Race and Service-Learning: Addressing Uncomfortable Truths (click title for video)

Diane Ceo-Difrancesco, Ph.D. , Faculty Director, Eigel Center for Community-Engaged Learning; Professor, Department of Classics and Modern Languages at Xavier University
Sean Rhiney, Director, Eigel Center for Community Engaged Learning, Xavier University

“Talking about the core reasons for racism takes us to places that we do not want to go because we have to face some very unsettling and deeply uncomfortable truths.” (Bryan Massingale)

Service-Learning programs at Jesuit Universities are called upon to create a more hope-filled future free of discrimination and racial injustice (Apolostic Priority 3). Faculty members with good intentions elect to teach service-learning courses and address issues of social justice, but they often do not have the training in pedagogy or critical race theory to address racism or leverage community assets (Hernandez 2018). Inviting faculty to reflect on race and racism involves modeling practices that enable them to unpack privilege, learn about structural racism, and engage with the Jesuit mission of social justice (Green 2016, 2014, 2011, 2003; Mayhew & Fernández 2007). Once faculty reflect on their own inscription in structural and cultural U.S. racism and its connection to social justice, they can develop effective pedagogies for teaching race and mission in their own disciplines. This poster will present strategies for addressing structural racism institutionally through the integration of community voices in both the opportunities for faculty development and the high impact curricular community engagement opportunities for students.

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Diane Ceo-DiFrancesco serves as Faculty Director of the Eigel Center for Community-Engaged Learning and a professor of Spanish at Xavier University. Diane integrates community-engaged learning, virtual exchange and collaborative online international learning (COIL) into the Spanish language, culture, linguistics and pedagogy courses that she teaches. She also coordinates immersion programs in Peru and has co-facilitated immersion programs for faculty and staff in Nicaragua and for students in Guatemala. Diane has led study abroad programs in Spain, Mexico and Costa Rica, and has also served as a visiting professor in those countries. An international COIL trainer and educational consultant, Diane has published book chapters and articles in such journals as Hispania, L2 Journal, Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences, Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education, and Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice. Her areas of research include second language acquisition, intercultural communicative competence, virtual exchange, COIL and immersion.