Management students as consultants: A strategy for service-learning in management education.

[Extract]
The educational landscape is changing at a rapid pace. As a result, institu­tions of higher learning are experiencing what Bilimoria (1998) has termed a diasporic shift in the expectations of, and demands on, the pedagogies employed. This shift challenges universities and colleges to expand their resource pool - to offer students educational experiences beyond the walls of the traditional classroom. Service-learning provides a framework for univer­sity administrators and faculty members to ground students' educational experiences in rigorous, text-based coursework while moving student learn­ing beyond the classroom and into the community.
The goal of this chapter is to provide management faculty with a frame­work for extending student learning into the community via the integration of service-learning into the curriculum. The format fo_r this integration is best labeled "student as consultant." According to this format, management students engage in real-world, concrete, professional, semester-long con­sulting experiences designed to enhance concepts and skills learned in the classroom. I call this perspective the "exposure and understanding" argu­ment for service-learning integration (Kenworthy 1999). This perspective exposes students to real-world issues in their local communities (e.g. , home­lessness, violence, poverty) and then challenges them to think through the complexities of these issues, their short- and long-term implications, and the potential for business/community partnerships capable of addressing them. Whereas all service-learning courses are designed to engage students in real-world service experiences, the service-learning pedagogy described in this chapter is designed specifically to expand students' views of business and their roles as future business professionals.