Dear Members of the Roosevelt Community, Social Justice Allies, and Community Partners:

Welcome to Transformational Learning at Roosevelt University!

The Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation (MISJT) has begun weaving together Roosevelt’s historic mission of illuminating social injustices with a new emphasis on community-based work necessary to ameliorate these injustices.  We call this approach to university-community collaboration social justice-based transformational learning (TL).

The pedagogy of TL integrates academic course content and curricular objectives with structured experiences in the community, designed to facilitate the self-defined needs of social justice allies and community partners.  By bringing the university to the community, TL provides students with opportunities to integrate theoretical knowledge with lived experience, to reflect and assume responsibility for the work of social justice.  Through TL - students, faculty, and community partners – can each become both teachers and learners.  Theoretical knowledge is contextualized, co-created, and made relevant by experience; and responsibility for learning outcomes is shared by students, faculty, and social justice allies.  Social justice allies also benefit from TL when they gain access to needed resources, (e.g., student skills, time, creativity, and discipline-based knowledge).  University resources enhance organizations’ ability to redress the social injustices besetting their communities.  Not surprisingly, both individuals and the community organizations that embrace the work of TL often report it has forever transformed their lives, their views of society, and their beliefs about what they and their organizations can do to counter social injustices in their local communities, as well as globally.

The MISJT is inaugurating several faculty development programs (i.e., workshops, brown bag lunches, symposia, and mini-learning communities), all designed to provide opportunities to share and expand our knowledge of TL.  We are particularly excited about our Engaged Faculty Fellows Program: our newly appointed Faculty Fellows, Dr. Erik Gellman, Dr. Elizabeth Meadows, Dr. Robert Seiser, and our Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Dr. Steve Meyers .  Our Faculty Fellows will offer peer coaching and assistance to faculty interested in redesigning a course or creating a new TL course.

Whether you are already using or just becoming familiar with TL, once completed, our web site should be helpful.  There you will find our data base, Service-Learning PRO (SL-Pro), which allows you to identify curricular and co-curricular service opportunities and TL courses, to browse the profiles of our social justice allies and community partners, to track student placements, service hours, and more.  

Let us know what you think about these new programs and services and how we can collaborate with you as we take the next steps to making social justice-based transformational learning a hallmark of a Roosevelt education.

Sincerely,

Pamela M. Robert, Ph.D.

Director of Transformational Learning

Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation