Associate Professor Barry University Miami, Florida, United States
Abstract: After engaging in international alternative break programs that involved service-learning and reciprocal collaborations with college students and community members in Haiti and the Bahamas in years past, two faculty colleagues consider strategies, processes, and dialogues needed to rebuild the international alternative break program after a hiatus of several years. Reflecting on the challenging circumstances that led to the alternative break program being put on hold, including the COVID-19 pandemic, we reflect on what would need to happen to revive and reinvigorate the alternative break program. Using methods of personal narratives, we explore the multi-layered collaboration and processes that would be involved, including discussions with community partners, conversations with students, faculty, staff, and administrators, finding funding sources, and marketing the program to college students. It is our intention to use our findings to engage in discussions with other collaborators who have similar interests, so that we can share best practices and strategies for renewing and improving similar types of international alternative break programs at universities.
Narrative: Statement of Purpose
As professors at a higher education institution in which the core values include collaborative service, inclusive community, and social justice, we are fortunate to have been able to take part in service-learning focused alternative breaks programs. This paper highlights our goal to rebuild an international alternative break program that was last implemented in the Bahamas in March 2020. When we were in the initial planning stages of these trips, one question was forefront in our minds: How can we develop international engagement collaborations that not only produce meaningful research and student learning outcomes but also empower local communities and contribute to long-term, sustainable impact in the developing world? We hope the reflective dialogue generated by this paper will serve as building blocks from which we will be able to revive and renew our international alternative break programs after a years-long hiatus.
Primary Research Questions
The following questions guide this study: How did the international alternative break program emerge, in terms of its conceptualization, design, and implementation? What will be involved with rebuilding it in the future, with a renewed purpose and vision?
Reflections on Past Collaborations in Haiti and the Bahamas
The Alternative Break partnership with Haiti brought together students, faculty, staff from various schools and departments to provide professional development and educational materials to professional and pre-service teachers and nurses in Haiti’s northwest department. Not only did we want to develop a sense of “global citizenship” in the students who were part of these immersion experiences, but we also wanted to foster awareness of the social, political, and environmental issues in Northwestern Haiti.
The primary goal of first trip, in 2016, was to begin conversations so that we could build long-term, sustainable relationships with those institutions to better understand and support them and their initiatives. The second trip, in 2017, our goal was not only to continue the conversations but also to act in more concrete ways. For example, a nursing professor brought two nursing students and a laboratory technician and conducted health screenings at a local clinic.
Alternative Break in the Bahamas
After we had to suspend the Haiti Alternative Breaks trips due to political unrest, we began to explore the possibility of an alternative break program in the Bahamas, where we have had a long-standing educational partnership since 2010. Due to Hurricane Dorian that devastated the island of Abaco in 2019, we had conversations with a community partner who saw a great need for assistance rebuilding classrooms at a local school. Thus, we began the process of developing an alternative break trip to Abaco, in collaboration with our community partners there.
A small team of faculty, staff, and students took part in an Alternative Break project in Abaco, the Bahamas, in March of 2020. The hurricane caused extensive damage to the school, leaving only three classrooms in its two buildings functional. Together with the school principal, and a group of 12th-grade students, the Alternative Breaks team assembled 120 desks and 200 chairs and also beautified, restored, and equipped two classrooms. Nearly 70 additional secondary school students could attend classes at the school, thanks to the collaborative efforts.
The members of the alternative breaks group engaged primary and secondary school students in hands-on science, math, and art activities. The group included two faculty members, two administrators, two doctoral students, as well as seven undergraduate students.
Conceptual Foundation: Service-Learning, Advocacy, and Collaboration
In today’s political climate, activism and advocacy in higher education are facing particular challenges as students, faculty, and administrators grapple with the best way to define these terms for themselves and their institutions. Will faculty appear to be politically one-sided if they appear supportive of certain viewpoints that center social justice? Farago et al. (2018) explored this issue in their work describing the changing roles of student activists in higher education. With the increasing corporatization of the university, several activist scholars have posed these queries that reveal the challenges to advocacy and social justice among faculty, staff, and students on campus and in the community (Delgado & Ross, 2016).
Scholars in the realm of activism and service-learning have discussed recommendations for how students can be supported in their roles (Jacoby, 2017). Some scholars have questioned the use of the term “activism” to describe certain types of scholarship (Davis et al., 2019). Still others have discussed whether service-learning can be optimized for social justice and advocacy outcomes (Reed et al., 2015; Cameron et al., 2018; Brinkman & Hirsch, 2019; Andrews & Leonard, 2018).
In terms of advocacy and collaboration, there are different domains of involvement. There is the individual domain, the community domain, and the public arena domain. In the individual domain, the main idea is for the individuals to be empowered, and to advocate for themselves. In the community domain, the purpose is to facilitate community collaboration and systems advocacy (Hammersley, 2012). In the public arena domain, the focus is on collective action, as well as social and political advocacy (ACA, 2018).
Scholarly Significance
As we explore the process of rebuilding the international alternative break program, we intend to contribute to the scholarly literature focusing on the benefits of alternative breaks (Bowen, 2011; Niehaus, 2017), as well as the collaborative process within higher education and with community partners. The global COVID-19 pandemic caused many such programs to shut down, and it is challenging to bring them back. Considerations such as health and safety, funding, relationships with community partners, and changing student demographics are among the factors that will be considered.
Plan for Allocation of Time
The presenters plan to use 15 minutes to describe the project, and 15 minutes for discussion with the audience.
Keywords: Alternative Breaks, Service-Learning, Students, Collaboration
Ethical Issues
For data sources, personal narratives were produced by the authors. Analysis of personal narratives, as advocated by Riessman (2003), allow researchers to reflect on their processes and observations of events within the context of concern. To protect confidentiality, identifying details were removed. No vulnerable populations took part.
