From Educational Practice to Social Mission: Service Learning in the Strategy of a Modern University (Results of a District Seminar in the Far East)
The Laboratory for Reputation Management in Education participated in the first district seminar-meeting "Service-Learning: Practices and Partners," presenting a methodological framework in which service-learning is viewed not as a separate pedagogical technology, but as a tool for institutionalizing the university's social mission.
On April 24, a regional seminar-meeting was held, bringing together representatives from 14 universities from nine regions of the Far East. The platform, created at the initiative of the host university with support, became a space for discussing the transition from fragmented educational practices to systemic models for integrating social mission into university activities. The seminar is planned to become an annual event, with rotating venues, forming the basis for sustainable interregional cooperation.
The discussion went beyond the operational level of implementation and focused on strategic issues: how service-learning can be integrated into educational programs as a mechanism for creating social value; how sustainable partnerships with NGOs, socially oriented businesses, and government agencies are formed; and what tools enable the transition from activism to measurable social impact. Thus, service-learning was examined within the logic of "from project to system, from participation to influence."
The Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education delivered a welcoming address, emphasizing that modern universities are transforming from centers of knowledge transfer into institutions that foster value orientations and implement a social mission through interaction with society.
Olga Dymarskaya, a leading research fellow at the Laboratory for Reputation Management in Education, presented a paper titled "Service-Learning as a Methodology for Solving Socially Significant Problems: Implementation Stages, Participants, and Evaluation," responding to a request from regional universities to systematize their approaches. In her presentation, service-learning was conceptualized as a link between the educational process, social impact, and the development of competencies capable of ensuring long-term change. Particular attention was paid to three levels of analysis:
- micro-level (development of students' competencies and values),
- meso-level (institutional mechanisms and partnership models),
- macro-level (universities' contribution to solving socially significant problems and achieving sustainable development).
Olga Dymarskaya: "The social mission is no longer declarative and is acquiring an operational dimension through tools such as service-learning. The seminar demonstrated not only the high level of engagement of universities in the Far East but also the presence of growth areas related to the need to move toward a more systematic assessment of social impact and the scaling up of practices."
The proposed methodological framework received a positive response from participants. The rector expressed interest in developing collaboration, including by deepening social impact assessment tools and integrating service-learning into the university's strategic management.
