ABSTRACT
Despite their historic mission of local service, community colleges have limited international service-learning (ISL) experience, instead regarding ISL as outside of their mission proper. The International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership noted that ISL involves work and communication across different cultures, often with different languages, thus offering a more diverse and, generally, more challenging experience. If legitimate ISL is to occur, the patronage mind-set in the fabric of Cambodian culture, and the manner in which the ISL program responds to it, must be recognized, openly discussed, and critically examined by all program participants: faculty, students, Cambodian NGO service partners, and Cambodian host-villages. Returnees help prepare each year’s cohort of students for their ISL and cultural immersion experience, serving as a peer resource while in Cambodia and maintaining and nurturing their intercultural competence once they return.
