Sara Dorow is one of two 2009 recipients of an Distinguished Academic Early Career Award from the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations (CAFA). This award recognizes Sara's work in building the Community Service Learning (CSL) program at the University of Alberta over the past seven years. Sara received the CAFA Award at a special event at the Shaw Conference Centre on September 17.
Background
Dr. Sara Dorow, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director of the Community Service-Learning Program at the University of Alberta, has been chosen to receive the CAFA Distinguished Academic Early Career Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the wider community beyond the academy through her groundbreaking work in founding and developing a community service-learning (CSL) program at the University of Alberta.
Dr. Dorow, who was awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor by the Faculty of Arts last year, received her first appointment at the University of Alberta in 2002. 'As soon as she was hired,' according to the Chair of her Department, she introduced the idea of community service-learning to the University of Alberta, where 'virtually all of our professors and administrators were completely unaware of the concept.' CSL integrates community-based projects, most often in the non-profit sector, with student academic course work. While these projects are designed to meet the specific requirements of participating community organizations, at the same time they provide students with opportunities to enhance classroom learning and to develop new critical thinking, research, communication, and leadership skills while working as volunteers in the community. As the Associate Dean (Undergraduate Learning) of the Faculty of Arts notes, CSL is 'an innovative pedagogy that brings teaching, learning, research and community action together in a variety of ways.'
Building on her own strong interest in the scholarship of engagement, and demonstrating a remarkable ability to work across disciplines and sectors, Dr. Dorow was able to sell the idea to her colleagues and get an experimental CSL program up and running within two years. The U of A's CSL program was officially launched in September 2005, and under Dr. Dorow's direction has continued to develop and expand, with major funding from The J. W. McConnell Family Foundation and additional support from the University and the Faculty of Arts, as well as the Edmonton Community Foundation. By 2008-09, some 30 U of A courses incorporated CSL as part of the curriculum; these courses were spread over fourteen disciplines in three different faculties, and involved over 300 students and 86 community partners.
The development of strong connections to the non-profit sector, through a partnership with the Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations, has been one key to the CSL program's long-term success; another has been the effective team Dr. Dorow has built to provide training and administrative support both to instructors and participating community organizations. With only a small permanent staff, the program continues to evolve. In addition to courses incorporating CSL components, the U of A also offers dedicated CSL courses in the theory and practice of CSL, a formal 'Certificate in CSL,' and non-credit opportunities. Dr. Dorow, who has worked tirelessly to ensure a sustainable future for the CSL program, has been active in launching the Network for Community-Engaged Learning, to support and promote community-engaged learning practices across the university.
Apart from CSL, Dr. Dorow continues to pursue a variety of other academic research interests, including transnational adoption (the subject of her well-reviewed first book), and globalization and community. Currently, she is leading a major SSHRC-funded research project 'which uses global ethnography to study formations and limits of community within the broader political economy (especially labour migration) of the northern Alberta oilsands.' Community service-learning plays a role in this project.
In 2008, Sara Dorow was honoured with the Public Sociology Award of the Sociology Research Institute of the University of Minnesota, for her work with the CSL program at the U of A. For information on Community Service Learning visit: http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/sociology/csl.cfm.