not merely exposed to people
or communities that are disadvantaged and
whom they in turn serve from their advan-
taged or privileged position. Meaningful
service learning is about co-creating value
by the student and the community or stake-
holder, both as learners and contributors.
The project is not merely about finding
solutions but also about creating the oppor-
tunity for all parties to learn, benefit and
transform. Meaningful service learning is
not one-way. It is reciprocal. It creates new
knowledge and new approaches that stimu-
late social innovation.
Although the idea of reciprocity is
appealing, it can be challenging to achieve.
Moving students’ perspectives from bene-
factor to beneficiary often means pushing
students outside their own comfort zones,
cultural assumptions and embedded biases.
It also challenges the faculty member to de-
sign and deliver service-learning experienc-
es that may push his or her own pedagog-
ical, cultural and unconscious biases. For
faculty, it can also expose the limitations of
our theories, models and paradigms in ways
that force us to admit to students that we
simply don’t have all of the answers.
At Pitt Business, through the David
Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership,
we have used service learning within our
curriculum for over 12 years as part of
our effort to both develop and challenge
notions of ethical leadership and corporate
social responsibility. Our local and global
service-learning projects deliberately ask
students to embrace diversity as a tool for
creating positive change. It also challenges
them to see business not only as a means
for increasing profit and adding value to
shareholders, but also as a tool for driving
social innovation. Service learning is not
a break from education. It is an extension
of the traditional classroom to a learning
environment that provides evidence of what
education, knowledge and effective col-
laboration can produce. The fruits of these
efforts can be on display in just a week’s
time through a service-learning trip taking
place over Spring Break.
Service-learning trips, even those
that are just a week long, are a way to draw
those connections and leave lasting impres-
sions on both the student and the commu-
nity.
YMCA Alternative Spring Break video
Top Left: Students clean beach; Bottom Left: Students paint fence; Right: Student reads to
elementary-aged children