Progress 07/01/05 to 06/30/09

Outputs
The USDA Ellen Swallow Richard Servant Leadership Learning Program was delivered to two cohorts of students (2006-2007 eleven students, 2007-2008 12 students with a 15 member control group). Both cohorts presented their final presentation on their service-learning projects in a teleconference and also submitted final written papers. All student participants successfully completed on-line leadership courses associated with the project. A total of 17 separate service-learning projects were delivered to communities across North Carolina and Maryland. These projects were varied widely and were based upon the community need as voiced by the community. They included wheelchair ramp construction for the elderly, dual gender mobile showers for multiple persons for use during disasters, development and delivery of family life curriculum for military families, programs to develop self-esteem in young girls, bilingual training for Hispanic families, assessment of a women's shelter program, nutrition education program and a recipe book developed for elderly women with diabetes, design of a learning center for autistic children, 2 after school programs, a family violence assessment and a 4-H after school project. Two students wrote and obtained funds to support their programs raising a total of $ 32,000 in grants. In the data from of the three quantitative survey instruments administered (Mehrabian's Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale, BEES; Kouzes and Posner's Student Leadership Practice Inventory, SLPI; and the FIPSE Service Experience Survey) did not demonstrate significant differences overall (p < 0.05) when administer using a pre-test/post-test methodology. The BEES survey instrument measuring empathy, listening and self-awareness (servant-leadership character traits) did increases over the length of the program and student reflection papers indicated empathy characteristics. Likewise, while the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI) showed significance near the 0.10 level and student reflection papers indicated use of each of the five areas of leadership measured. The FIPSE Service Experience survey only showed significance on three questions (out of 60 questions), most notably regarding listening skills. The changes noted indicated an increase in awareness (self-awareness) and a need to work on their listening skills which serves as the foundation of servant-leadership. The service-learning project was most often related to significant positive change related to individual questions. No such changes occurred in the control group. However, the small sample sizes in the study limited the quantitative evaluation of the data. PRODUCTS: A proposal to the BB& T Leadership Center was funded to fund incentives for the 15 students who served in the control group that was not included in the original proposal to USDA. Two proposals were written by students and funded by local charities or businesses in the community. Two teleconferences were produced where students presented their service-learning projects to a broad audience. A total of 17 separate service-learning projects were delivered to communities across North Carolina and Maryland. These projects were varied widely and were based upon the community need as voiced by the community. OUTCOMES: A total of 23 undergraduate students from 4 institutions completed the year long leadership learning program and managed and delivered 17 service learning projects. The projects resulted in positive relationships between the institution and the agency served as well as member of the community. The students successfully completed the objectives of the 6 credit hours of course work that was a part of the program. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: Two teleconferences with student presentations were held in March of 2006 and March 2007. All students, their faculty and community mentors, community agency participants and university officials were invited to attend at the convenient site. The following presentations have been made: National and International Marshall, J. C. 2006. USDA Challenge Grant - The Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program. The Creative Campus - Improving Undergraduate Teaching Symposium University of Jaen, Jaen, Spain. (Poster) Marshall, J. C. 2006. USDA Challenge Grant - The Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program. Creating Agents for Change: Improving Communities Through Faculty and Student Leadership. The National Conference on Civic Engagement (2006). Texas Campus Compact. The University of Texas at Austin. Local and Regional Marshall, J. C. 2006. USDA Challenge Grant - Leadership & Service for Communities. North Carolina Campus Compact 9th Annual Service-Learning Conference. Elon College, North Carolina. Marshall, J. C. 2006. USDA Challenge Grant - The Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program. ECU Research & Creative Achievement Week Symposium. East Carolina University. 1st Place. Marshall, J. C.(Facilitator 2006). Open Dialogue Discussion: Social Justice. Extending Our Century of Service: The 4th Annual Service-Learning Conference (2006). East Carolina University. Marshall, J. C. 2006. USDA Challenge Grant - The Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program Leadership for Communities: Connecting Community Colleges with Four Year North Carolina Universities. Phi Kappa Phi Honor Fraternity. East Carolina University. Marshall, J. C. 2005. Leadership for Communities. 2005-2006 ACE Fellows Cohort Visit (2005). East Carolina University. FUTURE INITIATIVES: The College has developed and initiated a Global Leadership Course for undergraduates in conjunction with the Honors program. The course will be offered in the Global Classroom which allows for multiple real time linkups to classrooms across the world. The first of these courses will emphasize diversity issues. Faculty at North Carolina A & T University and ECU (now a Morehead University in Kentucky) are finishing a publication on a follow-up study using structured case study interviews of selected students to determine the retention and inclusion of leadership skills and language learned during the project. In addition, we are preparing a white paper on Leadership development across the ECU campus as students matriculate. In our one year, no cost extension we used the Student Leadership Practice Inventory which was used as one of the assessments in the original grant to measured leadership in over 1000 ECU students. This data presents a picture of where the university is in 2008-2009.

Impacts
The impacts of the project have been primarily on three groups. First, the student participants have confirmed anecdotally and through structure, case study follow up interviews that the leadership program impacted their approach to their service learning project and, even after a 2 year period, their approach and language in their activities. All of the students enrolled in the participating universities have matriculated successfully, and two have already obtained Master's degrees. Secondly, the communities where the students delivered their service-learning projects were impacted positively as noted by the student community mentors, many of whom noted that the emphasis on community voice was very positive. We calculate that conservatively these students spent at least 1500 hours of direct contact with the community. Finally, the project had a major influence on one of the universities, East Carolina University. The project became an important example (see presentations above) of leadership linked to community engagement and was of some influence in setting the university's agenda in student leadership, student leadership assessment and community engagement. There was a disappointing impact on sustained collaboration between the participating university and faculty. While some of the faculty members have develop collaborations, they are difficult to maintain. ECU has an improved relationship with its local community college. We have, disappointingly be unable to document any long term student interactions.

Publications

• Marshall, Jeffrey Clark. 2008. Servant-Leadership and Service-Learning: A Model for Teaching Community Engagement to Undergraduate Students. Ed.D Dissertation. East Carolina University.

Progress 07/01/07 to 06/30/08

Outputs
The USDA Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program sought to train a diverse group of undergraduate students with superior leadership promise in the expanding fields of Human Sciences. The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative study was to integrate experiential learning (i.e. service-learning) with a model of leadership called servant-leadership and explore how both service-learning pedagogy and servant-leadership impacted levels of civic engagement in American society controlling for age, gender and race at four mid-Atlantic institutions - one 2 year community college and three 4 year public colleges and universities. The grant allowed for two cohorts to be tested (2006-2007 Cohort, n = 11; 2007-2008 Cohort, n = 12, with a control group, n = 13). The battery of tests used in a pre-test/post-test approach was the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI), the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES), and the Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Services Experience Survey. The data from the tests yielded basic leadership measurements in three servant-leadership character traits (i.e. awareness, empathy and listening skills) as well as self-reported response data regarding student participants' perceptions of their own level of civic engagement measured at two different phases of the program. The data from all three instruments was evaluated using the Wilcoxon Sign Rank test, a non-parametric approach with sample sizes less than thirty (n < 50) and distributions that cannot be assumed to be normal. The research hypotheses for this study were analyzed and rejected based on inconsistent patterns in the significant increases within the two experimental cohorts and a flawed control group. However, there were indications that the program treatment, the leadership and service-learning course, did impact the students who participated in the program and may benefit from a larger sample size. The written reflection and discussion boards that were part of the course but not included in the study provide a depth and richness of the students' experiences that is worth exploring in the future. PRODUCTS: The program produced twenty one students trained in servant-leadership and service-learning. The twenty one students developed and delivered service-learning projects to meet a community need in their respective communities. Examples of these projects included wheelchair ramps for the disabled and elderly, after school programs, a classroom design to meet the needs of teaching autistic children effectively, a gang related intervention program in a rural community to address recidivism in targeted low income housing areas, and family life curriculum for military families. OUTCOMES: Twenty-one students (Eleven for 2006-07 Cohort and ten for the 2007-08 Cohort)completed the program and the objective surveys were completed at three time periods over the course of one year for each of the two cohorts. Two students from the 2007-08 Cohort dropped during the course of the program. One voluntarily dropped and the other was asked to dropped for not meeting program expectations. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The project director is working in conjunction with his dissertation chair to identify ways for the dissertation to be edited for publication in leadership, service-learning and community engagement journals. The project director, in conjunction with one of our institutional partners at North Carolina A & T University, Dr. Jane Walker, have conducted four case study interviews with students who p[articipated in the 2006-07 Cohort. We are in the process of coding the interviews and preparing our findings for a journal article for submission. FUTURE INITIATIVES: As has been indicated throughout this study, the sample size is small, and it is recommended that future studies increase the sample size and include a broader sample of students from diverse academic programs utilizing stronger random sampling techniques such as simple random sampling, systematic random sampling or stratified random sampling (Frankfort-Nachmias & Leon-Guerrero, 2006). A distance education component was incorporated into the study largely due to having students at partnering institutions, and handling Phase II through a Blackboard site made it much easier for communication purposes. Unfortunately, the personal element of face-to-face communications and oversight of the projects was lost. This also may have had an effect on whether or not student participants completed the required number of service-learning hours (3 - 5 hours) each week. For this reason, I would recommend more face-to-face classroom and service-learning oversight time with student participants during Phase III and cutting back on the on-line component. Judith Boss has explored how students react to moral dilemmas both before and after service-learning experience and noted differences (McElhanney, 1999). Boss has used Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT), which tests moral reasoning, and has found positive benefits in participants who have engaged in a service-learning course. Rest has updated his instrument to the Defining Issues Test 2 (1999) (The Center for the Study of Ethical Development, Minneapolis, MN). As the focus of this study was on students, the research ignored key stakeholder groups such as faculty and community members. A recommendation for future research would be to offer more deliberate training and support for faculty and community mentors. This may be accomplished through existing volunteer and service-learning centers and/or along with undergraduate and graduate research assistance. In recent years, there has been greater attention paid to recruitment and retention models and programs and a trend toward developing offices of enrollment management. One of the resulting programs has been the set of courses operating as the First Year Seminar (FYS) Program. A recommendation would be that all incoming freshman and transfer students take a leadership and service survey to build a database that can be used for future research. As an extension of this recommendation, it may be worth surveying graduating seniors to find out if during their time at the institution leadership skills developed in a positive direction. We have sought and received permission for a no cost extension of the grant through the end of December 2008 at East Carolina University. We are negotiating with senior enrollment management staff and Wiley Imprint/Jossey-Bass Publishing to have a random sample of incoming true freshman students (i.e. 17/18 year old students) take the Student Leadership Practices Inventory on-line for the purpose of developing baseline data for future quantitative and qualitative studies.

Impacts
In light of the results of the study in the dissertation methodology it was concluded that the three research hypotheses be rejected. The analyses have shown areas of significant increases that, although promising, are inconsistent. The quantitative data and analyses showed areas of significance that are promising and may warrant deeper analyses through qualitative study. One of the institutional partners and I have completed interviews with four of the student participants from the 2006-2007 experimental cohort with the intention of examining more closely what the students may or may not have learned by participating in this program. The information provided by the case study may provide for depth and richness that the quantitative data don't show. Other factors such as the small sample size, the fact that responses to the three survey instruments are self-reported, and instances of threat to validity support this decision. It is recognized that my conclusion may lead to a Type II error where I have rejected the hypotheses when in fact they may be true. For more in depth analysis, the dissertation will follow as a CD included in the program notebook and the data from each individual quantitative survey instrument (e.g. Student Leadership Practices Inventory, Balanced Emotional Empathy Survey and the FIPSE Service Experience survey) can be reviewed.

Publications

• Marshall, J. C. (2008). Servant-Leadership and Service-Learning: A Model for Teaching Community Engagment to Undergraduate Students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. East Carolina University, Greenville, NC. (A CD and program notebook will follow in the mail).

Progress 07/01/06 to 06/30/07

Outputs
The first cohort (2006-2007) of eleven students completed the USDA leadership learning program (LLP). All received passing grades. The 2006-2007 Cohort presented their final power point presentation on their service-learning projects during Phase IV as well as a final written paper. The eleven participants completed nine service-learning projects within their communities. One student, with the help of her faculty and community mentor, wrote and received a $5,000.00 grant to underwrite her project with Seton House/Catholic Charities in assessing program needs. Another student, primarily building wheel chair ramps and rehabbing homes for disabled and elderly homeowners, secured $27,000 + in labor and materials from local ecumenical organizations and minority commercial and residential contractors in his community. The cohort also completed the Pre-test, Post-test 1 and Post-test 2 battery of surveys outlined in our research protocol. The results of the three quantitative survey instruments showed no significant differences overall (p < 0.05). This result is not surprising since the literature shows that as students become aware of leadership characteristics and what they involve, they often rank themselves lower than in initial evaluations. However, we did find that that the survey instrument measuring empathy, listening and self-awareness (servant-leadership character traits), did see increases over the length of the program. The leadership practice "Encouraging" as measured by The Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI) showed significant improvement near the 0.10 level. The FIPSE Service Experience survey only showed significance on three questions (out of 60 questions), most notably regarding listening skills (Question 90). Even though this result was a negative change between the Pre-test and Post-test 2, this indicated to us an increase in awareness (self-awareness) and a need to work on their listening skills which serves as the foundation of servant-leadership. The second cohort (2007-2008) of twelve participants has been recruited and has completed Phase I (Proposal Phase) and II (Academic Phase) of the LLP. To date they have all completed the Pre-test and Post-test 1 battery of surveys. To strengthen our research methodology we have recruited a control group (n = 15 student participants) after receiving approval through the IRB process (with . Thirteen control group participants completed the Pre-test and twelve control group participants completed Post-test 1. We have received separate funding through East Carolina University to pay the control group participants. We made some minor changes to overall program, most notably shortening Phase II to seven instead of ten days for the 2007-2008 Cohort. We eliminated some of the classroom presentations based on the evaluations of the 2006-2007 Cohort. We added an extra day to our visit to Washington, DC and scheduled a visit to a non-profit organization, The American Red Cross, in an effort to have students recognize that local, regional and non-profit organizations recruit qualified students for the human sciences. PRODUCTS: Leadership Program Products The program produced eleven students trained in servant leadership. The program produced a teleconference with presentations by the students describing their service learning projects. The program produced a revised curriculum based on input from students and mentors. Products for the community Eleven students developed and delivered service-learning projects to their respective communities. Products produced by these projects included wheelchair ramps for the elderly, a dual gender mobile shower for multiple persons to be used during disasters, renovations of a disaster kitchen and storage space, development and delivery of a family life curriculum for military families, development and delivery of a hygiene and self-esteem training program for young girls, bilingual training for Hispanic families and evaluation of a women's shelter program. OUTCOMES: Eleven students (all of those enrolled) completed the program and objective surveys were completed at three time periods. All students received passing grades in the courses associated with the program in the 2006-2007 cohort. The objectives achieved in the program were: To identify, understand and discuss the characteristics of servant-leadership. To define community based service-learning and how to utilize this tool to complete a service-learning project. To understand the importance of reflection and reflection journaling. To identify and practice character traits, values and skill sets related to servant- leadership, service-learning, and civic engagement. To understand the value of sustained, continued involvement in future opportunities of civic engagement in their professional, civic, and private lives. Data surveys completed were: the Balanced Emotional Empathy Survey (BEES), the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI), and the FIPSE Service Experiences Survey. Twelve students are currently enrolled in the 2007-2008 cohort and have completely Phases I and II of the program. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The first teleconference with student presentations was held in March as part of Phase IV of the program. Students, mentors, community participants, service learning officers, and university administrators attended the teleconference which was broadcast to and from each of the participating universities. In addition a number of presentations at regional, national, and international conferences were presented. They are listed below. Poster Presentation. USDA Challenge Grant - The Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program. The Creative Campus - Improving Undergraduate Teaching (2006). University of Jaen (Spain) Poster Presentation. USDA Challenge Grant - The Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program. ECU Research & Creative Achievement Week (2006). East Carolina University. Received 1st Place Award Oral Presentation. USDA Challenge Grant - Leadership & Service for Communities. North Carolina Campus Compact 9th Annual Service-Learning Conference (2006). Elon College. Oral Presentation. USDA Challenge Grant - The Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program. Creating Agents for Change: Improving Communities Through Faculty and Student Leadership. The National Conference on Civic Engagement (2006). Texas Campus Compact. The University of Texas at Austin. Poster Presentation. USDA Challenge Grant - The Ellen Swallow Richards Leadership Learning Program Leadership for Communities: Connecting Community Colleges with Four Year North Carolina Universities. Phi Kappa Phi Honor Fraternity Symposium (2006). East Carolina University Oral Presentation. Leadership for Communities. 2005-2006 ACE Fellows Cohort Visit (2005). East Carolina University. Teleconference Facilitator. Open Dialogue Discussion: Social Justice. Extending Our Century of Service: The 4th Annual Service-Learning Conference (2006). East Carolina University. FUTURE INITIATIVES: One of the noticeable issues with the program is the lack of interaction or involvement of student with both the faculty and community mentors. We are attempting to ameliorate this problem by including the faculty and community mentors in 90% of the e.mail communications sent to the student participants and requiring the students to meet at least once a month during Phase III with both their mentors, preferably together. We expect the outcome of these meetings to be included in the monthly discussion board communications we require during Phase III. We also now have clearer expectations of what to look for in the reflection module papers and have communicated these expectations during Phase II. The expectations are for all reflection papers to include what servant-leadership skills are being reinforced as a part of their service-learning project, to incorporate the specific topic of each reflection module into their reflection paper and synthesize how the servant-leadership traits and specific topic impact their specific service-learning experience.

Impacts
Evaluation of quantitative survey data did not indicate overall significant differences in student perceptions of leadership over time. There were, however, specific servant-leadership character traits (listening skills, awareness, empathy) that indicated positive changes. The qualitative data (i.e. reflection modules) also indicated significant changes in individual. For example, the two students who designed a classroom for autistic children went outside the normal research in an effort to understand autism and how it impacts both the individuals who have autism and special education teachers who need functionality in the classroom. The student who designed a curriculum for military families who had spouses deployed in combat zones, showed her flexibility and ability to adapt when the families participating in her program showed needs beyond the proposed curriculum. She adapted her program to meet their needs and the impact on her was positive and profound on her level of maturity. Almost all of the students came to understand that leading an effort to do community good is a complex task and that to be successful one must first listen and embrace what people say to you regarding their needs. Respecting, empathizing and understanding what the problems are and developing and synthesizing solutions to these problems are critical. In addition, three of the students obtained significant funding for their projects from community resources. Finally the nine programs developed and delivered by the eleven students impacted their respective communities positively.

Publications

• No publications reported this period

Progress 07/01/05 to 06/30/06

Outputs
The East Carolina University College of Human Ecology received grant funding in late September 2005. The College had already begun recruitment for the 2006-2007 Cohort of student participants at each of the four participating institutions. The recruitment deadline was set for November 15, 2005. The assessment tools: The FIPSE Engagement Evaluation, the Balanced Emotional Empathy Survey or BEES), (converted to a web based survey), and the Student Leadership Practices Inventory or SLPI (Kouzes & Posner, 2005). The instruments were set up as a pre-test battery immediately following the Phase I service-learning proposal presentations in March 2006. The remaining assessments were conducted as post-tests during a two week window immediately following the completion of Phase II (completed June 30, 2006). Final post test will be completed after Phase III. The recruitment timeframe in the fall was extended to the end of January to respond to enrollment issues regarding the courses at each of the institutions. We currently have eleven students currently participating in the program after initially recruiting seventeen students. Of the six who withdrew from the program, five were due to the conflict of Phase II with either their work or summer school class schedule. One was withdrawn by her faculty mentor as he felt that she was not academically prepared to follow through on the expectations of the program. Students presented there service-learning proposals via teleconference in March of 2006. The 10 day Leadership Learning program was conducted in June. In addition to the scheduled presentations, we were able to have a guest expert lecturer, Dr. John Horsman, from Gonzaga University (Washington) to be our keynote speaker on servant-leadership. We funded his honorarium and travel expenses through the BB & T Leadership fund here at the ECU. During Phase II we took the student cohort to Washington, DC for two days. The cohort spent a half day with the CREES staff learning about the various programs and job opportunities within the USDA. During our visit hosted by Dr. Audrey Trotman we presented a notebook of the students proposed service learning projects. The afternoon was spent meeting with various agencies (e.g. the American Family Consumers Association) and Maryland and North Caroline legislators. Phase III will be both bi-weekly reflection assignments and monthly service-learning project updates. The assignments will be evaluated by the principal investigators, the project director and the students faculty mentor (to assess for academic discipline content) based on a reflection template that was presented to the participants during Phase II. PRODUCTS: The grant will provide pre- and post-test data for two cohorts (i.e. 2006-2007 Cohort and 2007-2008 Cohort) to determine if there is significant personal and professional growth between the test and control groups. The project director will use this data as the basis for a dissertation in Educational Leadership at East Carolina University. The College of Humans intends to use the course in developing a leadership model that is suitable for the human sciences and can be incorporated into the academic curriculum. OUTCOMES: The project seeks to prepare students to become leaders by preparing them for academic leadership that must sustain a changing environment by training and placing them in leadership roles in community based experiential learning settings. The project will not only develop new real-world learning opportunities, but will provide a set of skills and a context in which to evaluate outcomes including the value of their own experience in a community context. The goal is to move leadership preparation and experiential learning to a higher level of pedagogy where it becomes a critical part of the curriculum by enhancing decision making and reflective thought in real community settings to solve real problems. It is also the intent project to form a model for interdisciplinary team work in community based learning. Both communities and the university must be able to assist one another if we are to meet the challenges of change. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The grant has already been presented at a conference. Marshall, J. (2005). Institutionalization of Servant Leadership and Service Learning. 30th IUT (Improving University Teaching) International Conference. The project director for the grant intends on presenting on the findings at either the National Association State Universities and Land Grant Colleges or Kappa Omicron Nu this upcoming year as well as submitting to present at IUT again in Spain July 2007. FUTURE INITIATIVES: The project director has already begun the recruitment process for the next cohort this past spring. We have asked that each of the institutional partners to notify faculty so they can immediately begin identifying students in Fall 2006 who may qualify for the program. We will continue to send out e-mail notifications to faculty and meet one on one with faculty who has shown interest in the leadership learning. The marketing office within the College of Human Ecology has assisted the grant in developing posters that are institution specific for recruitment purposes as well. The Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies within the College (ECU) is offering assistance in identifying sophomore/junior specific courses so that we can target those faculty and students specifically for recruitment. The leadership team will re-evaluate the Phase II syllabus and make necessary adjustments to the syllabus. The team will also look at the value of the trip to Washington, DC versus looking for ways to network at the local and state governmental levels. The reason being is the students first encounter with the government upon graduation will in all likelihood be at the local or state level. The project director will start recruiting at an earlier date for the control group in an effort to provide for a comparison for the test cohort. The recruiting effort for the second cohort has had more time and created more ways to prepare and provide for a broader attempt for a full cohort of twenty students. Finally, the leadership team is looking for the appropriate ways to disseminate the data, curriculum and lessons learned as a result of the grant.

Impacts
The primary impact will be to train students and faculty in the a model of leadership, specifically servant-leadership that will engender in our students the emotional commitment to our communities and the soft skills (e.g. critical thinking, collaboration, reflection, problem-solving, and decision-making) to contribute to solutions and take action on community issues.

Publications

• Jeffrey C. Marshall 2005. Institutionalization of Servant Leadership and Service Learning. In Proceedings of the 30th IUT (Improving University Teaching) International Conference. Making a Positive Difference Through Higher Education. Published by Duquesne University. (available on request at iut@adelphia.net).