Nurturing Leadership and Changing Student Mindset Through Meaningful Community Service: The HKU Service Leadership Internship

Abstract

Service-learning and leadership education research has suggested that service-learning projects enhance students’ leadership skills, in turn nurturing leaders with social responsibility for the twenty-first century. The Service Leadership Internship (SLI) of the University of Hong Kong, sponsored by the Victor and William Fung Foundation, fosters leadership in college students through community service. The SLI is a credit-bearing course that spans 6–8 weeks, beginning in the summer of 2012. The students from different disciplines worked as a team to generate innovative solutions. Typically, students from the Faculty of Social Sciences ran services in collaboration with nongovernment organizations, whereas students from the School of Business provided consultation services to small and medium enterprises. To equip students with the basic knowledge, skills, and attitudes, a series of pre-internship workshops with ongoing support was offered to them. Multiple assessment methods were used to assess students’ learning outcomes and to evaluate the program. Results indicated acquisition of shared-leadership skills, change of growth mindset, enhancement of social responsibility, and improvement of personal and social competencies among the students.