Academic Service Learning and Society: From Individual to Institutional

This paper examines how Academic Service Learning (ASL) has gone from being an initiative by individual faculty to being institutionalized by universities as means to promote learning, pursue mission, and impact society. It outlines various uses of ASL by individual faculty and examines its progression into a university sponsored service-learning vessel of vision and mission. Its use acknowledges the interconnectedness of universities and society and emphasizes the need and obligation that universities feel, or should feel, in contributing to the betterment of the world we live in. In terms of being a university-sponsored initiative it highlights its use in the business curriculum of a large university in the northeast United States. This article recommends that ASL is an easily instituted method of teaching in many disciplines and is of benefit to multiple constituents both internally and externally to academic institutions.