Community partners are those individuals or organizations that host, supervise, and benefit from the work of student service-learners. Understanding your partners and building strong relationships with them are key steps to creating rewarding experiences for your students.

Work culture

Work culture can differ greatly between your institution and community organizations because staff members operate according to policies and philosophies that often may be unfamiliar to outsiders.

For example, staff at your community partner and faculty at your institution may keep different work hours, which will affect their ability to reach one another. Partners may also have different expectations regarding how and when to communicate.

For these reasons, it’s important to discuss work culture at the beginning of the relationship. Here are some questions you might ask to familiarize yourself with the work culture of your community partner.

• What are your typical work hours?
• What is your preferred mode of communication?
• Is there a form of communication we should not use?
• What is considered a reasonable response time in your workplace?
• Do your employees answer phone/text/email when off duty?
• How should we reach you in an emergency?
• Do you have a set of workplace policies we should know about?
• Does your workplace have a code of conduct we should be aware of?
• What is the dress code for your workplace?
• Is there anything special about your workplace culture that our students should know?

When interacting with staff at your community partner, remember these individuals take on service-learning supervisory roles and other partnership responsibilities in addition to their already full workloads—almost always without extra compensation. Like your faculty members, these staff members may be committed to service-learning but face challenges in balancing their involvement with other responsibilities.

Communication and expectations

To ensure a positive experience for all parties, it is essential you and your partners communicate regularly regarding expectations and progress before and during the semester.

To facilitate open communication, consider taking these actions.

Create a service-learning assignment document. This document should outline the service role or project in detail, so all parties understand work hours, responsibilities, evaluation methods, and supervisory structure.

Review learning goals with partners. Meet with community partners to review students’ learning goals and partners’ needs before the semester starts. Be sure assignments satisfy both parties.

Discuss evaluation methods. Review methods in detail with your partners to ensure they will collect appropriate data and report it in time for final grades.

Invite partners to your classroom. In this face-to-face meeting, partners can introduce themselves and share information about work culture and expectations at the start of the semester.

Review changes together. Agree that changes to service roles or projects will be reviewed and agreed upon by all parties to minimize disruption and ensure that both learning goals and partner needs will still be met.

Agree to maintain open communication. Conduct regular check-ins (optimally at predetermined times or intervals) throughout the semester. Ongoing communication can help avoid the escalation of a glitch or foible into an urgent problem.

Assign a teaching assistant. If possible, assign a teaching assistant to manage day-to-day communications. Be sure to introduce him or her to the community partner’s staff.

Partnership challenges

Partnership challenges are an inevitable part of any collaboration, but they don’t have to derail a project. Proper preparation, open communication, and a willingness to compromise are key factors in successful partnerships.

To minimize conflict, take the following measures.

Discuss expectations with students. Review expectations and conduct with your students and encourage them to treat service professionally.

Resolve differences proactively. Make every effort to help the student and the community partner resolve differences in a productive way. Removing a student from an assignment should occur only as a last resort.

Listen to both sides. If a student has a complaint about his or her assignment, take it seriously, but also remember to consider the perspective of your partner. Despite the best preparation, student expectations can often clash with the service reality.

Revisit expectations. Help students work through unpleasant surprises by reviewing expectations for the assignment. If necessary, also review expectations with the community partner.

Make necessary adjustments. Consult with both the partner and the student when adjustments are necessary.

Collaborate. Remember, the most effective solutions will be those arrived at through collaboration and mutual respect.