Helping Without Hurting

Service-learning and campus-community partnerships are dramatically changing the way universities educate students, use their resources, and involve their neighbors. A plethora of ethical issues arise with this new emphasis on real-world engagement, for these interactions usually involve wealthy, elite institutions of higher education operating in what are often poor, urban areas. This dynamic is rife with potential pitfalls. While these problematic areas are often acknowledged in the literature, the one voice frequently missing from the greater dialogue is the community itself, the very people on the receiving end of a university's efforts. This work seeks to incorporate that voice into the larger conversation regarding the ethics of service-learning. Taking Stanford University's involvement in East Palo Alto as a case study, it uses unique testimonies from community members to better understand the relationship in all of its facets.