ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a number of critical questions that arise in connection to international service-learning (ISL) when it is pursued at religiously affiliated (or faith-based) universities, a topic largely overlooked in service-learning literature. It focuses on the International Summer Service Learning Program (ISSLP) at the University of Notre Dame, a program whose approach is informed by and rooted in the faith-based mission of its Catholic sponsoring institution. The chapter describes the ISSLP and then discusses results from a recent assessment undertaken to determine its outcomes among students. It uses such results to consider tensions that inevitably arise because of the course’s theological orientation and, by implication, the university’s Catholic character in light of broader conversations in the US academy about the place of moral and civic education in universities more generally. The chapter concludes by making suggestions for ISL based in other religiously affiliated universities and also consider what such universities’ efforts in ISL might contribute to the broader field.
