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An approach to social responsibility in higher education will be proposed in this chapter and informed by a canon of literature and theorizing on critical pedagogy (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres, 2009; Freire, 1971; Giroux, 2011). Rooted in the work of education theorist Paulo Freire (1971, 1993) critical pedagogy embodies a set of critical dispositions about community, politics and education. Freire (1971, 1993) posited the nature of hope through transformative action in communities in which community empowerment arises from emerging critical consciousness and informed action. In common with the ideals of university–community partnerships critical pedagogy connects both to a community development mission and to an educational mission. However, though these principle philosophies of critical pedagogy may be inferred in the literature on civic universities, on higher education and public engagement and on wider aspects of social responsibility in higher education (Goddard & Kempton, 2016; UPP, 2019; Webster & Dyball, 2010), the chapter will explore how they may be more centrally located in analysis and in practice development.

The chapter explores the value of dialogue and the dialogic for developing student and staff agency, “voice” and ethics in the context of a first-year undergraduate module of the BA Hons Education Studies, an undergraduate course at The Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design and a Postgraduate Certificate of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education module, at London Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. The authors take a case study approach, making use of Freire’s ideas of critical pedagogy, to reflect on their personal learning and teaching experience as well as the feedback received from students and staff. The aim of the chapter is to explore how to empower (non-traditional) students and staff – and bridge the gap between students’ and teachers’ understanding of what this might entail. Rather than trying to bring students “up to speed” to prepare them for successful study and a professional career, or better “train” staff to deliver policy and strategy, we argue that we need to welcome them for the people they are as we help them to navigate a Higher Education system in need of humanizing.

In this study we examine how doing research on gender impacts identity, sense of self, and relation to community; and how fieldwork is mediated by gender structures.

We draw on feminist epistemology, qualitative methodologies, and critical pedagogies to analyze the fieldwork experiences of 15 women students and nine men fieldwork partners in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

By conducting fieldwork which challenged gender norms, students and partners gained greater awareness of themselves and confidence. Their actions challenged the appropriate place of women (and minority ethnicities) as perceived by research participants in these communities. The experience rendered the community a site of hope and learning for them, working to empower them as well as building relationships grounded in lived experiences with their communities.

Women’s voices are more prominent in this analysis than men’s.

This chapter points to the potentially empowering aspects of doing gender-related fieldwork in the developing context, as well as how gender and other power structures mediate fieldwork experiences in Muslim communities in South Asia.

As historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) endeavor to establish niches in the higher education marketplace, we see a surfeit of HBCU executives, administrators, alumni, faculty, and student voices leading the public discourse about how twenty-first century solutions are being sought to serve the needs of an increasingly ethnically and culturally diverse educational sector. Journalistic missives and research produced in academia examine and often define HBCUs struggling to garner federal/external research dollars, struggling to attract, engage, and support diverse student populations, lacking innovation, failing to promote and foster cooperation and interdisciplinarity, and failing to promote esprit de corps among faculty. These missives are often the result of externally produced news stories which permeate because of a lack of engagement among traditional media outlets and journalists with “on-the-ground” thought leaders working with HBCU students and students themselves.

Featuring the collaborative efforts of racially diverse faculty from multiple disciplines, producing research and providing service to racially, culturally, and geographically diverse students, the student service-based research project discussed in the chapter aims to provide differential academic and employment-support services to transition HBCU students with learning disabilities leading to improved college completion and employment outcome by emphasizing cooperation in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. Further, it accomplishes something equally critical to its research-based outcomes – a model of collaboration and cooperation other HBCUs should seek to replicate for the sake of its students, faculty, and institutional reputations.

The program described in this chapter is just one example of programs that serve students and exemplify the mission of HBCUs, while demonstrating innovation, collaboration, and leadership, that creates an opportunity to counter-narrate pernicious stereotypes about HBCUs. The federally-funded, innovative student services/success program I examine in this chapter – a collaborative, multidepartment, and interdisciplinary program emphasizing cooperative learning at a southern flagship HBCU – challenges these pernicious narratives head on. Raising attention and awareness of the program’s existence is important not only to highlight the university’s attempts to promote student success, but is also another clarion call for HBCUs to do all within their power to promote their own successes at attracting, retaining, and promoting students’ success while finding creative ways to develop faculty and promote interdisciplinarity and collaboration. Doing so benefits all HBCU students regardless of their race, cultural affinities, or level of preparedness for college, and benefits all faculty, be they in the much-vaunted science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields or often lesser-valued, but equally crucial fields in the humanities, education, and the arts.

Engaging students in an active, self-directed approach to learning about leadership is best accomplished through personalized self-awareness, reflection, and connection to real-time, practical applications/examples through experiential learning. This is especially challenging for students whose cultural backgrounds, language, and/or educational preparation/training predispose them to more passively “receive knowledge” in an unquestioning, unexamined manner, without critical thinking. At the University of Greenwich Business School, a final year course has been re-imagined as personalized leadership development integrated with learning technology. Our teaching team is taking advantage of an interactive virtual simulation (vLeader) to engage Chinese students who otherwise might not participate fully in the expected manner of a Westernized learning environment. This chapter outlines our integrated approach to support and engage these students in learning outcomes for continuing success in their lives, careers, and leadership opportunities.

This chapter calls attention to how creating a digital story, which focused on teaching and learning spaces for writing, served as a mediational tool to support preservice teachers’ reflective practice and understanding of writing and the writing process.

Data from over 50 students were parsed using Kember, McKay, Sinclair and Wong’s (2008) approach to determine levels of reflection. From the students whose work fell into the reflection-to-critical reflection range, we selected three students from different disciplines and adopted a case study approach for analyzing and discussing their work. Students’ informal and formal reflections and learning artifacts, as well as researcher field notes, contributed to a rich understanding of each case.

Review of students’ digital stories and related artifacts (i.e., storyboards, scripts, and reflections), as well as other course-related work, revealed that digital storytelling facilitated students’ developing understanding in three dimensions: writing, pedagogy, and reflective practice.

The findings suggest that digital storytelling can engage students in multimodal iterative practices analogous to the writing process that cultivates reflective thinking. Activities that scaffold such iteration and cross-literate practices can foster reflective thinking about inspired pedagogy within and beyond the classroom.